📜 About This Substack
I’m Tim Cooney — writer, singer-songwriter, painter, photographer, and the founder of SunTurtle Studios.
This is the home of The Journeyman Project — a multimedia memoir project told in word, song, and image. At its center is my book, Taking the Helm: Compass and Tides — the story of a man born into a large Irish Catholic family shaped by secrecy, faith, and contradiction, who spent his life learning the hard difference between love and rescue, and finally learned to take the helm of his own life.
Around the book lives a three-volume soundtrack of original songs, a body of paintings and photography, a family archive of letters, photos, and home movies.
Every other week, I send out something from that world — a new essay on the writing, the songs, nature, and reinvention; a song from the soundtrack with the story behind it; a painting or photograph from the visual side of the project; and now and then a dispatch from the bridge between the analog life I was raised in and the digital one I’m living now.
I’ve been a sailor, a financial advisor, a father, and a grandfather, and I’m writing all of it down — seeking understanding and healing, as the road toward publication unfolds.
If any of that speaks to you, subscribe and come along: the book, the soundtrack, and the gallery of a life lived boldly.
— Tim
🎧 Tim on Spotify:
📀 Bandcamp: https://timcooney.bandcamp.com/follow_me
🎵 SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/timcooney-22
▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@timcooneysunturtlestudios
🌐 Everything in one place: https://www.sunturtlestudio.com
Come Aboard
Be part of a community of people who share your interests. Participate in the comments section, or support this work with a subscription.
🎁 Subscribe Free — the Gift Arrives in the First Minute
This isn’t just a newsletter — it’s a way into the archive. And it starts with a welcome gift, sent the moment you join:
🎵 “Angel’s by My Side” — an unreleased song from The Journeyman Vol III. A first listen, before anyone else.
📖 The opening pages of Taking the Helm — where a box of my mother’s letters opens, and the whole story begins.
🎨 Two paintings for your screen — Promise Land for your phone, Golden Hills of Petaluma for your desktop.
That’s my promise to you. After that, every other Friday I’ll send one real piece of this world — an essay, a song and the story behind it, a painting, a page from the archive — as the road toward publication unfolds.
If you’re a late bloomer, a survivor, or someone quietly rebuilding a life — you’re welcome here. Come aboard!
— Tim Cooney
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