We are in the midst of an artist residency! We have had Gaelynn Lea in town doing events and gearing up for the arrival of Kalyn Heffernan (frontman of the band Wheelchair Sports Camp). Gaelynn is back here for Kalyn’s residency, where the two will be writing and recording music together with Wheelchair Sports Camp’s Gregg Ziemba before going out on a Tiny Mountain Tour!
Gaelynn Lea has a new memoir out (It Wasn’t Meant to Be Perfect, 2026), so I’ve gotten to ask her questions as part of our Science, Technology, and Society Seminar Series (and there’s a recording), and she also spent time at Blacksburg Books, our favorite local bookstore, with another interview, more songs, and book signing.
They go out on tour in a few days after some collaborative time together here. You can catch them on tour and in person across the following times and places (and you can see this schedule for links to tickets and directions):
- Thursday, October 8 @ Davidson College, Davidson, NC
- Friday, October 9 @ UNC Asheville, Asheville, NC
- Saturday, October 10 @ eyedrum Art and Music Gallery, Atlanta, GA
- Sunday, October 11 @ The Basement, Nashville, TN
- Tuesday, October 13 @ Roanoke College, Salem, VA
- Wednesday, October 14 @ UNC Greensboro, Greensboro, NC
- and they finish off the tour with events at University of Michigan on October 17 and 18!
Please check out the work of both artists on Bandcamp:
Special thanks to the CID LLC for hosting our guests on campus, the STS department for enabling shenanigans aplenty (and the assistance of Joe Forte and team on the STS seminar series), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for making any of this possible through the Just Dis Tech Grant, to folks in the Music Department for aiding with instruments and space, to ICAT for additional space and support, and to our artists themselves for getting all this worked out! Amazing to see disabled storytelling and music on display throughout our region in this way. So honored to play a part!
