O Muse! is a quarterly art, literature and music publication founded by musicians and artists to celebrate, support and promote the diversity of creatives. Artists are often labeled painter, songwriter, or photographer, but their talents are rarely confined to a single medium – photos by musicians (or is it music by photographers?), short stories by artists, paintings by writers. And then there are the lawyers, garbage collectors and archaeologists who have a room in their house filled with canvases or a vintage typewriter or a loom (or all of the above). O Muse! is a prism to showcase this versatility and fusion of artistic expression and to illuminate the many facets of creatives.
“O Muse! Sing in me, and through me tell the story…”
You may recognize the title from Homer’s Odyssey which has been referenced by writers and philosophers for centuries. From Dante’s Divine Comedy to Chaucer to the modern Homeric saga O Brother, Where Art Thou, the incantation summons the Muses to inspire, collaborate, teach.
In my personal experience, I have written songs that still feel like they came from some ethereal entity, and yet my own hand wrote the words on the paper. I am grateful for the incredible musicians and artists — teachers and mentors — with whom I have worked whose talent, creativity and vision have inspired me to try new things. Even this magazine seems to come from a Muse (or perhaps a Siren?).
As a verb, muse gives us permission to let our imaginations run, to contemplate possibilities, speculate, dream, conceive, to enter a different state of being.
We invite you and your muses to join us on our journey of beauty, anger, revelation, joy, sorrow as we explore, teach, create and break rules. We welcome ideas, submissions, and donations. Please subscribe, share this publication and support the artists.
We don’t know where this endeavor might go, so we call on the Muses guide us:
O Muse, Thou dear one, sing to me,
Commence and order my song.
Cool breezes blowing from Thy groves
Inspire my breast and rouse my heart.
— “Hymn to the Muse” by Mesomedes
Diana Thornton
Editor/Publisher
Published by Crescent Music Services in the United States of America.