Hello, AGAIN, everyone, and welcome to another great round of East Side Storytellin’. Similar to the 37 previous shows we’ve put together from East Side Story, we’ve come together here to get you cultured up just right in the form of a local Nashville writer reading from original prose, followed by an amazing local musician performing and talking about their original music, and then a round-up creative conversation with all featured guests of this event to talk about their individual journeys and personal ties to Nashville. This is East Side Storytellin’ 38. Let us begin.
The first featured guest of this show is actually a near local Nashville writer now. She’s the first person to write and publish and sell her books in Nashville, run off to Ireland to get married to a dapper Irish man, the love of her life, have a baby, make another book, and then fly back to her real home of Nashville to share it with you. Her home for the time being is Limerick, Ireland. She is the author of three novels titled “The Mirrors at Barnard Hall”, “Semester of Thursdays”, and “Flight Risk.” You can buy her books here tonight and at East Side Story. For this special event, this author read from her latest book called “Flight Risk.” It was my honor to ask this lady to the stage and let the crowd give her a warm, homecoming welcome from over the big pond for author Jenny Hickman!
Jenny was so excited and nervous. She has been full-on mommy duty since the birth of her baby last year, so getting out on the town, her old hometown, without her baby or her baby’s daddy was quite an event. She had prepared a specific section of her latest book that she wanted to share, and she dove right in head and heart first. The crowd was happy, and Jenny was too. She sped through an entire, entertaining chapter of “Flight Risk” like it was just a regular Tuesday night. She smiled, the crowd smiled, and everyone was happy. I’d simply describe it as the Jenny Hickman way.
To preface the excitement, excellent writing, and general happy feelings that follow Jenny Hickman all the time, I only need to share one of the most endearing stories, special courtesy of Jenny Hickman’s involvement, that has happened at East Side Story to date. It happened when Jenny first brought her first book into East Side Story and totally flipped out in a great way (hyperventilating for the picture) to put her book an actual shelf for the first time after selling many copies online (and the fact that we put her book right next to our mutual friend and fellow author in Cary Graham at that). As many might not know while reading this, I always send an email to the authors when their books sell at East Side Story. I spend a few extra minutes letting the author or artist know about who purchased their work to take home, and I relay the customer’s information too if they are a fellow artist, author, or musician. Well, the first one I sold of Jenny’s in the store, I sold it to local glass-blowing artist. I gave Jenny the glass-blower’s email and link to share their creative links. The next time that Jenny came by the bookstore a month later to pick up her invoice and money, she had two girlfriends with her, on the way to a wine bar next to the bookstore. One of those girls was the glass-blowing friend, and they both squealed excitedly that the friendship would not have happened if not for the bookstore and email exchange. Long story short, it was one of the sweetest stories I’ve had at the store since opening.
Jenny came, she read, and all was well in the world. After she took a most righteous applause, I introduced the next guest of the night. The featured musician of the evening was one heck of a great guy and an amazing musician on the rise. I first met him when he showed up at my house, shortly after moving to Nashville from North Louisiana. He came with our mutual friend and fellow Lousiana-ian artist B-Rad for a fun gathering of good people. He instantly felt right at home at Nashville and my home as he sat down on the side of the party with a guitar (or big tu-tar as my cousin’s 4 year old boy obsessed with guitars called it) and jammed the night away with said little boy amazed by his musical sounds. Soon after that night, this guy released his first studio album called “All She Wrote”, and that debuted at #3 on the iTunes singer/songwriter chart. With that success, he has stuck to his so called guns and his dreams and has been able to write and perform songs for a living … living his dreams if you will, right in front of us. Today he is excited to share with you some old songs and some brand spankin’ new songs from his recent album called, “Silent War”, just released last month. I was certainly not the only person in the house to put hands together and clap for the tu-tar god of East Nashville by the name of Grant Terry!
Grant, shocked by the introduction (best he ever had, Grant said), was speechless. He decided to jump right into the performance and his songs. Grant took to the crowd and the crowd equally took to him. Because the placed was so packed, after running out of seats for the patio and perfect weather, I decided to stand by the door in the back to get the whole picture. I not only enjoyed seeing everyone eat, drink, listen, and be merry, from the back of the house, I also loved the fact that a table full of fans of Grant’s music were singing along to every song in perfect harmony and joy. It was really something to see.
Grant barreled through his set like a champ, and garnered as much positivity from the people who came out as Jenny had. It was a perfect pair of talented artists coming together to share their passion and art. After Grant finished, I quickly had Jenny join him on stage and they talked about the things they enjoy about making their art and the things that they are excited about sharing for the near future at hand. You can listen to the show, edited, below and share this experience with as many people as you think would enjoy it too.
That said, all you have to do is click on the following link, sit back, relax, enjoy, and share with everyone and your mom, here, near, far, and back over in Ireland too. This is the edited version of East Side Storytellin’ 38 that featured author Jenny Hickman and musician Grant Terry:
https://soundcloud.com/eastsidestorytn/sets/east-side-storytellin-38-jenny
Before I say goodbye for this round of fun, I’d like to give a big round of thanks for Jenny Hickman (Fife) and Grant Terry for sharing their stories, talents, and time with us.
You can listen to more from Grant Terry here- www.grantterrymusic.com
You can read more from Jenny Hickman here- www.jennyhickman.com
I’ll keep the gratitude going for Tom Eizonas, for the recording and sound of the night, Clay Brunton for the art print, for Kevin at 5 Points Digital Imaging (http://5pdi.com) for printing those art prints,and to my lovely wife and everyone that came out live to support the show … and to everyone who has helped continue to spread the word and support the show online afterwards.
You can listen to this show, edited, soon, alongside the previous shows too, on our website, www.eastsidestorytn.com, at our In Our Own Words Tab – see here – http://eastsidestorytn.com/in-our-own-words/
But we are not finished.
The NEXT East Side Storytellin’ event will be …
Date- Tuesday, June 17th, 2014
Time- 7 pm sharp (Central)
Location- Mad Donna’s (1313 Woodland Street)- http://maddonnas.com
With author Megan Duke (www.megandukebooks.com)and music by Lauren Lyle (www.laurenlyle.com).
That’s all for the East Side Storytellin’ 38 show. Thanks for coming out and sharing the good word. Remember to be nice to one another out there. Thanks and good day your way.
Much love.
chUck