August Reed
- Email: awr@augustreed.net
- Voice: 205-378-9867
Genuine
storytelling provides us human beings with an enigmatic truth, which
can only come through the fusion of powerful language and unique
dramatic structure. Whether performed, sung, depicted spoken or
written, through it we see life as magical, as spiritual, as
avant-garde, as surreal. The stories hold the conflicts before our
eyes giving us the ability to feel and know the minute fluctuations
between pain and joy, love and hate, and hope and despair. In so
doing, we are able to learn about our own lives and souls. We have
the opportunity, through the story, to become better people.
All of our lives
have great potential. Each of us faces a different challenge in
reaching it. We spend our lives trying to understand or know it. I am
still seeking mine. My trouble has always been with focus. Not with
having it, but with maintaining it on one thing long enough to
generate change. This has always been the case. It effected me in
school, sports and relationships. In one moment I was brilliant,
while in others, I was simply vacant. My mind
roams from science, to English, to world events, to the books I was
reading, to the books I needed to read, to new projects, to
relationships and friends, or to the meaning of the universe. I
struggled with religion and my southern upbringing. I fought my own
best instincts and succumbed too easily to my stubborn selfish
nature. Still today, I continue this interior battle with all its
turmoil. It is the life I lead and share. It affects all I perceive,
feel and know. Whether sorted or unsorted, real or fantasy, it is my
life—my interior castle.
Since I could
hold a pencil as a child in South Carolina, I have been an artist. My
first poem, I wrote as a teenager. By college, where I studied
dramatic arts primarily, I was writing more and considering
publication. I began submitting poems and essays to several journals.
Nothing came of it; in fact, my first publishing was quite by
accident. After graduation, while living in Nevada, I attended—by
happenstance—a panel discussion on alien channeling and abduction.
Afterwards, I went home and wrote an article own what I had heard and
how I felt about it. It was published in a regional magazine called
“Spirit” (no longer in print). The day I read their acceptance
letter, represents the moment I began to sense the true power of
writing and what I could do with it.
Over the years
since, I have written poems, novels, short stories, plays and essays.
Until a few years ago, even with my early encouragement, I still
allowed life, insecurity, and self-consciousness to hinder my
progress. Even now, I still have difficulty
showing my work. I could never embolden myself enough to truly
unearth my voice as a writer. This burden had rendered me mute. The
dichotomy of being fierce and free in one area, while shy and
introspective in the other, proved so frustrating I gave up writing.
About six or seven years ago, however, I reemerged from my sabbatical
and decided to give it another try. I had good focus and
determination this time, but something was still missing. A few years
later I took another step, I resigned my position at an advertising
company and began writing under the pen name of August Reed. Since
doing so, I have unleashed a whole new perspective on what my writing
life-voice-work can be. This new conduit into myself has given me the
power to breakthrough my chakra blockers, pitfalls and inhibitions.
In this new form, I have experienced freedom, bravery, and the
confidence to be the authentic writer I yearn to be.
As for the rest
of my life, I am a father to my seven year old daughter. I work as a
Library Assistant in my local library. I seek balance through
reading, traveling, charity work, exercise and contemplation. I am
interested in all things concerning Life, History and the Universe. I
studied Theatre, Philosophy and Art while in college. I am quite fond
of horses, turtles, whales and gibbons and enamored with most kinds
of birds. I enjoy tennis, cycling, kayaking and weightlifting. Some
of my idiosyncrasies include owning a
400lb and a 500lb hand grip, studying monasticism; especially, the
ancient mystics, and having an insatiable need to be near water,
trees and to see the moon each night. This is, no doubt, connected to
the "Cancer" in me (July 5 bday). I am most at peace on the
water, in the river or at the ocean. So much so, I might not speak
for hours or days in such an environment. In all other surroundings,
I pace anxiously like a panther in a cage.
Thank you so
much for visiting here. I hope you find something worthwhile to read
or explore. My goal for this site is to write stories of life by
sharing the art, reflections and musings of what I see and feel.
Perhaps, through this endeavor, we both will glimpse a piece of our
souls and what it means to live genuinely in the world.
August
Reed
Birmingham,
AL
May 28,
2012