The Wednesday Writers Room has a Thursday concert at the Palladium Side Door Cabaret. And even though all six members of the musical collective are individually busy live performers, this will be just the second time they’ve all been together, guitars at the ready, since the group was formed.
To explain: Singer/songwriter Dean Johanesen, who lives in Manatee County, does a lot of cross-country traveling, to music festivals, guitar pulls and workshops. Therefore, he was familiar with a fun exercise among writers wherein a small group is given a random “prompt,” and tasked with writing a song using it as a theme or in the lyrics.
“A prompt can be a word, a sentence or whatever,” says Johanesen, whose specialty is Texas Swing music. “We’ve had ‘monument,’ we’ve had ‘television,’ we’ve had ‘please lie to me,’ ‘coulda woulda shoulda,’ all these different prompts. I have always been too chicken to take part, in all honesty, because I feel like I write slow. I take my time. I kind of overthink things.”
The Wednesday Writers Room, recruited and assembled by Johanesen in early 2025, includes writers from St. Petersburg, Tampa, Bradenton, Venice and Holmes Beach.
That’s a four-county split.
They “meet” via private Facebook videos. Every other Wednesday, everyone submits two prompts, Johanesen prints them, cuts them into little slips of paper, then literally puts them in a hat (most likely a Stetson, considering his chosen genre).
“They all take the prompt and they write their own song to it; then they show up next time with their version of that prompt. That song.”
Once the prompt is chosen, the writers have two weeks to post a video of the song’s performance, with the lyrics.
Regardless of his earlier claim of fowl play, Johanesen went all in once the group was given its first prompt.
“Twenty-six songs later, I’ve showed up every two weeks with a new song,” he says. “The idea is to stop giving yourself an excuse, or pulling yourself away from being creative if you’re a songwriter: Lock into that and make it part of your regular routine.”
New York-born Johanesen’s family moved around the country. He lived in Atlanta for six years. His Florida-born wife’s mother, and his mother, live in the Sarasota area. So they relocated here, in 2000.
He has performed, among many other places, at SERFA, the Will McLean Festival, the Dripping Springs Songwriter Festival, the Panama City Songwriter Festival and the Smoky Mountain Songwriter Festival.
After cutting his musical teeth on jazz and rock guitar, Johanesen discovered Latin jazz guitar – Ottmar Liebert was his gateway picker – then the swing guitar jazz of Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club of Paris, which is not terribly dissimilar from Texas Swing music.
And that’s what hooked him through the nose. One thing led to another.
Rebekah Pulley. Publicity photo.
The other members of the Wednesday Writers Room, playing at Thursday’s show, are:
Rebekah Pulley from St. Petersburg. The soulful songwriter mines rich veins of Americana, including roots-rock, blues, old-school country and western, jazz and even gospel. Website.
Scott Hunt from Tampa. Playing fiddle, mandolin, banjo and guitar, Hunt is also a member of Cassie Jean and the Fireflies, Whiskey County and TrueGritzz. Website.
Doug Burns from Venice. Self-described as an “alt-country” singer-songwriter. “Music,” he told an interviewer, “is the common demoninator of happiness and it brings me a sense of satisfaction that I can contribute to it. If just one person hears one of my songs and they enjoy it and it makes them happy, then I have accomplished my goal.” Website.
Bill Vinhage. Publicity photo.
Mike Sales from Holmes Beach. Known for his long-running “Live Music on the Beach” Friday evening residency at the Anna Maria Island Beach Café. “Plays guitar, with a touch of calypso rhythm, and sings tunes he writes in the chill island style and positive vibe he’s known for.” Website.
Bill Vinhage from Bradenton. In addition to his skills as a guitar-playing singer/songwriter, Vinhage is an accomplished tenor saxophonist. Website.
And yes, each and every one of them is equal to the challenge presented by a song idea drawn from a hat.
“Being part of a group and having accountability is a big part of it,” Johanesen says. “When you’ve got to show up for a group, sometimes it adds the fire that you need to be creative.”
The Writers Room Showcase begins at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Click here for tickets.