Musician/novelist Sands Hall and poet/storyteller Doc Dachtler share an evening of music, poetry and stories at the historic Nevada Theatre. The two are veterans of Nevada County's accomplished literary community.

Sands Hall’s music falls squarely in the Americana tradition, lacing elements of her folk roots with country, blues, and jazz. She’s also a prize-winning author and teacher, as well as an accomplished theatre artist. She’ll be accompanied by percussionist Kit Bailey, and is delighted to be sharing an evening of poetry and song with the inimitable Doc Dachtler.

When Sands was fourteen, her father purchased for her, from a hard-up U.C. Berkeley grad student, a Martin 000-18, on which she wrote her first song. A teacher of creative writing, and author of a novel, a memoir, short stories, plays, poems, and essays, Sands brings this delight in language to her lyrics. Her extensive work as a theatre artist — she’s an actor, director, and playwright — gives her a stylish yet deeply honest performing presence.

In addition to songs, Sands’s writing includes a memoir, Reclaiming My Decade Lost in Scientology (Counterpoint; finalist, Northern California Book Awards); a novel, Catching Heaven (Ballantine; a Penguin/Random House Reader’s Circle Selection and a Willa Award Finalist); and a book of writing essays and exercises, Tools of the Writer’s Craft. Her plays include an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, and the comic/drama Fair Use, which explores the “is it plagiarism?” controversy surrounding Wallace Stegner’s novel, Angle of Repose, and also the topic of a recent essay by Sands in Alta Journal.

Her directing credits run the gamut from Shakespeare to Giradoux to a production of The Fantasticks (Colorado Shakespeare Festival); most recently, this past spring, she directed the play, Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed for Sierra Stages, and just returned from directing a staged reading of her play, Fair Use, as a fundraiser for Foote Park in Boise, Idaho.

After graduating from U.C. Davis with a degree in philosophy, Doc Dachtler moved to the San Juan Ridge to be a school teacher in the one room schoolhouse that is now the North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center. He became fascinated by the people and the stories he discovered while living on the Ridge. Stories first became songs on guitar before he began to sink his teeth into the art of poetry.

Dachtler is the author of four books and has recorded two music albums: “Too Funky For You” and “The Buffalo Freeway”

“I started writing poems and stories in the mid-70s. I've been writing ever since. I do keep at it. It’s really work,” he said.

“It’s a job. You have to sit down and work at it. I try to reveal something about humans and reality and what humans are involved in, what they think and where they are headed. I look around and see things, all kinds of forms of life - insects, wildlife and natural forces,” he said.

Dachtler lived on the North San Juan Ridge from 1967 to 1983. It’s a place where the back to the land movement was strong and people chose to live close to nature. He built his home in the early 1970s and helped others in the community to build the Oak Tree School. Now he lives in town, but his time in the small community and the friendships he developed had a deep impact on his life.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder is one of those friends. Snyder mentored Dachtler with the form, ideas and outlook of his first two books. Other literary influences include Wendell Berry and Steve Sanfield.

When something taps a nerve, that’s when Dachtler knows he has an interesting idea to explore. The mysteries of the natural world weave through his poems.

“There’s a grace to all of existence. The world is a great mystery to me. It deserves reverence and care. I have a sense of awe of everything, really, It’s almost like a kind of prayer.”

Sometimes poem leads to story and other times story leads to poem. Dachtler will read poems from three books and share stories. Books and broadsides will be available for sale.

Date and Time: October 13, 2022, 7:00pm.

Venue:
Nevada Theatre
 401 Broad Street
Nevada City, CA

Tickets: $30 premium reserved seating, $20 general admission. Tickets online at www.paulemerymusic.com.

Webpage:
http://paulemerymusic.com/
https://paulemerymusic.com/sands-hall-doc-dachtler/
https://sandshall.com/

“Sands is a troubadour of the highest caliber and in the best sense of the tradition… her lyrics create a rarely-achieved visual context, with well-crafted melodies that are facilitated by skilled and creative guitar work.” – BanjoBones.com

“Here in Doc’s book the quirky lives of farmers, ranchers, miners and new settlers of the Sierra Nevada comes through funny and bare. What an ear! And what a calm and compassionate sense of work and love shores up these well-dug poems and stories.” – Gary Snyder

For more info https://nevadatheatre.com/events/paul-emery-presents-nevada-city-live-sands-hall-and-doc-dachtler/.