I write stories that are sung, spoken, and read off of the page. This is not a metaphor. I’m a musician, performer, and writer, but these are just molds and stories are the substance giving them purpose. I am interested in arranging these forms together to build more intricate, uncommon structures with their common material.

My musical duo, Driftwood Soldier, performs songs I write for the mandolin, bass guitar, and percussion. The music combines elements of blues, punk, and hip hop but is almost invariably considered “folk” on the strength of its narrative core.

We recently released an EP called Blessings & Blasphemy which explores the tension between the spiritual force of music and the oppressive potential of religious dogma with rearranged gospel traditionals and anti-religious original music. Our album release was a one-night-only collaboration with a group of musicians. Each performer shared songs, but also stories, spoken or read, lived or imagined, which informed the musician’s spiritual relationship to each song. The goal was to emphasize the power of the stories that songs tell to shape our emotional, spiritual, and political life. We are currently arranging a one hour special adapting that performance for radio (to be played on WXPN in Philadelphia).

My first novel manuscript, Ottoman Simmons, is from the perspective of a young man who has never left the assisted living facility where he was born. The structure is episodic as he passes through the rooms of the residents on his daily rounds. The story is built slowly out of these small interactions rather than through prolonged dialogue or longer continuous chapters. The scope of these individual moments felt like verses in a song, which led me to my upcoming project.

In this, as yet unnamed, project I am interested in combining these two forms in a collection of short stories and songs, which share common characters and context. The work would be presented as an audio performance of the music and the prose being read aloud, as well as with an accompanying book of written text and lyrics.

In this particular multi-media presentation I’m looking both forward and back. The hard border between music and prose is a historically recent, Eurocentric phenomenon that ignores the way oral traditions around the world have interwoven music and narrative storytelling for millennia. At the same time, cheap high quality audio recording technology and accessible distribution platforms are creating a cultural shift back towards listening to stories in the form of podcasts and audiobooks. I would like to use that new openness to erode the distinction between a story told in prose and song, using the forms to support each other in building a shared sense character and place between stories.

This will not be a piece of musical theater. Nor will it be a short story collection with a sound track. It will be a non-linear narrative whole stitched together from notes, words, voices, and our collective need to hear and be heard.