Olney, Knapp and Womack featured at ‘Howlin’ After Dark’ Nov. 7

David Olney

Americana songwriting icon David Olney; recording artist/author Jennifer Knapp and singer/songwriter/author Tommy Womack will read works of poetry and prose on Friday, Nov. 7, 7-9 p.m., at Howlin’ Books.

Olney is known for lyrics that are dark, deep and soul-stirring—but even his die-hard fans may not realize he also has a penchant for writing poetry—sonnets in particular. 

At the event he will read creative works never before shared publicly. 

Jennifer Knapp

Knapp, a former Christian recording artist who came out, will read from her powerful new book, Facing the Music: My Story (Howard/Simon and Schuster).

Tommy Womack

Womack will read from his acclaimed book, Cheese Chronicles, a hilarious and soulful look at his love of music, and his time in the band Government Cheese.

Howlin’ After Dark: Emerging Voices series celebrates the Nashville literary scene, independent booksellers and the spoken word. It features published authors as well as emerging scribes who are participants of Merrill Farnsworth’s popular creative writing groups, The Writing Circle.

The theme of the evening is “Into the Deep: Family Secrets, Going Underground and Pumpkin pie.”

Attendees are welcome to BYOB or purchase refreshments at the in-store Frothy Monkey. Come early, as seating is limited. This event concludes the second year of the successful author series, which starts back up in February 2015.

More about Howlin’ After Dark

Howlin’ After Dark is free and open to the public. It is not an open mic night. The store will be open and attendees are encouraged to browse the new and pre-loved books and music. The series is presented by The Writing Circle founder Merrill Farnsworth; and Howlin’ Books owners Jessica Kimbrough and Gwil Owen. It is held first Fridays in the spring and fall at Howlin’ Books (inside Grimey’s Too) at 1702 8th Ave. South.

Past readers include Ashley Cleveland, Bill DeMain (a.k.a., Sterling Huck), Phil Madiera, Joe Pagetta, River Jordan, Dave Carew, Jane Sevier, Bill Snyder, Tommy Womack and many more.

More about the Writing Circle

Merrill Farnsworth is a published author, poet, painter and therapist. She has written jingles for top national brands and lyrics for award-winning recording artists. In the Writing Circle, she invites the muse through unique creative writing exercises, prompts, music and contemplative practices. Each circle is comprised of four to six writers and has a different theme, including memoir, journaling, dream-writing and fiction. The circles meet twice a month. Learn more at writingcircle.org.

Read the Nashville Scene story about David Olney.

Read the Tennessean story on Jennifer Knapp.

Please share!

@HowlinBooks

@DavidOlney

@Jennifer_Knapp

@TommyWomack

#HowlinAfterDark 

Contact: Joan Brasher, joan.brasher@gmail.com

‘Underground Nashville’ novelist kicks off ‘Howlin’ After Dark’ Oct. 3

Sept. 22, 2014

Media Contact: Joan Brasher, joan.brasher@gmail.com

David M.Carew will kick off an evening of spoken word when he reads from his novel Everything Means Nothing to Me: A Novel of Underground Nashville on Friday, Oct. 3, 7-9 p.m., at Howlin’ Books. 

Author David Carew

The Nashville public relations specialist and copywriter has penned two noir-style novels that explore Nashville’s dark underbelly.

Carew anchors the October installment of Howlin’ After Dark: Emerging Voices series, which celebrates the Nashville literary scene, independent booksellers and the spoken word. 

Carew will be followed by a curated line-up of emerging writers who are participants of Merrill Farnsworth’s popular creative writing groups, The Writing Circle. 

Tara Lacey

They are: Tara Lacey, Sharon Reddick and Joan Yordy.

 
The theme of the evening is “October Road: Changing Light, Shades of Red and Strange Brews.” 

 The series wraps up for the fall on Nov. 7 with Nashville songwriting legend David Olney headlining. 

Sharon Reddick

Howlin’ After Dark is free and open to the public. It is not an open mic night.  

Attendees are welcome to BYOB or purchase refreshments at the in-store Frothy Monkey. 

The store will be open and attendees are encouraged to browse the new and pre-loved books and music.

The series is presented by The Writing Circle founder Merrill Farnsworth; and Howlin’ Books owners Jessica Kimbrough and Gwil Owen.  

Joan Yordy

It is held first Fridays in the spring and fall at Howlin’ Books (inside Grimey’s Too) at 1702 8th Ave. South. Past readers include Ashley Cleveland, Tommy Womack, Phil Madiera, Bill DeMain (a.k.a., Sterling Huck), River Jordan, Jane Sevier and many more.

More about the Writing Circle

Merrill Farnsworth is a published author, poet, painter and therapist. She has written jingles for top national brands and lyrics for award-winning recording artists. In the Writing Circle, she invites the muse through unique creative writing exercises, prompts, music and contemplative practices. Each circle is comprised of four to six writers and has a different theme, including memoir, journaling, dream-writing and fiction. The circles meet twice a month. Learn more at writingcircle.org.

@HowlinBooks

@DaveMarcar

#HowlinAfterDark

—###—

Evinrudes’ Cothran to read at Howlin’ Books Sept. 5

 

Sherry Cothran kicks off the 2014 fall Howlin' After Dark Sept. 5, 2014.

 Media Contact: Joan Brasher, joan.brasher@gmail.com

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Evinrudes front woman-turned-urban-minister Sherry Cothran will read aloud from Sunland: Prophets, Harlots, Witches and Warriors on Friday, Sept. 5, 7 p.m., at Howlin’ Books.

 

Cothran’s appearance kicks off the fall season of Howlin’ After Dark: Emerging Voices series, which celebrates the Nashville literary scene. The series is presented by The Writing Circle founder Merrill Farnsworth and Howlin’ Books owners Jessica Kimbrough and Gwil Owen.

“Golden Wings, Glorious Flights and Spectacular Meltdowns” is the theme of the evening. Cothran will be followed by a curated line-up of emerging writers who are participants of Farnsworth’s popular creative writing workshops. 

They are: Rachael Beauregard, one half of country duo Native Run; Contributor columnist and Crema barista extraordinaire Mark Lemley; and WNPT publicist and Jersey transplant Joe Pagetta.

The series is free and open to the public. It is not an open mic night. Attendees are welcome to BYOB or purchase refreshments at the in-store Frothy Monkey. The store will be open and attendees are encouraged to browse. The event runs 7-9 p.m.

More about Howlin’ After Dark

Howlin’ After Dark: Emerging Voices series is held first Fridays in the spring and fall at Howlin’ Books (inside Grimey’s Too) at 1702 8th Ave. South. Past readers include Ashley Cleveland, Tommy Womack, Phil Madiera, Bill DeMain (a.k.a., Sterling Huck), River Jordan and many more.

More about the September authors

Sherry Cothran is an award-winning singer/songwriter and musician, known for fronting the late ‘90s indie rock band, The Evinrudes.  

Native Run

Now a pastor in an urban Nashville church, she explores religion in modern culture at her blog. Her latest CD and book, Sunland: Prophets, Harlots, Witches and Warriors, tells the stories of the “untamed” women of the Old Testament.

Rachael Beauregard is one half of hot country duo Native Run, whose single, “Good on You,” just went to radio. The self-proclaimed “queen of fake it till you make it,” she’s a singer, actor, and outdated blogger who loves ranch dressing, and basically all sauces and dips. She will read be reading about her dysfunctional relationship with the music industry.

Joe Pagetta

Joe Pagetta is a writer, essayist and public media publicist who believes getting your ass kicked—by life, love and occasionally other people—can be good for the soul. At least in retrospect. Pagetta will be reading about the occasional conflicts he encountered in the colorful neighborhood where he grew up, and his days as a young sports reporter in a newsroom on the cusp of change.

Mark Lemley

Mark Lemley is among Nashville’s top up-and-coming procrastinators. He has missed deadlines everywhere from West Texas to Southern California before settling in Tennessee.

When he can remain seated long enough to finish a sentence, he writes for The Contributor or for his own peace of mind. Lemley will be reading about wingless flights taken from rusty swing sets and the freedom only found in being fired.

Looking ahead

Oct. 3: October Road: Changing Light, Shades of Red and Strange Brews

Nov. 7: Into the Deep: Family Secrets, Going Underground and Pumpkin pie

—###—

My Confessions of Love and Longing

by Sue Joy

My Confessions of Love and Longing

Starts with noticing the deep connection sweet I don’t want to leave here sensation of discovering myself.

In that particular space I merge with unrecordable depth of delight that creator gifted me with moments of rapture.

Being able to measure this because of the seesaw of life. When I glide on grace through trauma and drama and autopilot situations that I dutifully get through in business or other essential human functioning.

But what shows itself is a strength I am surprised by and often seasoned with a good dose of Joy.

That joy is my humor to find the pondering of living life fully human with all the frailties weaknesses awkward moments days, weeks, months, years but grateful and enjoying the walk on the tightrope that is my soul doesn’t wear thin.

This is my inner self confession and I am Joyfully humorously very empathetic that I am me just as creator divined.

Join us for Howlin' After Dark! First Fridays this fall!

Hell

istock

Writing Circle exercise: One of your characters addresses Dante's Inferno, or more specifically their own brand of Hell. My character is a mother who has struggled with infertility.

There was never any doubt in my mind that I would be a mother one day and a good one, too. But month after month, a familiar ache in my belly burned deep and I knew that it was not yet meant to be.

Five times I carried a child for as long as my body would allow. Five times the dam was unleashed and my soul poured out rivulets of crimson.

Five times I lay on the floor weeping in what remained of my dreams.

Five times I died.

When Sarah came early – but not too early – there was no word for it, for “miracle” would never seem strong enough.

She saved me. She saved my soul from hell.

But I could not, in the end, save hers.

by Allie

(c) all rights reserved

Magical Thinking

(c) zakka

 Once upon a time, I had super powers. A combination of childlike faith and my own superstitions and stubbornness, I could close my eyes and will the lights to go out during a thunderstorm and it was so.

I could (and did) keep my feet from growing beyond a size six, because I cherished my role as the tiny one of the family, the runt of the litter. A size seven simply would not do.

I was able to wake myself from a nightmare by calling upon the name of Jesus and I could heal a sick kitten with fervent intercession.

I stashed lucky pennies in my shoes, wished on falling stars, knocked on wood, threw salt over my shoulder and I prayed. Oh, Lord, how I prayed.

I was small but mighty. A red-headed freckle-faced sorceress in bell bottom blue jeans and a Dorothy Hamill haircut. I beseeched heaven and spoke in tongues.

All summer long I dreamed my secret dreams in hideaways built amongst the towering bales of hay. I believed that one day I would be an artist, and an author, but before that, a junior high cheerleader. I alone had the power to make these wishes come true.

In the freshly plowed fields I found treasures of milk glass and geodes, iron pyrite and Indian arrowheads. I ran through the corn fields until I was dizzy and lost, always magically finding my way back to the grass waterway that led to home. I made boats out of milkweed pods and raced them on the tumbling creek at dusk, imagining them sailing all the way to the sea. I hunkered down with hardback books in my tree house with no fear, high in the weeping willow, where no demons could harm me, where no dark creatures of the night would dare tread.

As I grew older, it was more difficult to find four-leaf clovers, and I saw fewer shooting stars. There were kittens who died and cheerleading tryouts that ended in humiliation. There were boys who chose others over me, and art contests that resulted in last place. There were tense supper table conversations and slammed doors and a hard, dark knot in my belly.

But I had one super power that no one knew about. I could run. One day I would simply go to another place, anyplace, anywhere but here. There, wherever there was, I would do and be anything I wanted.

I was always good at running. In my mind, I simply fled what didn’t suit me. I pretended and imagined and denied the scary monsters in my closet or sitting on the living room couch. If I didn’t like the way things were, I simply chose not to believe it. As an adult, I changed jobs, cities and boyfriends whenever that dark knot flared up, when the burn rose to my throat. For a long time running worked.

When I moved to Nashville I was caught up with a chaotic young man I couldn’t seem to let go of. So I lay prostrate on the floor of my cruddy South Nashville apartment and cried out to God, to the heavens, drawing on all the powers of the universe, to set me free. Within two weeks he had taken a job on the other side of the country. Gone.

I fell in love immediately with a perfect man who was beautiful and talented and kind and as good at dreaming and making believe as I was. My powers, it seemed, were back.

My marriage was pristine, a perfectly round bubble, floating on a powder blue sky. It was iridescent and it was effortless. Weightless and serene. Eighteen years of peace.

There were no highs, no lows. No fights, no ecstasy. Just two people, clinging together, protecting each other from the world, banishing sadness and struggle, conflict and disappointment, anger and rage to somebody else’s marriage. It was eighteen years of running in place.

For almost two decades I drifted in a state of suspended animation, the wound in my belly forgotten. I had agreed to this trouble-free union, an arrangement in which my spirit could not soar but it also could not fall.

Or so I thought.

One August morning, in the wee hours before dawn, the bubble burst. I went to sleep cloaked and sedated, warm and well fed, swaddled, safe and dry. When I woke, it was to the harsh reality that nearly two decades of my life had been only a dream.

Suddenly there were falling fragments all around me, littering the floor, piercing my flesh, breaking my bones, producing pulsing gullies of sorrow from my veins. The ache in my belly rose throughout my body and I was rendered powerless: huddled and spent, naked and unprotected, lost.

I could not, for all my efforts, summon my super powers to save me. They simply did not work. Magic could not exorcise my grief. Stubbornness and faith could not erase my sadness and fear, I could not will away my shame.

And so, without meaning to, or perhaps on purpose, I let go of everything I knew and freefell – freefell into the piercing, terrifying light.

The light burns less than it used to. I’m starting to believe that it’s ok how things turned out, and am slowly realizing that I’m stronger than I ever knew, super powers or not.

I still believe that anything is possible, that I can be somebody special in this life. That we all can be.

The hardest part is waking up.


by Elsa
(c) All Rights Reserved

Dear Maya

 Writing Circle exercise: One of your characters writes a letter to a famous poet. In mine, Ann, an Amish, childless wife, writes to Maya Angelou. Click on the letter to enlarge.

by Allie
(c) all rights reserved

Rings

All it took was one look. Perhaps it was a leer.

She stood near him, but far away in thought, and certainly unaware of him. But men never realize this.

“She digs me,” he thought.

Even though she didn’t.

And she wouldn’t dig him if she knew him. Married, children, Republican and Lutheran, all added up to one big fat “no.”

He kept looking, searching the library of his memory, trying to recall some string of words that used to work; words that brought home the bounty, words that lay cozy and warm against the earlobes of someone who needed warming.

St. Cloud was a place where everyone needed warming, but it was June.

His daydream was interrupted by the remembrance of the errand he’d been dispatched to accomplish. Somehow the Ace Hardware had turned into the Caribou Coffee joint, and here he was, looking at the blonde he wanted to meet, while staving off thoughts of what the other woman wanted.

The "other woman," indeed.  “The Wife,” he called her, when she came up in conversation.  

“The wife won’t let me out tonight, boys,” he’d tell pals inviting him to a drink.  “The wife can’t get enough,” he often boasted.

Of course, The Wife just wanted him to pick up a tiny O-ring to keep the faucet from dripping.  The only ring in sight was the one his coffee left on his napkin as he pondered the blonde.

Duty dripped incessantly like the faucet he was supposed to be fixing. The Wife was in his brain, working against him, reminding him that things needed fixing, but all the fix he needed was in a ceramic cup or standing 10 feet away from him.

Linnea Jacobson, he thought. What was it that worked on her?  

Had he shared some deep and sensitive morsel with her? He could nearly taste whatever it was that worked in the old days, before time shook loose the last leaf of a young blood’s savvy skills with the women.

Judas! He thought. He never swore, never even slightly.  Judas! Again.

He dialed home.  The Wife answered.

“Honey, what size O ring?”

Phil M.

(c) all rights reserved

Angels with Moxie

I had once again been sober for several weeks and was thriving in my new found state. Then came Monday night football. It was the biggest game of the year. I decided I was doing so well, that drinking on this monumental night only made sense.

I arrived at the game feeling fabulous. I had my first drink and it knocked me down a few notches, so I tossed back another. That usually did the trick. It didn’t. Those two drinks not only stole my clarity and peace. They hit me like a ton of bricks. I was stumbling drunk. There was no build up, no entertaining fun part. I went straight from tranquility to apathetic and drunk. I had the foresight to stop before it stole more of my new found harmony.

The following day I felt sluggish and toxic! Based on my drinking history, I hadn’t drunk enough to be hung over, but I had put enough alcohol in my newly clear body to disturb it. I found my thoughts racing all day. The underlying anxiety, depression and self deprecating thoughts were back, with a vengeance. I was so very, very tired of this pattern.

It was a beautiful sunny day in October, I was sitting on the deck of our little lake cabin, surrounded by a collage of autumn colors. The sky was a brilliant blue. It was the most perfect day, but I was depressed and once again journaling away my woes. It was so cyclical..rehashing the same issues over and over. Yet, I would often explore the pattern in this beautiful setting with an inherent knowing that it was a reflection of who I really was.

I looked out at the crisp and colorful view, it was bright, vivid and alive. I listened to the sounds of birds, crickets, and the lake slapping against the bank. It was a constant rhythmic hum. I inhaled the very distinct fragrance of life on Tennessee water; a mossy earthy blend with scents of pine and cedar.  And I knew this collaborative effort that mother nature surrounded me with really was my true self. This is who I was. I was an earthy, colorful goddess…yes a goddess. Not the polluted, heavy darkness that I was sitting with.

As I was frantically trying to write my way to a solution. I suddenly heard “get off your fat ass and quit being a victim” and in that moment I knew I had just reached another turning point. I took this rallying call seriously. I was being a victim and I couldn’t keep doing the same thing expecting a different result.

I’ve always known I have dark humor angels surrounding me. I believe I have divine guidance around me all the time, but it never feels like fluffy white wings, harps or cherubic faces. My angels have moxie, edges and attitudes. And on this particular day they were very bored with me and y recurring story. I was suddenly sure they were rolling their eyes at my accusations that alcohol had stolen my clarity. No, I had done this to myself.

Why did I keep acting like such a victim? I allowed it. Invited it. Alcohol was like an abusive boyfriend. I had found a new life that met all of my needs, yet not believing there was any way I could be happy on my own. I went running back into his neighborhood begging him to give me another chance. I handed over my peace. It was not stolen. I stood there arms wide open and urged alcohol, please come to me.

Here I am, I am offering my clear brain up to you to become fuzzy and dehydrated. Please enter my entire system so that I can feel shaky and uncertain. Tie up my emotions and make me question everything. Insert yourself as a heavy dark fog between me and my higher self, my divine connection. Yes, do all of these things … hurry! Do it quick.

No, nothing had been stolen from me.

I freely gave it all away.