Original Music, Art, & Writings by Karen Harvey & Merle Wolford

SINGING & SPEAKING FOR positive CHANGE: Original "grassroots" Folk & Folk-Rock, Children's Music, & Musical. Truth in telling--Promoting Peace--Celebrating Life!

Membership Spotlight: Karen Harvey-Dewey

By Kenady Sean

MusicalWriters Academy is made up of playwrights, librettists, composers, and lyricists from all over the world. We love supporting our members, and we want to help share what they’re doing, what they’re learning, and where they’re headed.

Karen Harvey-Dewey is one of our fantastic members. Karen has adapted one of her plays into a screenplay and it recently was a semi-finalist in the Oct. 2021 Vegas Movie Awards.~ Kenady Sean

UPDATE (by K. Dewey)

Most recently the screenplay, Lady of the Rose–a Musical Odyssey, was awarded "Best Unproduced Script" in the 2021 International Film Festival Milan / World Cinema Milan. It won "Best Songs/Music/Songwriting" in the Near Nazareth Festival 2021. It placed in the Semi-Finals of the Vegas Movie Awards Oct. 2021 competition: "Best 6" (out of 5,000 entries) for Fantasy/Sci-Fi.  Lady of the Rose...Odyssey was a "Quarter-Finalist" in the 2021 International Screenplay Association’s Sci-Fi/Fantasy Genre Busting Competition, and a "Quarter-Finalist" for the 2021 Atlanta International Screenplay Awards. It was a "Nominee" at the 2021 French "Fantasy Film Festival FFF",  Paris, France.

Update:  More recently my screenplay, Lady of the Rose--a Musical Odyssey, was awarded "Best Unproduced Script" in the Milan International Film Festival/World Cinema Festival, and "Best Song/Music/Songwriting" in the 2021 Near Nazareth Festival. See the MusicalWriter's interview with Karen at link: "SpotLight Interview" with KH Dewey by S. Kenady

What are you working on right now?

Karen Harvey-Dewey: I’m working toward getting Lady of the Rose—a Musical Odyssey produced.  That means submitting materials to the Vegas Movie Awards Graphic Dept. and getting a pitch deck ready. I continue to work on contest submissions, and consider that part of my evolving marketing plan for the stage-play and screenplay versions of Lady of the Rose. In the near future, I plan to submit my script to producers, and theaters.

This month, I’m finishing the recordings of cursory vocals and layering them on top of the instrumental tracks of my demo album for Lady of the Rose—a Musical Odyssey.  My goal is to have a production-ready script and finished recordings ... (update: early this year). As far as writing another musical or a screenplay, I’m in the initial stage of exploring the possibilities … digging into ‘buried treasure’?

What is a lesson from your writing journey that you’d like to share?

K.H-D.: The biggest takeaway is “focusing on the dream and giving it steam” . For me, that means:  First, getting up early when there is little distraction and my creative juices flow best.  Second, seriously praying and giving thanks and seeking out other guidance and resources to learn and improve. Third, being open to learning from critiques and mistakes—not to allow myself to wallow in rejection’s mire. (at least not more than a day or so!)

For more of the Interview see /lady-of-the-rose-a-muscial-odyssey

Karen Harvey-Dewey is a composer/singer-songwriter/artist/author/playwright-screenwriter, environmental-peace activist, researcher, and teacher. Her formal background is in education and the arts with Bachelor of Science degrees in Physical Education, Art, and Biology.

In the mid-2000’s, there were several museum exhibitions of Karen’s art and water photographs. Karen did school story-readings/music tours with Earth Day themes–and gave slide presentations of her children’s book, “Pau Pau and the Watering Hole” (co-authored with studio partner M. Wolford). Karen also published several environmental news articles, mostly related to mining, nuclear, and Native American issues.

UPDATE (by K. Dewey)

Most recently the screenplay, Lady of the Rose–a Musical Odyssey, was awarded "Best Unproduced Script" in the 2021 International Film Festival Milan / World Cinema Milan. It won "Best Songs/Music/Songwriting" in the Near Nazareth Festival 2021. It placed in the Semi-Finals of the Vegas Movie Awards Oct. 2021 competition: "Best 6" (out of 5,000 entries) for Fantasy/Sci-Fi.  Lady of the Rose...Odyssey was a "Quarter-Finalist" in the 2021 International Screenplay Association’s Sci-Fi/Fantasy Genre Busting Competition, and a "Quarter-Finalist" for the 2021 Atlanta International Screenplay Awards. It was a "Nominee" at the 2021 French "Fantasy Film Festival FFF",  Paris, France.