Welcome!
Thanks for visiting my site. I’m a writer, yoga teacher and noise artist.
I’m happy to announce my new book, Mona Cost Returns to the Black House! The novel is now available in paperback and ebook! I am deeply grateful. Special thanks to David Russell Stempowski for the beautiful art and design!
Events
October 10. Mac’s Backs Books in Cleveland Heights. Free. I’ll be reading and discussing Mona Cost, and my talented, wonderful friend Kristen will be performing! Mac’s is such a cool place, and Kristen is wonderful, so I’m really excited. I will have books for sale, and then they will be available at Mac’s Backs after the reading.
October 20. Mistake by the Lake Records in Cleveland. (More details TBA) LAUNCH PARTY!!!
Private Yoga and Writing Coaching
I offer one-on-one or small group yoga sessions and writing coaching. If you are interested, check out the options below and email arhowland108@gmail.com. If you have my personal number or email address, feel free to reach out that way.
Private yoga sessions are a powerful way to deepen your practice.
We will consult beforehand, and I will design a class or series of classes for you. I also offer small group workshops or classes, if you have a few friends who would like to gather and learn about the history and philosophy or yoga, or learn meditative practices to help tap into creativity and healing, or to combine writing and yoga. Please feel free to reach out with questions! arhowland108@gmail.com.
Writing coaching includes feedback on your work and brainstorming sessions.
I love solving writing problems! I can help show you how to initiate the flow state, so you can tap into your creative center. I can also assist on the structural level of your work as well as with the micro/line level material. Novels are my favorite form, but I have experience with and enjoy working on short stories, poetry, nonfiction, and academic writing as well. To get started, reach out with any questions you have, and feel free to send a piece of writing for me to check out! arhowland108@gmail.com.
Private Yoga and Writing Coaching Offerings
Each offering includes an initial consultation through email or phone. In-person sessions will generally take place at your home or another place of your choosing. There is also a studio option.
30 minute in-person or zoom: $30
60 minute in-person or zoom: $50
90 minute in-person or zoom: $75
A block of five sessions will include a ten percent discount. You can also bring 1-2 friends and split the cost for a small group class or workshop.
60 minute studio session at Firehouse Yoga: $85
Email arhowland108@gmail.com or reach out to me through my personal number or email to set something up! For safety reasons, I can only offer private home-based sessions to people I know in real life. But I am happy to meet new people through zoom or at libraries for writing coaching. You can book a studio session at Firehouse Yoga here.
I also offer two group classes a week at Firehouse Yoga. La Mer (Tuesdays at 6:00 pm) and Gentle Yoga and Meditation (Thursdays at 7:30). You can learn more about my group classes and sign up here.
FREE COMMUNITY SATSANG
Yoga is for everyone. We meet the first Sunday of each month at 4:00 pm at Firehouse Yoga for free meditation, tea, and conversation. Please join us. I am happy to talk with you personally if you have any thoughts or questions about yoga you’d like to share. This event is free, but please register so you can be notified in case of cancellation or schedule change.
Thanks for checking out my work!
You can find out about my yoga background and philosophy here, my music here, and my writing here. Scroll down for latest information on upcoming shows, publications, workshops and classes.
I’m taking my first (intentional) break from music in 30 years. Last year, all my stuff broke. And–I feel I need to focus on building a strong foundation. I have ideas for recording and performing, but right now I am going deep with writing, yoga and homeschooling. I’ll keep you updated as I eventually return to music.
I’m planning on publishing a new novel in 2024–this one is pretty tiny, almost a novella, and follows a touring musician named Mona Cost as she returns home after three years on the road.
I published a book in 2022 called Beasts and Creature.
Beasts and Creature
You can get the paperback and ebook here!
Beasts and Creature is also available at these cool local shops!
My Mind’s Eye Records in Lakewood
Corner of the Sky Books & Beyond in Old Brooklyn
And these libraries!
Margot has quit noise music, painting and friends so she can smoke crack and space out with her cat Clarence in a rented room while working by day as a nursing home housekeeper. Margot just wants to be left alone, but she gets sucked into the drama of her eccentric dealers, and after witnessing a murder, is pulled into a dysfunctional relationship with a charismatic and violent woman. Margot tries to break free and make a life for herself, but as other players close in and dark secrets come to light, she must choose between the killer she’s grown to love, and a life of authentic relationships and artistic fulfillment.
Set in the grimy pre-smartphone days of Bush era Cleveland, Beasts and Creature could be called a mystic crime novel or a noise romance. Underground Rust Belt artists and enigmatic criminals run with Margot into darkness, often clutching at ghosts, sometimes slipping into radiance.
Beset by whiny, abusive exes and dueling crack dealers, a disenfranchised but self-aware artist struggles to stay alive and achieve her dreams in this lyrical, exciting tale. Bright, gentle, crack-addicted Margot is an utterly unique and compelling heroine to root for. Howland is an original, and this book is a crooked beauty.
— Clemintine Guirado
Cover art and design by David Russell Stempowski
You can get the paperback and ebook here!
Please contact me at Instagram @arhr108 or arhowland108@gmail.com if you are interested in discussing ways to pressure congress into passing climate legislation and ways to grow a more beautiful future.
I teach four classes at Firehouse Yoga. I love this studio. The owner, Nicole, cares deeply about making yoga accessible for everyone. She offers a sliding pay scale, pay what you can, no questions asked, as well as affordable monthly memberships. All the other teachers are doing excellent work. This is not a cookie-cutter studio. All bodies are welcome.
Check out the schedule, and you’ll see all kinds of classes, including a chair class, a Downward Doom class, some more vigorous styles, as well as many beginner classes. My classes tend towards awareness, contemplation and creativity for all levels of experience. I offer La Mer Yoga Tuesdays at 6:00, Basics Thursdays at 6:00, and Gentle Yoga and Meditation Thursdays at 7:30. I also offer seasonal workshops Forest Moon Yoga and Essential Yoga. You can check out class descriptions below.
New Class! Nicole and I are taking turns teaching Yin and Meditation
on Wednesdays at 7:30! Please feel free to reach out with questions.
CITY/RUINS: ART IN THE FACE OF INDUSTRIAL DECAY
This 2010 film by my dear friend Stephen Petrus is now on Youtube. He didn’t post it, but he will allow it since he’s out of copies to sell anyway. So, check it out if you get a chance! I was lucky enough to participate (though I was having a rough night the night of my interview, so I come across a bit flaky) along with my (then future ) husband Mitch, my brother Wyatt and many of my best friends. It’s a fantastic time capsule of what was going on in noise in Cleveland at that time, the time I was most active that felt like a natural climax of things we’d been working on for many years. There are performances and interviews by over 20 diverse artists. Check it out!
WORKSHOPS
Essential Yoga – Offered in the Spring and Fall.
Sign up here! We’ll practice together and then discuss the story of yoga and some of yoga’s key ideas and meditative practices. Then we’ll practice those! We’ll end with some restorative poses and optional massage.
Forest Moon Yoga Workshop – Recurring seasonally in March, June, September and December
Sign up here!
Yoga magick for artists, pagans, performers, witches, caregivers, writers, anarchists, introverts, musicians, activists, tantrics, permaculturalists, lovers of the earth and everyone!
This workshop is the full version of the weekly Forest Moon Yoga class. In addition to exploration and play with various yogic practices such as asana (body work), pranayama (breath/energy work), mudra (hand postures), visualization, and meditation, we will include writing exercises and optional shared reflection and conversation.
Appropriate for anyone who wants to deepen their intimacy with the respectfully applied art and magick of yoga. Maybe you would like to learn new contemplative practices, or maybe you have a creative project or challenge you can bring to the workshop. My intention is for you to leave the workshop filled with peace and inspiration, enthused to further contemplate and create with your newly unearthed insights.
You can sign up here, and here you will find descriptions of other classes at Firehouse Yoga.
Please feel free to subscribe or reach out. (If you sign up for the newsletter, please check email folders such as Spam, Promotions, etc. because this is a new site, so often my newsletters end up there–thanks!)
I want to mention that a lot of pictures on this site came from one of my favorite places, …Now That’s Class! in Cleveland, which is now under new ownership and is called No Class.
2023 SHOWS and RELEASES
February–Happy Dog
June–Little Rose
2022 SHOWS and RELEASES
Friday, July 1, I played a solo set opening for Unguent, along with Bbob+J. Guy and Some Symbols at the Little Rose Tavern.
Wednesday, May 25, I’ll be playing Ann B. Klorox again – this time at No Class. This will be my first gig at Class since Paul moved away and Emma took over – really looking forward to it. We will be opening for Cloud Rat (Michigan grind) as well as a bunch of other weird and heavy bands: The Body, Midwife, Orphaned and Griphook. 11213 Detroit Ave, Cleveland, 7pm, all ages, $15.
Wednesday, April 20th, I’ll be playing with Ann B. Klorox at the Little Rose Tavern, 14206 Lorain Ave in Cleveland. First show in two years! I think the show starts around 8, and there is no cover, but people can bring cash if they want. Also playing will be punk band Show Pink, who I have been enjoying all week. I look forward to playing with Kristen again and checking out the Little Rose, which I’ve heard is a very sweet place. The show is an art opening for paintings by Sadie Lee. I love paintings+noise+punk! (adults only for this gig)
TO KNOW HOW IT WILL END by Murderous Vision — contributed vocals and lyrics on “Turpentine Blood” vinyl DIFFICULT INTERACTIONS March 2022 (rerelease of DANVERS STATE RECORDINGS 2015 tape)
2021 RELEASES
First year since, I believe 2001 that I did not play a show!
But–I had one song come out. “Eidetic Amnesia” by Fascist Insect (my husband’s band since 2007–I’ve been a member since about 2014, but FI has been on a break since 2018. I’m glad he is planning on getting some stuff going in 2022!) “Eidetic Amnesia”came out on a Bandcamp comp called NOISE MEMORY = SHORT MEMORY released by Cleveland Weirdo Compilations. Check it out here! The comp is packed with sweet tracks by friends.
2020 SHOWS and RELEASES
August 2020: CABIN FEVER CLEANSED MY MIND vol. 2 CD on Chocolate Monk. “Forest Panther”
July 2020: MEETING DR. ANCIENT cassette and digital on Unifactor
I’m really grateful to have had the experience of creating this tape as part of a Unifactor batch of releases including awesome tapes by Whisker and my old friend Nate Scheible. Check out the Unifactor Bandcamp for their tapes as well. My brother recorded and mastered Meeting Dr. Ancient and did a great job as always focusing on monster volume and depth, and my good friend and one of my favorite artists, David Russell, did the artwork for all three tapes. 2020 has been a hard lonely year, so it has been good to feel connected to these friends through this project.
“Dark mystic and interdisciplinary artist Amanda R. Howland presents us with four tracks of simmering intensity on Meeting Dr. Ancient. Howland seethes in spirals of increasing intensity, moving from amplified voice into layers of disorienting vocal confusion that eventually get overtaken by blasts of crude electronics. Harsh but metered, these pieces build slowly and roll in waves of tension, creating the sense that a sinister unseen force is looming. Sixteen-minute closer “Meet Me In The River” runs itself slowly through a wringer of sickly low frequencies that bloom into concussions of evil, unrelenting noise. Making it through to the other side feels like an unholy baptism.”
-Fred Thomas
Here are some cool reviews of Meeting Dr. Ancient! Check them out, and you’ll also get turned on to some other cool releases. SLUG Magazine Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp: August.
SOLO as ARH at Yellow House with SUNK HEAVEN, DUECE AVE and LEY LINES
March 5, 2020 9:00 PM, $5-10 bucks for touring artists
Yellow House–email amandarosehowland3@gmail.com for address
PIZZA NIGHT ON TWITCH
July 13, 2020 9 pm twitch.tv/apizzanight
Drunk Transaction
Madalyn Merkey
Amanda R. Howland
Forest Management
Fundraiser for Thurgood Marshall College Fund! (Dollar for dollar donation match!)
I had some other cool gigs lined up, but all are cancelled. Check back for online shows or other updates. I anticipate a couple releases in 2020.
“I remember my first visit with my guru. He had shown that he read my mind. So I looked at the grass and I thought, ‘My god, he’s going to know all the things I don’t want people to know.’ I was really embarrassed. Then I looked up and he was looking directly at me with unconditional love.”
“The universe is an example of love. Like a tree. Like the ocean. Like my body. Like my wheelchair. I see the love.”— Ram Dass
