dreams – | Rock+Paper+Music |

A fascinating online magazine, Habitat To Art, invited me to write about the journey to my latest novel. Titled, “A ‘Chick Singer’ Reflects on Dreams, Heartache & Renegotiation,” I hope you enjoy the read! Thank you, Laura Wagner, for the invitation and the platform. Much appreciated!

A ‘Chick Singer’ Reflects on Dreams, Heartache and Renegotiation

It’s unusual to refer to someone as a friend whom you’ve never met, but I consider Lorraine a friend and a commiserator. We bonded on Twitter (aka X) when one of her posts articulated my exact sentiments. I realized that, aside from shared ‘initials’, we shared many of the same thoughts. It is my pleasure to introduce her to our Habitat2Art famiglia and friends. I hope she will become a frequent contributor. ~ Laura Wagner

It comes as a slow infusion of awareness. A dawning of sorts. A moment when something happens, words are spoken; an epiphany emerges, and suddenly you learn what was heretofore unknown. New elements of who you are, clearer ideas of what you’re meant to be, to do. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying, identifying that dream, because now you’re driven to make it come true.

A girl whose name I don’t remember had turned around. She was in the descending row on the choir stand in front of me, and apparently I was singing directly into her ear. With an expression bearing some harmonic of surprise, she said, “You have a really good voice,” and I was equally surprised to hear those words. I sang loud and often, yes, but never before had any assessment of “really good” been assigned. That portentous comment opened my mind. I felt it, let it wash over me, recognizing the truth that singing not only transported me out of my everyday reality, but felt to be an honest, true talent.

And there it was. My designated dream. I was to be a singer.

It started with folk music, graduated to musicals, veered into singer/songwriter, but it was swiftly determined that I would set the world on fire as a rock & roll star. Not just a singer. Not just a rock & roller. No, I would be a “star.” It was fated. It was my destiny. Everyone in my orbit bolstered that belief, which was powerful, propulsive stuff.

The wild and wooly ‘80s became the launch pad. With the requisite big hair, ripped fishnets, belts and bangles, my band DEVON became an LA success story with incredible gigs, recordings, management, financiers, and fans; interest, excitement, and conviction followed, then came panic, despair, and, ultimately, the cold-water dip of having exhausted the decade of both time and opportunities with no shiny record deal to show for it.

Oh, dastardly, dogged dream …

I was gutted. Empty, lost, and heartbroken. It was not a matter of just moving on; every aspect of my identity was wrapped up in that persona, that expectation, that plan. I had no other plan, no contingency. Despite my father’s admonition to, “have something to fall back on,” I’d been so convinced of my dream’s fruition that “falling back” was a form of blasphemy. It would take hard grief, good therapy, and the love of excellent people to pull me out of the abyss.

But I did pull out. I survived. I recalibrated. I dipped into various other skills sets—acting, screenwriting, political opinionating, more music (though not of the “angling for stardom” kind, just … singing)—and began negotiating with my dream. Could I reinvent myself? Reconfigure, reimagine a path forward that felt authentic, real, and still offered some measure of my previous exhilaration? We haggled, my dream and I, and ultimately decided to keep music on a burner (if in the back), but let my photography and, particularly, my writing muses step forward.

I started a blog in 2010 when blogging was all the rage. Wrote for HuffPost for seven years. Got a fine art photography business going online. Then I started a novel. A novel. Crazy. Something I’d have never imagined doing prior. After the Sucker Punch published in 2014, followed in 2015 by Hysterical Love. In 2019, a small publishing company, She Writes Press, took on what would be my most controversial novel, The Alchemy of Noise, and in April of this year my fourth, Chick Singer, was released by Sibylline Press.

There’s something full circle about Chick Singer coming out at this particular moment. A moment when I’ve acknowledged, as the group I’ve intermittently sang with over the last few years struggles to find time to convene, that I do, indeed, miss being in an active, working band. One that plays enough to feed that part of me that rode my bike down the street belting out rock tunes. Writing Chick Singer (which is not my particular story but one I certainly understand) allowed me to excavate much of what I’d experienced in losing, and letting go of, that musical dream of mine. It dug into the emotional, even spiritual, journey of finding (clawing?) your way back to some version of yourself that’s healthy and resilient.

It was cathartic, in a way, writing that “chick singer’s” story. It reminded me that dreams are not intransigent, immovable. Despite the reality that what one imagines for their life doesn’t always evolve as planned, dreams have a way of adapting, adjusting, molding themselves into the you you ultimately become. Given my many years at it, I’m convinced they will doggedly stick with you until the end, though you may have to renegotiate from time to time.

But that’s not a bad thing. I’ve learned they are very amenable to that, dreams.

“I want it again. I want the dream, the joy, the fucking volume of it all. I want to scream and dance and feel a bunch of sweaty guys behind me making great music together. I want to sing so loud I fly out of my body and don’t come back until I have to. I want to be young again. I want to have a chance. And this time, this moment, this me doesn’t have one.” Libby Conlin, Chick Singer

I was fifteen when I found out I could sing. I’d done it before. It’d been pointed out earlier, eighth grade, I think, when a girl in choir mentioned it. But the full realization of my artistic aptitude didn’t fully register until fifteen. Folk group. Church. Kumbaya and all. The exhilaration of this discovery led to high school musicals, talent shows, college trios; performing at the Kennedy Center, first recording sessions, opening gigs, and by nineteen I hit the road with a full-on rock and roll band and landed in LA. My life plan was solid, sealed, and, I was certain, to be delivered. I was going to set the world on fire as a rock & roll star.

When the 80s blew up, fully embracing their iconic status as the rock era of New Wave, MTV, and crimped, fish-netted, bandanna’d wonderment, I was all in. That wild, vibrant time was spent with my original band, DEVON, building a following, recording our songs, and playing gigs everywhere from Madame Wong’s and The Lingerie, to Club Sasch and The Palace (now the Avalon). It was a heady time of big hair and bigger dreams.

Our goal—well, everyone’s goal—was to land the elusive record deal. We got close, oh, so close, and more than once, but like a brass ring that slips beyond your grasp every time it flies by, we never got there. Eventually the air went out, key people moved on; I moved on too. There were other projects, one so top-notch I was sure destiny would prevail, but it, too, slipped away.

By then we were into the 90s, then the 2000s. Indie films, marriage and child; another band, original CD, cutting edge theatrics (husband’s country musical recorded in Nashville); still songwriting. I doggedly kept the rock & roll dream alive until … BAM. Almost without noticing I was suddenly at an age when opportunities waned and a producer could look at me with something resembling pity and say (I assume in assuagement of my geriatric irrelevance): “But, hey, you must’ve been hot in the 80s!”

Not long after I pivoted to full-time writing.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m still singing and writing is not a consolation prize. I was, in fact, doing it throughout, in tandem with my musical pursuits. Screenplays. Articles. Stage plays. Essays. Short stories. The whole nine. But it wasn’t until I faced my inevitable aging-out as a “viable rock & roll star” that I, first, mourned the loss (it was an epic loss), then started my first novel. That was eleven years ago. In a little over a month my fourth will publish. It is, in a way, homage to my beloved music career, appropriately titled, Chick Singer.

It’s not my story—that belongs to a character named “Libby Conlin”—but it’s one informed by my experiences, perceptions, and full-body immersion in the life of a female singer making her way in a creative industry that’s, yes, exhilarating and life-changing, but also fierce, competitive, and occasionally brutal.

The plot was birthed from one of those random “what ifs?”; the kind that sticks, the kind you can’t stop thinking about until you follow the thread to an ultimately satisfying conclusion. In this case, the prompt emerged as I was chatting about my years in music with another writer, and he said something like: “What if someone secretly posted your old ‘80s music online and it went viral? Wouldn’t that be random?”

I remember laughing, thinking that would, indeed, be random, but the idea sparked a bigger idea, one that carried me into Libby Conlin’s world—her band, her dreams, her dark secrets—all of which led to Chick Singer. It’s a story that’s percolated through various iterations over the years, but never strayed from its main theme of following a woman as she traverses life—love, family, marriage, work, heartache, aging, reinvention—after losing her dream. It’s a scenario I understood, in a story that echoes, mirrors, and articulates what so many women, even those outside the creative industries, experience and navigate in order to survive, to find peace and joy, in lives that became something they hadn’t planned. A story the children, friends, husbands and lovers of those women must also navigate.

Rock & roll stardom is something you dream about when you’re young, and for Libby Conlin the ‘80s and all their wild promise are ancient history. What pulls her attention now is the unexpected arrival of Bridget, her newly divorced daughter, who’s home again despite their historically fractious relationship and the chaos it inspires. As if predestined, life quickly turns upside down when Bridget’s application to a local art school involves anonymously posting Libby’s old music online, music that’s good enough to garner the attention of industry gatekeepers. When Libby’s mysterious past—and all its dark secrets—comes roaring into the present, the reconfiguration of everything and everyone in her orbit is both bittersweet and life changing.

When fascination with rock & roll remains a never-ending draw, CHICK SINGER steps onto that stage with its raucous exploration of a complex mother/daughter relationship set against a backdrop of music, dreams, and love—and the art of redefining all three.

That’s the official short synopsis. It publishes on April 4th through Sibylline Press/Digital First. Feedback from early readers is below. The pre-order link for the Kindle version is up at Amazon; print and audiobook links will be up soon, as will links at B&N and other retailers. You’ll be able to ask for it in bookstores and libraries. I’ll update all that as it gets closer to the pub date.

Mostly, thank you for taking the time to read this introduction today. As I’ve mused in earlier Substacks, I believe this very strange moment we’re in as a country demands that we continue to create and continue to share what we create, so I appreciate you reading about what I’ve continued to create. When the time comes, I hope you’ll enjoy reading it. I loved writing it.

Notes from early readers:

“A smart, twisty, wonderful novel with all the messy grit of the real world. Devon Wilke digs into complex relationships and finds heartfelt emotion in a story of suppressed ambition and motherly love that resolves in unexpected and profound ways. Just a wow.” ~ James Parriott, award-winning producer/writer/director, Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Patriot

“Chick Singer rocks with dynamic characters whose dialogue pops like a backbeat. Devon Wilke trains a knowing look upon our current frantic and fragmented state, and the music that goes with it. A multi-track saga for these digitized times.” ~ Junior Burke, award-winning dramatist, songwriter, and author of Buddha Was a Cowboy and Cold Last Swim

“Bittersweet and deeply felt, Chick Singer nails the heartbreak of an artist forced to recalibrate when the heady dreams of youth crumble into the stale compromises of middle-age. But Libby Conlin is not about go gently. In a world where music, passion, and even sex are pitched as the exclusive domain of the young, Libby fights to reclaim some part of her stolen youth and promise. It’s a hell of a story, by a hell of a writer, with characters that live and breathe and stick with you long after the music stops.” ~ Tom Amandes, actor/director/playwright, Everwood, The Untouchables, Celestial Events, Brothers & Sisters

“From the first page of Lorraine Devon Wilke’s Chick Singer, we’re immediately involved with the full-throated, living, breathing, complex human beings who truly seem more like people we know than fictional characters. The writing, while gorgeously descriptive, is honest and fully grounded in the real world, so this fast-paced story is truly a page-turner. Like all of Devon Wilke’s novels, once you start, you can’t stop until the last page. Another great read from this terrific contemporary novelist!” ~Susan Morgenstern, award-winning theatre/storytelling director & Producing Director of The Braid Theatre.

“In Chick Singer, Lorraine Devon Wilke masterfully transports the reader into a compelling world of secrets, suppressed dreams, artistic passions, challenging relationships, and personal triumphs. A page-turner not to be missed!” ~ Judith Teitelman, award-winning author of Guesthouse For Ganesha

“With pitch-perfect writing, fully fleshed out characters, and a page-turning storyline, Chick Singer belts out a classic tune of love, not just love-of-your-life soulmates, but between mother and daughter, best girlfriends, and, finally, that undeniable passion that pulses through your blood and defines your true self. Lorraine Devon Wilke’s best book yet.” ~ Debra Thomas, award-winning author of Luz and Josie and Vic

“Lorraine Devon Wilke has masterfully captured the middle-aged angst of a woman who dreamed big, lost, and successfully put her dream in a box never to be opened. It’s a page-turner that will resonate with anyone who has ever dreamed big and lost, only to find out that sometimes dreams can come true, just not in the ways you expect.” ~ Ann Werner, author of Crazy and the After the Apocalypse series.