In the past year, Amy Speace had more than her share of living with grief, as well as health challenges that temporarily robbed her of the golden voice that provides her livelihood. As the storms of life raged, songwriting was her ballast and salvation, and the songs she wrote comprise this document to living gracefully with grief. It is How To Sleep In A Stormy Boat.

Speace was in a restaurant with a friend in 2011 when she started to lose her voice. Thinking it was allergies, she went home put herself to bed, and when she awoke, her voice was gone. After several days, it had not come back. Panic set in, and she gave into tears, "which is the last thing you want to do when you have acute laryngitis, which is what it turned out to be," she says. Without her voice and in need of something drastic, she enrolled in a Vipassana meditation course, which required ten days of commitment to Noble Silence, which involves not only abstaining from verbal communication, but non-verbal communication as well. The depth of the silence was overwhelming and terrifying but in the end life changing and healing. The discipline's focus on impermanence and equanimity were essential in helping her frame her grief and gain understanding of her own struggles. By the end of the experience, her voice, both literal and artistic, had returned.

Speace recorded this album in Nashville with her friend and producer Neilson Hubbard. "I'm always open to new ideas about potential collaborators, but when I heard these songs in my head, it was his textural sensibilities that I was hearing." In addition, Mary Gauthier guests, both on background vocals and as the co-writer of the song "Left Me Hanging." Ben Sollee also added cello to a couple of tracks. How to Sleep in a Stormy Boat is now available in her online store on CD and Digital Download, or you can get the new CD and the companion CD, Same old Storm, together for a discounted price! Check out these great online interviews and reviews from NPR and NYT then click here to order today!

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john Arthur martinez 1. What is your best childhood memory? There are two competing memories: A. For Christmas when I was seven years old I received not one but two bikes, a shiny red one from my grandparents on my mother's side of the family, and a shiny blue one from my grandparents on my Dad's side. That memory is hard to beat but this second just might. B. Just before my tenth birthday I traveled from Austin to San Bernardino, CA aboard a Greyhound with my Grandma and my Uncle Ricky, who was just a year older than me. During that trip I learned to swim in my Aunt's San Bernardino apartment pool, I saw the ocean for the first time at SEAWORLD, I watched my first major league ballgame, a 23 inning marathon between the Angels and the White Sox, I saw the Redwood forests at Big Bear, I went to Mexico for the first time and I got turned on to Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Beatles. 2. If you could be the opposite sex for a day what would you do? What a question! Who came up with this? Maybe I'd take a bubble bath, put on some Dr. John on the stereo, and a fine Pino Grigio—that seems to work for my wife! 3. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Chocolate, dark preferably. 4. If you could be any fictional character, whom would you be? It would be quite an adventure to be Odysseus. 5. What's the one thing you own that you know you should get rid of but never will? My Facebook account. 6. What book are you currently reading (or the last one you read)? John irving's Last Night in Twisted River 7. What is your favorite word, phrase, quote or lyric? Reach for the moon, even if you miss you'll catch a fistful of stars. 8. What is the most inspiring concert or performance you have ever seen? The Time Jumpers (at the Station Inn, Nashville) 9. Name something you love that no one else seems to like. (Or name something that everyone seems to love except you.) Eggs on my enchiladas Visit john's Online Store!