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A14 PEOPLE / ARTS
Wednesday 10 July 2024
Melissa Etheridge connects with incarcerated women in new

docuseries ‘I’m Not Broken’

By BROOKE LEFFERTS supportive response?
Associated Press ETHERIDGE: It was even more
NEW YORK (AP) — Melissa than I thought it would be.
Etheridge realized two career That they jumped right on
dreams with her new docu- the call-and-response, and
series “Melissa Etheridge: I’m that they’ve got footage of
Not Broken”: performing for the women saying “I’m not
incarcerated women and re- broken!” means everything.
cording the concert for a live Because just saying “I’m not
album.The singer-songwriter broken,” just saying “I’m worth
grew up in Leavenworth, Kan- it,” that was the whole inten-
sas an area home to a well- tion for it. I hope people love
known federal penitentiary it because it’s a rockin’ song.
and other state and military It’s a Melissa Etheridge song.
prisons and when she was I really like that.
starting out, she found a re- AP: In the series, you play the
ceptive audience in people new song for your wife, TV
incarcerated there. Inspired writer-producer Linda Wal-
by Johnny Cash’s famous lem for feedback. Do you
prison concerts, the two- often solicit her opinion on
time Grammy winner won new music?
permission for a live show ETHERIDGE: I love living with a
at the Topeka Correctional creative woman. I love being
Facility, a Kansas women’s This image released by Paramount+ shows Melissa Etheridge, foreground and Linda Wallem married to someone whom
prison, with a film crew docu- during the filming of the docuseries “Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken.” Associated Press I really trust their taste, be-
menting the process. In the cause she doesn’t like a lot
series, which starts streaming Etheridge, 63, spoke to The able. This could be my sister. they were like, “No, there’s no of things. She’s in entertain-
on Paramount+ this week, Associated Press recently This could be my friends. There live albums.” So finally! And ment — she’s been a direc-
Etheridge meets and corre- about her emotional 2023 but for the grace of God go I. I love this. It’s a really spe- tor, a producer. She’s really
sponds with several people performance and the new AP: How was realizing your cial concert. The setlist was used to telling people, “Hey,
in the prison, learning how album. Answers have been dream of recording a live curated for them. It had the you might be able to do it a
they ended up there. Their edited for clarity and brevity. album? few hit songs in it, but it had little better” — very famous
stories inspired her to write AP: How was the experience ETHERIDGE: When I grew up in really deep tracks that really people. So I know she’s not
her new song, “A Burning of meeting the inmates and the ‘60s and ‘70s, live albums dealt with that longing and pulling any punches for me.
Woman.” Many of the women hearing their stories? were it. I mean, “Frampton guilt and pain. And when she likes (the work)
had experienced drug ad- ETHERIDGE: When I went and Comes Alive!” That’s what AP: You performed the new it means a lot to me because
diction, and Etheridge said heard their stories, I was blown you do if you can get to a song at the live concert and it I don’t really have a lot of
she connected with them away that they were all moth- point as a rock ‘n’ roll artist. I echoes some of the pain you people that I can trust and
after her 21-year-old son’s ers. That just really broke my always wanted to and by the heard in the inmates’ stories. be so raw with. I’m blessed
2020 opioid-related death. heart. And then just how relat- time I got there in the ‘90s, How did it feel to see their to have a partner like that. q

Viola Davis and James Patterson to collaborate on novel set in the

contemporary, rural South

By HILLEL ITALIE adult fiction for Davis, “Corduroy Takes a Bow. range from Bill Clinton to “Finding Me” and contact-
AP National Writer whose previous books in- ” It’s the latest high-profile Dolly Parton. The novel ing Davis, said in a state-
NEW YORK (AP) — An up- clude the memoir “Finding partnership for Patterson, “Eruption,” for which Pat- ment that the actor has a
coming thriller about a Me” and the picture story whose previous co-authors terson completed a man- “gift for storytelling” and a
female judge in the con- uscript left behind by the “generous spirit.”
temporary, rural South will late Michael Crichton, is “I could not have asked for
have two very famous, one of the summer’s most a better partner than Vio-
and very different, authors: popular books. la,” Patterson said.
Oscar winner Viola Davis “James’s ability to weave Additional details about
and mega-selling novelist compelling narratives with the book, including film
James Patterson. depth and suspense is un- rights, were not immediate-
Little, Brown and Company paralleled, and I am hon- ly available.
announced Tuesday that ored to work alongside Financial terms were not
Davis and Patterson are him,” Davis said in a state- disclosed.
collaborating on a nov- ment. The project was handled
el, currently untitled and “Writing about a charac- by Little, Brown; Patterson’s
scheduled for 2025 or 2026, ter as compelling as Judge representatives, Robert Bar-
in which the “dynamic and Mary Stone has been an nett and Deneen Howell of
brilliant” Judge Mary Stone extraordinary experience, Williams & Connolly, and
faces “a decision with seis- and I believe readers will JVL Media, a “full-service
mic repercussions for her Viola Davis appears at The Albies at the New York Public Library be deeply moved by her media packaging firm and
small county, and poten- on Sept. 28, 2023, left, and author James Patterson poses for a journey.” independent publisher”
tially the whole nation.” portrait in New York on Aug. 30, 2016. Patterson, who came up that Davis helped found.q
It will be the first work of Associated Press with the idea after reading