About
Terry Bailey
Terry Bailey, a pioneering new media author, artist and musician.
Bailey’s first multimedia novel, Light 1.0 was a “most popular” podcast on iTunes from the time she began publishing it there in serial format in 2005. Recently, National Public Radio recommended Light 1.0 to their audience; it is a novel with accompanying art, music, poetry and animation annotations. Bailey took some time off from publishing Light 1.0 in order to complete a Master’s degree in New Media Literature and Writing at Antioch University, but she promises to return to it very soon now that she has completed her degree! (Jan. 2010).
Amy Beach and Me began as a biography of the noted first woman composer in the United States, but quickly evolved to a hybrid biography and memoir due to Bailey’s background in music and art, and the mentor mentee relationship that began to surface early as she researched this remarkable woman born in 1867. Terry began the book as an electronic one when she realized how silly it was that anyone had had to write a biography of this woman previously with no music! The book began as her MFA thesis project at Antioch University, where she served as a pioneering role model for other writers, and completed the first new media / electronic thesis to come out of that university in December 2009.
Says Bailey: “Imagine reading a bio of a composer with no music or sound! That is what new media allows for: no longer are we mired in the word-only form of book publishing. Now I have sound, music, images, animations, interactivity, video . . . all at my disposal as tools of communicating!” While everyone is complaining about whether or not they can curl up with an ebook reader or computer, they are missing the point: for an author electronic writing is about having all those communication tools at your fingertips; for a reader, it’s about a full-blown sensory and communication experience!”
Amy Beach and Me is now web-based, and Bailey has decided to publish it, similarly to her Light 1.0, in serial format. Some home page buttons have content behind them, others will be filled with her story as Bailey adds to it each week. Read the About page on the site, as it will fill you in with more information and Bailey’s vision for the future of her electronic writing.
Bailey’s digital fine art paintings have been internationally exhibited, recently in digital exhibits at the Poway Performing Art Center in San Diego, Siggraph conference, and at the Disney Gallery in Los Angeles. Find more information about them on her mediabench web site.
She plays fingerstyle guitar and is an accomplished songwriter. On January 24, 2010, she wowed audiences with her performance of Patsy Cline songs, playing with the 77 year old guitarist of Patsy Cline – Bob Saxton – at the annual Association of Fingerstyle Guitar Convention in Anaheim (offered in tandem with the Annual NAM Convention there). And surprised audiences when the two of them alternated Bossa Novas, sung in Portuguese by Bailey (Saxton quipped that he would play in English), between Patsy’s famed “Sweet Dreams” and “Tennessee Waltz.” Bailey shared that she grew up learning to sing with old records of Cline, Anita O’Day and Carmen McRae, and that the incredible guitarist with whom she has recorded and often performs, Ric Ickard (aka Richard Alcoy) insisted that she learn to play bossa nova rhythm guitar several years back so that he could concentrate on the lead. Terry concluded her set with one of her own songs, a beautiful ballad written for her niece Tess, “I Give You Love.”
Bailey also writes a new media literary blog (rffingonbooks.com), teaches new media at The Art Institute of California – Hollywood, consults in New Media, and develops and manages Web sites for numerous clients and the nonprofits – as well as her own mediabench.com ezine.
With an undergraduate degree and background in the motion picture industry, Bailey developed and managed an Academy Award winning (Amadeus, The Right Stuff, Never Cry Wolf) sound and post-production studio for producer Saul Zaentz in Berkeley immediately after college, and before moving into New Media.
Bailey adds, “I didn’t know way back what the computer was going to allow me to do as an artist, but I knew it would be big. Today the technology is finally catching up with the imaginings I had back in the late 80s when I started working with new media / multimedia / interactive media (we don’t even have a final name for it yet!). Today I can tell you my stories with writing, sound, music, images, animation, video, links to other places . . . the list grows. And even though the publishing world may be slow to accept this new literary genre I am working to invent, it is okay, cause I can just post it on the Internet for everyone to experience!”