The Lo-Down
Lois Walden with Margot Harley
Author, librettist, singer, songwriter, record producer, performer, teaching artist & creative spirit...Lois Walden is a creative polymath who embraces life and inspires others through her writing, music and teaching.
Her debut novel, One More Stop (Arcadia, 2010) was a Lambda Literary Awards finalist and a Waterstone's New Voices finalist. She is also the author of the novel Afterworld (Arcadia, 2013).
Lois is the co-librettist of the opera Mila: The Great Sorcerer, with the late Jeane Claude van Itallie and composer Andrea Clearfield. The opera was showcased at the 2019 PROTOTYPE Festival in NYC. She is currently working on the libretto of a new opera CLARA, with composer Kyle Gann.
Lois recently became a hospice volunteer with Hudson Valley Hospice and is a trained death doula, a calling she discovered while reexamining her life working on essays for her memoir.
As a writer for the non-fiction, not-for-profit project High School Yearbook, Lois has interviewed young people with cancer all across the U.S. The project provides support and a platform for them to share their stories with others experiencing similar challenges around the world.
For two decades Lois traveled America for The Acting Company, engaging with teens in both rural towns and inner-city schools - helping them tap into their own creativity, and teaching them how to understand themselves and their world through classic works in theatre and literature. Her work with students of all ages continues through outreach programs at Sarah Lawrence College, Bard & Vassar College.
In 2021, after a lifelong fear of death and dying and a series of tragic losses in her own life, obsessed with the idea that it was her destiny, Lois began training as a hospice volunteer. Working with Hudson Valley Hospice, Lois now provides emotional and spiritual support to patients and families, including grief and bereavement support.
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Lois' life and music have been profiled on CBS Sunday Morning and Good Morning America.
On Screen
As a television screenwriter in LA Lois enjoyed the good fortune of working with a host of major film and television artists including Dionne Warwick, Jane Fonda, Kathleen Battle and Michel Colombier.
Lois was also an actor whose film and TV credits include:
Unsung (Documentary) (2013)
Coma (Michael Crichton, 1978)
Harris & Company, NBC Universal (1979)
The Dream Makers (1975)
Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (1975) - Winner of 2 primetime Emmys
I Love You Goodbye (1974)
Mean Streets (Martin Scorcese, 1973)
On Stage
Lois co-created, directed, co-wrote and hosted the inaugural season of Songmasters Inside Out, a 13-week series of live performances at the Algonquin Oak Room celebrating the great masters of songwriting and the stars who made their music famous. Performing classic compositions and her own original material, Walden shared the stage with more than 65 artists, including Roberta Flack, Al Jarreau, Gilberto Gil, Ben E. King, Laura Nyro, Jimmy Webb and Brian Wilson.
The Songmasters show Gospel Music from the Church to the Charts led directly to the founding of the popular gospel group, SISTERS OF GLORY which at various times featured Thelma Houston, Chaka Khan, CeCe Peniston, Mavis Staples, Phoebe Snow, Albertina Walker, Diane Reeves, and Lois Walden.
Lois' solo albums include Walden, and Traveller which she also co-produced.
Lois created the lyrics for American Dreams Lost and Found based on the book by Studs Terkel and performed at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, NYC.
Most recently Lois appeared at the Laurie Beechman Theatre in New York to perform selections of her own music and other pieces, in FOOTNOTES - a one-woman show, arranged by Paul Greenwood & directed by Barry Kleinbort.