Not Just Any Party - Gina Holmes Book Launch at Roanoke Library

Where to start?? Gina Holmes is our home-girl-does-good story in Roanoke, VA. That is the big, awesome thing here. The new book she's written was just published and will be hitting the book stores very soon. It's called Crossing Oceans, about a young single mother who comes back into her family's life after a long absence.

For the past few weeks, all sorts of great local media coverage proclaimed and celebrated this artistic victory - the Press, TV, Bloggers, Social Media sites... But the most outstanding celebration of all was the love our own Roanokers showed Ms Holmes at the Roanoke Library last Tuesday evening.

The Roanoke Public Libraries, as we've mentioned other times, is (as an organization) one of the front-running advocates for the Arts scene in the SW Virginia region. They take it to the streets, up-close and personal. No fancy, corporate-sponsored bookings brokered here. What they do have is one River Laker, a fellow who keeps his eyes and ears on up-and-coming local talent (and from nearby cities), so he knows the latest, the artsiest, the grooviest... And then he books 'em for what always becomes a treat to the community in performances, exhibitions, seminars, readings, and that one very special thing so many "venues" can't really do - Participation.

So, Tuesday night at the Main Library's Howery Mezzanine, we all came out to celebrate Gina Holmes' Book Launch Party. Mr Laker brought together a very successful party, indeed - perhaps the largest attendance thus far at the Library. There was a lot of work behind it to pull this off, and again he coordinated that magnificently as always. Roanoke is lucky to have a real-life Eveready Bunny.

Ms Holmes was honored and entertained by fellow area artists. The cool thing about that is she was greatly involved with the entertainment herself. For one, the author's work inspired a short play that was performed during the event. From SW County's Showtimers, local actors Nancy Lawrence, Caitlin Morgan, and a cute little actor named Madeline Neil practiced the script with precision over the past couple weeks, under River's directing. Watch out, Broadway! (Oh yes, it was my debut as an actor that evening - and I enjoyed being in the company of experienced actors! Thanks for having me on!)

A short video, as a response or spoof to the book's trailer video, went over hugely with the audience. Gina co-starred in it with her husband and, oh, that guy with the British accent who dresses up in silly outfits... um, yeah - River again! You can see the video here, on River's Vimeo Channel, produced by Matt Ames.

The event had a musical guest, Maddie Grace Garber, a local teenager with tons of talent for songwriting and singing. Also, artist Toobz once again created a backdrop and banner for the stage area. His work is often showcased at the Library for Emerging Artists performances.

Ms Holmes answered questions from the audience about her book, about writing and her journey to become a published author. One guest, Sunny, who is also a local artist, even referenced a page and paragraph in her question to the author, which must've been a sweet compliment for any writer when someone can do that!


Star City FAME taped the book launch party, and will be editing the video this week. Hook up with us on Facebook so you can get updates on cool things that happen within the Arts community here in Roanoke.

Visit Gina Holmes' blog for more information about her life, her books, and the art of fiction writing. Her novel Crossing Oceans is also available through Amazon.com. We wish her many congratulations, much inspiration, and a long, happy career in writing!

See you around Downtown!!

No Shame Theatre Now in the Daytime at Roanoke Public Library

Studio Roanoke partnered up with the Roanoke Public Library to bring a daytime version of "No Shame Theatre" to the infamous Mezzanine of the Main Library in Downtown Roanoke City. Chad Runyon, host and General Manager of Studio Roanoke, opened the show with the near-usual announcement adding the new rules of "no cussing" or any other obscene behavior for the more family-oriented flavor of "No Shame."

The first performance was held last week on March 3rd at noon, and brought in several brave souls to kick off what will be a regular monthly program at the Library.

The very first original pieces offered at "No Shame in the Afternoon" were by authors (in order of appearance) Patrick Lyster, Claudia Harris (read by Jonathan Harris), Leisa Thomas, Paula Smith, Mark Tutai, and Beth Deel and River (Car Less Brit) Laker as a duo.

Everyone followed the rules, but you know, there always is that one exception in the crowd who will find a loophole, right? Wonder who and what that could have been??

Luckily, Star City FAME brought a camera, otherwise it'd all have been hear-say!!

River Laker and Beth Deel

Of course, this is not considered dis-robing in public, because the man clearly was not wearing a robe.

More pics...

Patrick LysterJonathan Harris

Leisa ThomasPaula SmithMark TutaiChad Runyon

A fun time not to be missed. Please come out to the next "No Shame in the Afternoon," which will be on April 7th. Workshops for the afternoon performances are held on the last Monday of the month at the Main Library.

Many thanks to Studio Roanoke, Roanoke Public Libraries, and special thanks to River Laker, the programming master-mind behind so many of the Library's events, and Beth Deel of myScoper.com, one of Roanoke's brightest artists and biggest advocate of the Arts here in Downtown. Without some of our more adventurous residents, Roanoke would just be plain Roanoke. (A whole 'nuther topic for another day...)

See you around Downtown!

Ada Lis Jimena and William Krause performance of "Gipsy Soul"

Gipsy Soul is the nickname given in endearing terms to Garcia Lorca. The Spanish Popular Songs program given at the Roanoke Main Library on Monday, September 14th, by the Emerging Artists Series, was performed in his honor. Local artists Ada Lis Jimena, mezzosoprano and William Krause, guitarist, performed thirteen such songs in a mezmerizing, elegant evening at the Library to a full house of spell-bound listeners.

Presented in the musical program was a short written description about Lorca, "Gipsy Soul," distributed to guests so that they too may be familiar with his legend and artistic spirit:

"Garcia Lorca is Spain's most deeply appreciated and highly revered poet and dramatist. His murder by the Nationalists at the start of the Spanish Civil War brought sudden international fame. He must now be bracketed with Mocado as one of the two greatest poets Spain has produced this century, and he is certainly Spain's greatest dramatist since the Golden Age.
As poet his works reflected andalusian spirit. As a dramatist, he wrote romantic pieces with social implications and comedies.
However, music was one of the greatest passions of Lorca's life. In fact, he was a musician before he was a creative writer and had composed music before he wrote his first poems.
This program is about thirteen Spanish popular songs (Trece canciones populares espanolas) that Lorca collected during his trip to the Andalusia region in 1919."

Star City Fame filmed the evening's performance. Included here is one of the songs recorded live, entitled "Los mozos de Monleon."



What I found interesting was that I had seen familiar faces attending the Gipsy Soul performance who range in varying degrees of artistic tastes, and this illustrated to me the significance of Ada Lis' and William's presentation and talents. In the audience was a folk songwriter, a cultural dance performer, pop and rock music fans, opera fans, as well as Spanish music fans.

There is more information about Ada Lis and William on Emerging Artists' website, including additional videos. We look to bring a full interview of Ada Lis Jimena and William Krause in the near future, most hopefully as a video interview!!

About Emerging Artists Series:
River Laker (a/k/a Car Less Brit) is the man behind coordinating artistic performances at the Main Library. These events, the Emerging Artists Series, are some of the best and most interesting in Downtown. It focuses on local talent as well as artists imported from all over. Artists are of fine and performing arts of various mediums and genres.

What’s Been Going On – StarCityFAME in Roanoke

Last weekend was a typical Roanoke weekend, amazing and busy as usual. Star City FAME had the pleasure of capturing four great events from some of our incredible people and organizations in and about town. A big part of our “mission” is to bring events online for everyone to see, whether they were there or not, to relive it or to find out what we Roanokers are all about here in the Valley.


Local Colors – A Taste of Culture
“Dragon” Pearl Fu and the Local Colors organization continues their monthly celebration of the cultural kind every second Friday during the warmer season right after the annual Local Colors Festival. We went to one this past month for the Vietnamese “taste” on August 14th.


Car Less Britt Museum - Touring for the Turtles
This new museum established by River Laker (Emerging Artists, Roanoke City Library) in downtown is not only an exhibit of bicycle memorabilia and other interesting bike things, but also promotes going without a motor vehicle by switching to riding a bicycle all over town – as a way of life!! They just hosted a pair of eco-bio experts who spoke on leather-backed turtles and their mission - touring on bike to get the message out.


Star City Roller Girls – Game at Lee Hi Skates vs Little City Roller Girls
The Roanoke Valley has a women’s pro sports team… it’s not basketball, baseball, football, hockey, or golf. IT’S ROLLER DERBY!!! And we got highlights of this awesome, energetic, and crowd-pleasing game.


Sister Cities and Local Colors – International Fashion Show
Ms Pearl Fu was at it again in high style, as she and co-host Tammy Epes presented a fabulous International Fashion Show at the Hotel Roanoke. Members and friends of both organizations participated, including contestants of Miss Roanoke Valley Pageant. The show was presented at the Ladies Luncheon during the Grand Encampment Knights Templar 64th Triennial Conference at the hotel last Monday, August 17.

Videos will be posted on the Star City FAME YouTube channel as well as here. Find us on Twitter and Facebook, too! If you’d like for us to attend a really cool event in Roanoke, just give us a shout and let us know what, when, and where!!

Americana In-the-Round: Free Live Music at the Main Library

I love live music. There's no crying in baseball, and there's no faking in live music. To sound good, you simply have to be good.

So with that, StarCityFAME is excited to be going to the Roanoke Public Main Library on Jefferson Street tomorrow night (June 16th) where Emerging Artists will be presenting "American In-the-Round" on the Patio from 6PM to 8PM.

The performers are folk and country artists of the down-home-bred type, a genre called "Americana." We will be catching three such performers, who will be taking turns throughout the night with songs answering songs back and forth until time runs out. That's a neat way to share stage billing.

I looked up each artists' websites to check out their music and was pleasantly surprised at the maturity of songwriting and singing talents they possess. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's show!! (Hey, I'm a 80's hair-band fan, okay? It's taking me a while to get acclimated to the folk-bluegrass-country thing down here in SW Virginia. Wanna see my spandex?)

Emerging Artists' Program Developer River Laker has given StarCityFAME the green light to run footage of the event. I am hoping we can get great audio as that has been a bummer for us due to the authorizations needed for tapping into a live sound board. Perhaps we may get that okay this time around. Now THAT would be AWESOME!! (Keeping my fingers crossed...)

Here is a line-up of tomorrow night's artists (Bio's posted courtesy of their websites):

Jonathan Byrd - http://www.jonathanbyrd.com/

A native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Jonathan grew up singing in the Southern Baptist church, where his father preached and his mother played piano. After four years in the Navy, he returned to Chapel Hill to play in rock bands in that legendary underground music scene. A friend of Jonathan's invited him to an old time fiddle festival in the mountains of southwest Virginia, where his writing began to change. Assimilating the sounds of southern traditional music, Byrd wrote new songs in an ancient style.

Doug and Telisha Williams - http://www.dandtw.com/

With their open, inviting personalities and intriguing stage presence, the duo is quickly growing their fan base. First timers at their live shows feel like old friends and part of the family after just a song or two. A single set of their music can bring audience members to their feet in applause, to their knees in prayer, and back to the bar to buy another beer.
Married and living in southwest Virginia, they tour constantly around the South and up into the North, crossing ever-widening boundaries with every step.

Danny Schmidt - http://www.dannyschmidt.com/

Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter Danny Schmidt is a writer's writer, with a lyrical depth drawing comparisons to Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt, and Dave Carter. Upon winning the prestigious Kerrville New Folk award in 2007, Sing Out Magazine tagged Schmidt "the best new songwriter we've heard in 15 years." Just one man sitting alone on stage with his acoustic guitar and his poetry, in the timeless troubadour tradition, his musical influences draw from deeply-rooted Appalachian mountain gospel to haunted English balladry, from syncopated Piedmont country blues to vagabond 60’s protest folk-stumpery. But it all boils down to just great songwriting, in a singular style all his own. Not to be missed.

Okay kids... and grown-ups... See you there!!!
(Remember: The evening's performance is FREE!!! There will be refreshments, also. WHOA!!!)