Deb Talan

I am a visual artist, as well as a musician, and have been writing and illustrating with the goal of publishing a children's book for a number of years now. I've got two stories mostly finished, working in between music career, painting (fine art,) and raising my 3 kids.

I have been a professional musician (touring, writing and recording songs, getting songs in tv and film, etc.) for 25 years. During that time, I also spent 5 years homeschooling my 3 children, when they were young, and we (I was in a band with my now ex-husband,) were touring the country and only coming back to Iowa City for a few months at a time, between tours.

I taught a twice-weekly songwriting workshop with kids ages 8 to 12 at Nolte's ICON academy that was running during the COVID years. I really enjoyed this, the kids were curious and creative and since then, I've taught a couple of other songwriting workshops for teens (Girls Rock Iowa City), and for adults (online, through the Oldtown School of Folk Music, in Chicago.)

I created curriculum for my kids aged 4-8. I loved this time, and it was also obvious when being in a position of teacher was not what my kids needed from me,. At that point, I was also ready for a change, and sought to support them in expanding their sense of our community, their hometown, and the wider world outside the bubble of our family.

I created a curriculum based around folk songs, taught each grade to play basic rhythms and melodies. I really enjoyed that year, but during this time I realized I needed to be creating, writing songs, more myself, that that was the work that fueled me the most. So I stopped teaching as a focus of my worklife after this, and had a series of coffee shop and art store jobs to supplement my life as a musician.