Sally Stevens has worked in film, television, sound recordings and commercials music in Hollywood for many decades, as a singer/choral director/lyricist. She has written lyrics for Burt Bacharach, Dave Grusin, Dominic Frontiere, Don Ellis and others, and her short fiction, poems, and personal essays have appeared in Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journay, Mockingheart Review, RAven’s Perch, Funny in Five Hundred, The Missouri Review, Los Angeles Press, The Voices Project, The OffBeat, and Between the Lines Anthology: Fairy Tales & Folklore Re-imagined. Her memoir, I SANG THAT – A Memoir from Hollywood was published in October of 2022.
Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?
Writing this book was inspired by the crazy psychologist therapist I was seeing many years ago. I suspect the book is a kind of “alter-ego” fictional memoir! Each chapter is kind of a separate little adventure inspired by some moment or some thought about life along the way. It’s humor as well as “magical realism,” and eventually the main character settles back into her normal life, but the adventures continue.
How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?
I loved the work that Ronaldo Alves and the Atmosphere Press team did on the cover—we had a lot of back-and-forth interaction, and the wonderful art was created from the ideas I suggested and they expanded upon. And to hold the book in my hands was such a treat!
Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?
I’ve written all my life, ever since I knew how to put words on paper—as a child, I scribbled on little scraps of paper that I still have some of! This will be my twenty-fourth year attending the summer writing workshops at U of Iowa, just because I love to get away for a couple of weeks and focus on writing, taking generative workshops, etc. I’ve always loved crime/detective fiction too, but likely will never dive into that genre as a writer!
What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?
I sing the main titles on The Simpsons and Family Guy, and have sung on over a thousand film scores, as a solo singer/choral singer or vocal contractor/chorale director. I toured with Burt Bacharach as a soloist in concert for about ten years, all around the world.
What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?
This has been in my head for so many years…some of it began back in the late eighties. And I fantasize about it becoming a film, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, who I coached when she did singing in The Fabulous Baker Boys. So to be able to get her a “book” is so much better than just sending a letter or a pdf of the manuscript.
If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?
Hmmm. I’d have to look back into the pop charts from the 80s…there is so much to have to “get” from the written material that anything with lyrics might be distractive. I would use some Danny Elfman, Marc Shaiman, Alan Silvestri underscores!
What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?
I hope they get the humor and the “point of view” behind some of what Mrs. Billingsley says and thinks. I hope they follow relatively easy and “get” the journey.
What new writing projects are you currently working on? Or, other projects that are not writing?
I have a series of interviews of the homeless who were in residence at Union Rescue Mission, in Los Angeles back around 2003, when I was doing photographs of the kids for their moms and heard some of the stories of how they got there, what their hopes were for moving on, etc. I would like to get those interviews together and somehow get a book out, proceeds from which (if there are any) I would send to support the homeless. Also I have many pieces of short fiction that I would like to compile into a “chapbook” or collection.
Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.