By Lori Cassels
Photos by Shannon O’Haire
IAW&A Board Member Lori Cassels welcomed and shared the mission of Irish American Writers and Artists and started the evening with a humorous story about her recording Tear of the Clouds and the mistake made with an unfortunate CD cover.
Amelia Hogan, renowned singer in the Irish ‘sean nos’ style graced us with three songs, one original, with her final rendition of an Irish American Writers and Artists first “What Will We Do When We Have No Money,” an original, “Taking Flight,” and a salon favorite, “Wild Mountain Thyme” which got the entire Slainte audience to sing along. IAW&A founder Malachy McCourt often ended New York salons with this song. Here in California, we do things a bit different, we began the salon with it.
Next up was Barbara McVeigh, filmmaker and author, who shared her award-winning documentary “The Man with the White Guitar” and read from her memoir, Redemption, How Ronald Regan Ruined My Life, and Probably Yours Too. Her work is a testament to the healing power of art.
More music followed with Deborah Crooks accompanied by Kwame Copeland performing upbeat originals, ‘Shapeshifter,” “Congratulations,” and “What to Say.” Deborah also shared from her self-produced and edited ‘zine’ Bay Station Eagle.
To learm more please visit Deborah’s website.
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Clifton Linton, retired business journalist and musician, regaled the audience with tales of his time covering the Chicago futures exchange in the 1990’s. He read from his Substack blog called “Tales of Yore from the Trading floor.”
The evening ended with writer, director, producer, filmmaker Patti Cary, creator of FunAmeda productions, sharing a script in development “A Tree” with two actors, Patty Devlin and Erik Gulseta reading a scene from this hilarious play.
More information on Patti’s website.
