It's a traveling exhibit of art, music and literature that celebrates the inspirational power of great storytelling. First conceived by Shari Smith of Working Title Farm, and a writer and singer for "The Shoe Burnin' Show," TRIO is a testament to the way words, music and art can come together around the power of a single story. Each TRIO starts with a book, which is given to a musician and a visual artist, who then write a song, a piece of music, a work of art inspired by the story. 

The 2018 TRIO exhibit debuted September 15 at the SIBA Discovery Show in New Orleans, LA, and then travels around the South for the next twelve months, hosted by and sponsored by SIBA member bookstores.

Among the books chosen for the 2018 TRIO Exhibit are The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash, Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly, A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, The Hidden Light of Northern Fires by Daren Wang, and The Whole Way Home by Sarah Creech, and more.

TRIO songwriters include award-winning musicians and songwriters Pam Tillis, Suzy Bogguss, Kim Richey, Peter McDade, Sarah Aili, Jill Benfield, Radney Foster, Eddie Heinzelman, Tommy Lewis, Eric Erdman, Sunny Sweeney, Joanna Janet, and Isaac Fountain.

Visual artists involved with TRIO cover a wide variety of media and genre and include Abbie Smith, Jennifer Nyblom, Robert Oren Eades, Cyndi Hoelzle, Katrina Perdue, Rachel Campbell, Heather Gallaher, Lucy Hunnicutt, Lia Frederick, Karen Schwettman, Glenn A. Bruce, and Stephen Brooks.

Trio’s creator is Shari Smith, whom editor Joe Formichella called “the mad Dr. Frankenstein” behind the anthology and cd, The Shoe Burnin’, Stories of Southern Soul, and the script writer and mother hen of the stage production, The Shoe Burnin’ Show, a combination of literature and music that changes with every performance, defying description and delighting audiences.