Minton sparks biography

A WILDLY ORIGINAL SPOKEN WORD ARTIST, NOVELIST, TEACHER AND ESSAYIST, Minton Sparks was.
Sparks graduated from the University of the South with a B.A. in Psychology and earned an M.Ed.
Nashville-based poet Minton Sparks proved there is some room for literary, arty fusions of spoken word with traditional folk in the oft-conservative southern.

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A WILDLY ORIGINAL SPOKEN WORD ARTIST, NOVELIST, TEACHER AND ESSAYIST, Minton Sparks was born in a Tennessee college town and raised among her Southern family in and around Arkansas. Her Spoken Word appearances range from the prestigious Jonesborough National Storytelling Festival all the way to the American Songbook Series at Lincoln Center in New York City, and she recently made a rare spoken word debut at the Grand Ole Opry. She has opened for such totemic souls as John Prine, Nanci Griffith, Rodney Crowell, Punch Brothers, Indigo Girls, and Ben Folds. In 2019, The Fellowship of Southern Writers recognized Minton with their first ever Spoken-Word Award, presented to her by novelist Dorothy Allison.

Minton’s books, Desperate Ransom and White Lightning, and her writing have received wide acclaim from NPR’s Weekend Edition and BBC’s Bob Harris Show. Her performances have captivated audiences across the United States and Europe. Minton’s debut recording on Dualtone Records included a vocal appearance by the legendary Waylon Jennings. Her seco

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AMELIA WHITE

Queen of the East Nashville Underground — No Depression

She's a poet who's been compared to more famous songwriters for years; now, it would be more appropriate to use her as a benchmark. — Craig Havighurst, Music City Roots

Top 25 Roots albums of '22 (Rocket Rearview) — Jim Hynes, Glide

Over the last couple of decades, East Nashville fixture Amelia White has built a folk-pop catalog that's as unfussy as it is consistent in quality, and full of insinuating hooks, slyly sleepy singing and lean, jangly backing. — Jewly Hight NPR

MINTON SPARKS & AMELIA WHITE

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

COMMODORE HOTEL
LINDEN, TN

Here

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“Imagine, if you will, Flannery O'Connor and the ghost of Hank Williams having an affair that results in the birth of an illegitimate child . . . . I have seen Minton Sparks. And if she’s not the ghost child of the woman who wrote Wise Blood and the man who sang ‘I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive,’ then cotton doesn’t grow in a cotton field.” Rocker, Marshall Chapman

Fusing music, poetry, and her intoxicating gift for storytelling, wildly original spoken-word artist Minton Sparks continues to be in a category all her own. “Minton Sparks brings to the listener everything Southern from the sticky humid distress of pop-up thunder bumpers to the heartsick aftermath of love lost, gone wrong, starved, stuck, gossiped about to death, or otherwise misplaced.” Randy Moomaw

Minton Sparks travels extensively, performing at various universities, clubs, and music, poetry, and storytelling festivals to share her unique brand of performance poetry and creative writing workshops with audiences nationwide. This past year, Sparks appeared at Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series alo