W. Royal Stokes has written about jazz and blues for such publications as Down Beat, JazzTimes, and The Washington Post and hosted the public radio shows "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say" and Since Minton's. He is the former editor of Jazz Notes, the quarterly journal of the Jazz Journalists Association, and author of The Jazz Scene, Swing Era New York, and Living the Jazz Life. He lives in Elkins, West Virginia.