Working Gal Rock and Roll Poet: Anne's activities

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Anne's activities

Joe Deninzon will also be joining my panel of artists who’ve created their own career opportunities on May 15 at 2 PM at the Global Entertainment Network Summit (www.globalentertainmentnetwork.com) at the Laugh factory in New York City. The other artists include comedienne/author/world’s fastest talking woman Fran Capo, club and studio owner/singer/songwriter/guitarist Billy Morris, independent TV and film producer Frank Mosca of Harrington Talents in the Bronx to talk about ways we can use the media to further our careers. I’m also looking for a reporter/journalist that works in more than one medium to join the panel, so if you have suggestions please call me or email.

One of the reasons I’m doing workshops and panels is to promote my book, USING YOUR ART & THE MEDIA TO COMFORT PEOPLE. Another cool thing I’m doing in conjunction with the book is sponsoring the word “comfort” at the website ETYMOLOGY ONLINE. http://www.etymonline.com/ is one of my all-time favorite websites as it shows word origins. Independent acts need clever ideas to help create media attention, and it costs about 10 dollars for six months to sponsor a word. Check out the site and see if sponsoring a word is something you can try to help hype one of your projects.

By the way, “Comfort” is from Latin roots including the word “fortis” which is “strong.” So “comfort” means “to help, to strengthen.”

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.