Join us on Wednesday, October 21st at 6PM to listen to Jeanie Thompson talk about her book, The Myth of Water. Enjoy a glass of wine as you listen to Jeanie’s talk and Larry’s music. We hope to see you there!
The Myth of Water: Go Into Your Life
The Myth of Water is a cycle of thirty-four poems by award-winning Alabama poet and writer Jeanie Thompson in the voice of world-renowned Alabamian Helen Keller. In their sweep, the poems trace Keller’s metamorphosis from a native of a bucolic Alabama town to her emergence as a beloved, international figure who championed the rights of the deaf-blind worldwide.
Thompson’s artfully concatenated vignettes form a mosaic that maps the insightful mind behind the elegant and enigmatic persona Keller projected. Thompson takes readers on the journey of Keller’s life, from some of the thirty-seven countries she visited, including the British Isles, Europe, and Japan to the wellsprings of her emotional awakening and insight. The poems are paired with fascinating biographical anecdotes from Keller’s life and samplings from her writing, which infuse the work with richly-rewarding biographical detail.
The poems in The Myth of Water reveal the discerning subtlety, resiliency, and complexity of the person Thompson perceives Helen Keller to have been. Through a combination of natural intuition, manual signs, Braille alphabets, and lip reading, Keller came to grasp the revolving tapestry of the seasons and the infinite colors of human relationships.
Not a biography or a fictional retelling, The Myth of Water attempts to unlock what moved Keller to her life of service and self-examination. This is a deeply personal story of coming through—not overcoming—a double disability to a fully realized life in which a woman gives her heart to the world.
Jeanie Thompson and Larry Mitchell have been awarded a 2026 Global Music Award for The Myth of Water: Go Into Your Life in the ‘words and music’ and ‘lyrics and songwriter’ categories.
Jeanie Thompson
An award-winning poet and literary arts leader, Jeanie Thompson is a native Alabamian, who writes, teaches, and collaborates in her home state. Her poetry collections include How to Enter the River, Witness, White for Harvest: New and Collected Poems, The Seasons Bear Us, The Myth of Water: Poems from the Life of Helen Keller, and My Gaia. With Jay Lamar, she edited The Remembered Gate: Memoirs by Alabama Writers.
Her essays have appeared in various collections, including the 2024 volume Old Enough: Southern Women Artists and Writers on Creativity and Aging (UGA Press). Jeanie has been awarded two Alabama State Council on the Arts Fellowships for her work, and in 2024 she received the Albert B. Head Legacy Award from the Alabama State Council on the Arts for her work as founding director of the Alabama Writers’ Forum, which she created in 1993. She is passionate about arts programs for justice-involved youth, and founded Writing Our Stories in 1997 to serve juveniles in the Alabama Department of Youth Services.
Larry Mitchell
Larry Mitchell is a Grammy award-winning producer, engineer and performer who has toured the world playing guitar with well-known artists including Tracy Chapman, Billy Squier, Ric Ocasek, and Miguel Bosé. In his original compositions, Larry skillfully weaves guitar textures that highlight his virtuosity as a solo artist and ensemble player.
As an artist, Larry has released 11 solo records, 2 EP’s and has won a San Diego Music Award for best pop jazz artist. Larry recently shared a prestigious 2026 European International Music Award with composer and performer Emiko Carlin for "Venice" (Nihon-go version) which Larry is featured on and which he produced.
As a producer-engineer, Larry has won 26 New Mexico Music Awards in various categories from pop, adult contemporary, rap, rock, country and Native American. He won a Grammy Award for producing, engineering, and performing on “Totemic Flute Chants” by artist Johnny Whitehorse, who is better known as Robert Mirabal of Taos Pueblo.
Larry frequently collaborates with poets, playwrights, and writers, including former three-time US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and playwright Dawn Avery. He also gives weekly livestreams on Twitch and YouTube and has created a small but tight knit community of friends and fans. The audience is international – from Alabama to Sweden. While Larry is not touring internationally, his home base is Opelika, Alabama. There he sometimes performs at local venues, encourages up and coming musicians, and produces artists from around the world in his legendary recording studio, The Chocolate Room.