Ahoy, dear readers. I hope y’all are well, all things considered. I’m good. Lots of stuff afoot.
I’m writing for a couple reasons: to thank you for your continued support of this blog over the years, and to let you know you can now enjoy missives from me over at Robert Burke Warren, Showfolk, on the Substack platform.
(Some of you may have already subscribed. If so, thank you.)
I’ve already published three posts on Robert Burke Warren, Showfolk. (More than I posted on this blog in the entirety of 2021.) I’m enjoying the platform. (What is Substack? Here’s a Forbes article about it.) Prior to starting my own newsletter, I wrote a well-received post for Oldster – Visiting Durham, 1984 – which fully introduced me to Substack. I like the community feel of it, and the purity of receiving content free of algorithms and ads. I encourage you to look around and subscribe not only to my newsletter, but to others. I’ve been getting a huge chunk of my news from my subscription to Heather Cox Richardson’s excellent Letter From An American. You’ll see my other subscriptions on my page. Some are free, some I pay a small fee for the work.
Robert Burke Warren, Showfolk is free for now. I may introduce a nominal fee structure down the pike. But first I gotta get my sea legs.
I’ve got a lot going on of late. I launched a seasonal variety show: Robert Burke Warren’s Real Life Revival. Debut was at my local theater the Phoenicia Playhouse a couple weeks ago. It went well. Storytelling and Music. I host, plus sing and play, and tell a tale or two. Kind of a Hudson Valley-centric Prairie Home Companion. Summer and autumn shows booked.
Come September, Chicago Review Press will publish my first non-fiction book, Cash on Cash: Interviews and Encounters. I compiled and edited it, and wrote intros to everything. It was my Pandemic Project. This autumn will be all about book events, at which I will bring a guitar to play Cash tunes. I’m looking forward to that very much.
Other stuff down the pike, too. I will spare you more details at this juncture. Subscribe and you’ll be kept in the loop!
As all of the above and more transpires, I intend to keep connecting with an audience through my work. Substack is great for that.
Below is what I put on my ABOUT page. It sums everything up pretty well:
As the title says, I am showfolk. Let me entertain you. I am at my best when I’m creating something to show – a piece of writing, a song, a book, an album, a live performance. I’ve been honing my chops a few decades now, and I work hard to deliver quality goods.
When an audience enjoys my work, it’s quite the win-win. The prospect of folks awaiting a missive from me spurs me to put into words the countless as-yet-unwritten posts in my head. I’m talking memoir, travelogues, videos, music, screeds, valentines, lyrics, works-in-progress, and expressions that will hopefully brighten the corners.
I write what I know, but I also write what I do not know, or rather what I do not yet consciously know. Or, as genius Flannery O’Connor succinctly put it, “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” If you fancy joining me on this discovery, by all means do. It’s a pleasure to have you
Subscribe to Robert Burke Warren, Showfolk by clicking HERE.
Thanks again. More to come.
RBW
Phoenicia, NY, June 1st, 2022
solitude & good company 