Working Gal Rock and Roll Poet: Joan Hammel on the Anne Leighton Inclusion Interview Show

Monday, April 21, 2025

Joan Hammel on the Anne Leighton Inclusion Interview Show

Joan Hammel will be on the Anne Leighton Inclusion Interview Show on Tuesday evening at 5 PM CT/6 PM ET. We talk about using her talents to bring life to the world. She's performed for the USO, written for the National Parks Service including collaborating with a member of the Yakima Tribe with Faran Sohappy, which led to a NAMMY Nomination. She earned an Emmy for her music on "It's Fun to Be Fit" for the CBS affiliate—WKRS-Chicago. Her singing is in the Flight 93 Museum, and she was part of a SAG AFTRA team of actors that worked with Blind Students at Chicago's Legendary Steppenwolf Theatre. She has many more contributions to the community. Listen and love. Thanks!

My book is called THE LEIGHTON EXPLOSION, which is a title I've played with throughout my entire adult life. It's based on The Music Explosion who rocked with a favorite song, "A Little Bit Of Soul." It's optimistic, and self-empowering, which is a quality I love in art... Three things have been constant in my life—- writing, music, and animals. Likewise, I've adapted the words to Frank Sinatra’s hit, “That’s Life.” I sing, “I’ve been a poet, a pauper, a publicist…. up and down…..” My poetry book, The Leighton Explosion (Soul Asylum, Canada) shows my range of emotion and different interests, especially rock music. My publisher Ken Cowle says I “made him laugh.” Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, who writes the book’s foreword, praises my “lilt” and “personality” in an encouraging note. While I usually work as a music publicist with musicians including Jethro Tull, Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius, Sharon Katz & The Peace Train, and Michael Veitch, I've also made money from my poetry. This includes the Grammy-nominated album, Healthy Food for Thought: Good Enough to Eat, (Audio & Video Labs) with me reading my poem “Feed Your Parents Well.” My poems have been published in The Indie Collaborative’s “Holiday Program,” “The Literary Parrot Anthology,” “Elephant Journal,” “BOG GOB,” “Powerline,” “the Aquarian,” and “Nickel.” I've performed live at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and Peter Max’s Studio. Some of my plays have been performed live—one by the Poets Repertory Theatre of Long Island and another by the San Antonio Living River Church, and at New York City’s Howl Fest. My other books are Paws For Thought: How to Understand What Your Cat is Thinking (Rockwell Books, UK), Using Your Art & the Media to Comfort People (Free To Run Books, West Hills, CA), and the self-published e-book, Get the Gig (Common Sense Career Consulting). I recently started producing pop music singles, which can be heard at soundcloud.com/leightonmedia/sets/anneleightonsongs.