Deborah Crooks

Dreaming of rivers amid the fires. Watch the new video for “Let the River do the Running,” a song from The Department of the West, featuring the Salmon (alongside which it was written), Snake, Russian and Yellowstone Rivers. Take a look and listen at the link in bio. 
About “Let the River do the Running” 
What The Rocking Magpie had to say about the track:

“Let The River Do The Running sits comfortably in both Americana and Alt. Country camps, with its rustic imagery being a metaphor for a struggling…

It's been twenty-eight weeks since I left Chalk Hill, stocked up on groceries and headed home. Twenty-eight weeks of canceled trips and revised plans and loaded up pantries and bird feeders and neighborhood walks, daily writing and Zoom yoga.  Twenty-eight weeks of porch concerts, SIP the Bay videos, chalk on the sidewalk, new songs, a musical in progress and a neighborhood zine. Petitions, postcards and letters. Colorful masks and new air filters, hand sanitizer and soap and water and safe social…

Happy autumn equinox. Sun over the equator, equal day and night. Pretty cool! The start of my favorite time of year. It’s also national voter registration day. Check your registration, register as needed, request a mail-in ballot. Please vote! 

My hyper-local SIP orbit inspired another hyper-local SIP project! The Bay Station Eagle (Bay St. & Eagle Ave. are two intersecting streets in Alameda’s Bay Station neighborhood where I live) is a pocket guide-size print quarterly, equal parts field guide and literary zine, penned by local residents and reflective of our corner of Alameda island. Email if you’re interested in a copy. $5 each plus postage (if out of Alameda. In this issue: 

• Bay Eagle Community Garden 
• Waterfront Stories 
• Sourdough…

As a lover of land and nature my heart has been especially sore these past weeks as many wildfires rage across the western states. The Department of the West was inspired by so many places that are acutely suffering right now. And while some of the songs from DoW are elegiac in tone, I couldn't imagine seeing what we're all seeing now. 
Nonetheless, there's no time like the present to do what can be done. I'm fortunate to have all my tools on hand to keep writing and playing and taking action where I can…

Oddly, one of my main memories of 9/11 is blue sky. I was standing on Lafayette St. looking uptown with a new friend, another yoga student, sometime in the afternoon, debating whether to get in a long line for a pay phone that stretched across the street. Our cell phones weren't working (I had a small flip phone at the time that didn't take pictures), and anyone who wanted to get through to a loved one to tell them they were alive needed to get in line. 
The sky was blue and empty save for a giant plume of…

 Working on the SIP the Bay video project all weekend gave us something to think about that wasn't the news, how hot and smoky it was, how many places in the West that I’ve known, loved, called home are under threat. Thanks to all the artists who contributed their songs and voices and to those who tuned in live. We raised several hundred dollars to donate to NAACP and California Relief and were heartened again knowing so many folks are continuing to create amid everything. 

Every night after we broadcast…

When we first started 'sheltering in place' here in California in response to the pandemic, I immediately doubled down on my usual practices for mind, body and spirit. Since then some of the actions I took have morphed from stop-gap measures enacted to get through those initial 'two weeks' — porch concerts, live streams, daily writing, Zoom yoga — to simply what I do.  I've long been one for practices, but if these six months have taught me anything it's that practice is an act of hope, keeping me going…