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Chelsea Lynn LaBate (Ten Cent Poetry ) is an award winning songwriter, author and poet. She is the First Prize Winner of Eddie’s Attic Shoot Out (other winners Indigo Girls, John Mayer), Asheville’s Brown Bag Songwriter Competition, and a finalist in the Brooklyn Songwriter (top 9 of 600).
She has taught songwriter classes, poetry classes and retreats nationally - at camps, community centers and universities. She is the composer for her own Ten Cent Orchestra, author of Songcrafter™ A Songwriter’s Companion and producer of Songcrafter™ Radio. She has released six albums including Appalachian Eyes produced by Grammy Award Winning producer, Neal Merrick Blackwood.
She has written six books of short poems in a collection called The Song Remains (under her pen name Lumin), as well as three collections of long format poetry, Free Roses, The Deli and Poems for the New Earth. She has also written a memoir titled Falling Together : A Songwriter's Memoir.
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Just before the pandemic, Chelsea had a profound awakening. She found herself communicating with spirits and other entities beyond the veil. She completely opened up psychically, but then was cursed by extreme paranoia and psychosis. She was then hospitalized, but even the medications couldn't pull her out of her altered state. She was in a trance for over three years. This experience would become her collection of poetry, Free Roses, published by Mezcalita Press under the invite of Oklahoma's Poet Laureate, Nathan Brown.
After shaking off lables like schizophrenic and bi-polar, she is now back to living a healthy and happy life, running, attending yoga classes, meditating, writing and playing her guitar.​
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INTERVIEWS
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The Porch: Artists Coping with Their Mental Health Through a Year of Turmoil
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Poet Chelsea Lynn LaBate on Mental Health and the Creative Process
PERSPECTIVES: A poet finds inspiration in mental illness
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