A Lion, A Pirate, an (unplugged) Open Mic, Music, and Poetry in Austin, Texas

It's another Lion and Pirate Open Mic night at Malvern Books at 613 West 29th Street in Austin, Texas. The night was filled with cake (3rd anniversary of the event), poetry, funny stories, advice, songs, and art. 
The Dude Choir featuring Eric Clow
The event is put on by the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities (CTD) Pen 2 Paper Project and VSA TexasCTD is a cross-disability advocacy organization, focusing mostly on state-level issues. Pen 2 Paper holds an annual writing contest to open up conversation about disability and give writers with disabilities a platform to share their work. VSA Texas exists to provide opportunities for people with disabilities to enjoy the arts as a spectator, as a participant, as a professional.
VSA Texas had hosted an open mic for a few years when they had Access Gallery. April Sullivan, one of the hosts and co-founders of the event from VSA Texas says, "It was popular and fun, but we were unable to keep it going when we lost the funding to keep the gallery open in 2012.  So in December 2013, Laura and I were both attending the Mayor’s Committee on People with Disabilities Annual Holiday Party at Threadgill’s (always a fun time with a fierce White Elephant Gift Exchange!). We started talking. Laura met Becky of Malvern Books at the Texas Book Festival around that time, and she mentioned that Malvern wanted to be a community space, not just a book store. This seemed like a perfect fit- and it has been!"

Laura Perna is the other host and co-founder of the event. She works for CTD.
The Lion...
The Lion and the Pirate are the unofficial mascots of Malvern Books (Malvern the lion greets everyone who comes into the store). April says, "At first, we were going to call it The Lion, The Pirate, and The Microphone, but we got a little too raucous at our first event and had to drop the microphone bit. Funny story! VSA Texas brought our PA to the first Open Mic. We were told we could use it, but needed to keep the volume low in respect for the neighbors. My late husband Milton was a big part of the planning because he wanted to host the Open Mic. But he wasn’t so good at low volume. He kept cranking it up and getting louder and louder as the night went on." 

After that first open mic, the Malvern staff took away the mic since Milton couldn’t keep it low. After that over-loud debut event, The Lion and the Pirate became "Unplugged." 
...and the Pirate
The Lion and Pirate has had 304 "unplugged" open mic performances since Feb 2014, with about 20 regulars. Malvern posts performances on their Youtube channel if you want to catch any of the past events.
April says, "We have had great feedback. We're told the atmosphere is very inclusive and friendly and nothing like the other Open Mic’s out there. For many people, this is the first time they have presented in public. And our audience is always open to new things. We've had singers, writers, storytellers, magicians, comedians, musicians, artists showing their latest work, even interpretive dance." 
The safe environment encourages spontaneous collaboration. On this night, several poets had unrehearsed improvisational musical accompaniment. But this kind of thing happens all the time, which makes this creative space unpredictable and fun.
Andrew Murphy from the Austin Public Library attend the open mic last year. He was so taken with it that he recruited the group to be a part of Aural Lit - a live reading event at the library. The result: The Distinguished Artist Veterans event at the Terrazas Branch library with an art exhibit and live reading of veteran writings. In addition, the launched Library Live where some of the Lion and Pirate musicians played a concert at the Carver Branch library, which is planned to continue quarterly. Laura and April have also met with Michael Noll from the Writers League of Texas about promoting books by writers with disabilities to independent bookstores. 
Dancing at Malvern
The Lion and Pirate is not just about music and spoken word, once they hosted Body Shift, a mixed-ability dance ensemble. Malvern is a lot of wonderful things, but a big open space, it is not. The first time Body Shift wanted to do something, Laura wondered how it was going to work. "But Malvern is used to improvising,. They just did their thing among the book shelves and tables, and the audience reformed around them. It was pretty glorious."
Sometimes the surprises come from random people. "One time there was a guy here early," April says, "He came up to me and confessed that he had hijacked our Open Mic for his birthday party. He took our flyer for the event and added details about this being his birthday party and then everyone going over to Conan’s for pizza afterward. It was great! We had a big turnout, lots of new people, fun poems being read that were written specifically for him. Then some of us joined him and his friends for pizza. He did it again the next year!"
Laura says, "I will never forget when J-Bo of the Old Hats (a staple at the L&P) described the Lion & Pirate as 'a community.' To me, that really hit home that this was about more than just the performances. We've also lost some folks along the way, and I think having this community allows them to live on a sense. Not just through our memories of them, but the impressions their work made (and continues to make) on us."
April says, "We find ways to share our pain through sharing our stories and songs and sharing their stories and songs. When Bear left to move away, when we lost Milton, and most recently SylviAnn, we all shared that loss together. Even you, David, sharing about your daughter is such a hard thing, but we were all there for you and feeling that with you. So it helps to have that community."
April the Lion and Laura the Pirate
Moving forward, Laura says she'd like to get ASL interpretation at every open mic. "Not just to sign what the speaking performers are saying, but also to voice what signing performers are doing. CTD had some ASL poets at an event last year and it was really something else; ASL poetry is its own art form, and it would be really cool to have it in our mix. Not to mention ASL story-telling, music?, other stuff I don't even know about! Plus, as an inclusive space, we need to make sure that Deaf, Deaf-blind, and hard-of-hearing folks can participate. At this point, we don't have a budget for this, and I've looked into ASL interpreter volunteers with no luck (so far). If you are reading this interview and know of a good resource, my email is lperna@txdisabilities.org!"
April says, "What I love about this partnership is the teamwork makes the job easy on all of us. Malvern, P2P, and VSA Texas all pitch in to make it successful. Malvern has the lovely space, provides snacks, sets up and cleans up, video tapes and takes great pictures. For marketing, Malvern creates a facebook event every month, P2P creates a flyer every month, and VSA Texas emails out invitations to past and new presenters each month. Laura and I share the hosting duties so we always have someone there in case one of us can’t make it. Although, we always try to make it."
Most importantly, the Lion and Pirate is a fun, relaxed atmosphere, an inclusive event, and an opportunity for people to have their voices heard. Events are monthly, check them out.

On April 2, 2017 at 2pm I'll be throwing a book release party for And Yet We Rise at Malvern. I'm grateful to VSA Texas, CTD, and Malvern for their support.

Though we've hit our goal, you can still pre-order a book by contributing to my Kickstarter fundraiser until March 2 at: http://kck.st/2jQFTTL We're working to raise funds toward our second stretch goal, which pays or expenses to take the book to Austin Comic Con.


#openmic #poetry #spokenword #literature #music #VSATexas #CTD #disability #independent #Austin #bookstore



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