Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and musician Tori Amos makes her children’s book debut with Tori and the Muses, a fanciful tale exploring the source of inspiration, illustrated by Demelsa Haughton. In the story, young Tori—a gifted pianist—reveals her bond with the 11 ethereal Muses who have mythically appeared to her since she was a baby, encouraging her to create her own style of music, and she then discovers how others in her life find their own Muses. In a surprise move, Amos simultaneously released a nine-song album entitled The Music of Tori and the Muses, as a musical companion to the book. PW spoke with Amos about her creative drive and the power of artists and art.

Did a visit from your Muses inspire you to take on a children’s book project?

Well, to be completely truthful, Francesco Sedita at Penguin Workshop reached out to me and said, “I’ve read your liner notes, and you thank the faeries and the Muses.” And I said I didn’t think anybody took the time to read my liner notes! Then he said, “Can we talk about this?” So he flew down to what I call the beach house, in Florida, and he started asking me about it. I explained to him that I’ve known them my whole life—there isn’t a time I haven’t known them. And we started jumping off from there.

What a wonderful surprise to get accompanying new music with this book! And it’s a true listen-along, chronologically following the scenes and incorporating some of the phrasing in your text. Did you always envision it as a tandem package?

My husband, who’s a sound engineer that I’ve worked with since 1994, just looked at me one night and said, “You’re putting music with this, right? I mean, a book about music and the Muses and the fairies you’ve known your whole life, and there’s no sound? Are you serious?” And I just kind of went, “Okay, Okay, you win. You’re right.” And that was well over a year ago. So, then I started pulling the music team in, and the songs started appearing. It became very much [about] looking at the illustrations, going back to the story, and then expanding that with the music.

How do Demelsa Haughton’s illustrations extend and enhance the story?

Oh, I’m just over the moon. The beauty, the precision of her illustrations, it’s everything I had hoped for. We worked with Lynn Portnoff [executive art director at Penguin Workshop], who was driving the team on our project. Francesco was making a joke about it during the q&a at the bookstore launch [March 2] at Barnes & Noble in Union Square. He was saying that they were giggling at my art notes because I was taking pictures of my shoe collection—I’ve loved shoes since I can remember, and I’ve kept my shoes for all these years. I was taking pictures of them on my phone and sending them to the art team and saying, “Okay, please, this Muse needs Aquazzura, this Muse needs the gold Manolo Blahnik, and this one needs the Keds, thank you.” And Demelsa absolutely did use them. You can see the Native American Muse is wearing the gold Manolo Blahnik heel that I have in my collection; and the Muse from India, you can see when her garment swirls out on the last page, that she’s wearing the gold Aquazzura shoe.

I also sent descriptions of the Muses—and they’re very archetypal—including where they come from, and some of their backstory, and some of the song references through my catalog that relate to them. Those notes were sent through the art team to Demelsa, and she would give examples, and they were spot-on.

In your 2020 memoir Resistance, you wrote that artists have a critical role to play in our society during turbulent times. What can artists do, as our nation has entered an increasingly troubling period?

Artists are the panacea. They will be the medicine. They are the exit ramp to the galaxy, to a benevolent universe. Some will feel that they are called to reflect in real time what is going on in an actual type of art expression. Others will choose allegory. Others will choose worldbuilding, storytelling, so that we metaphorically are sitting around that fire, gathering together as we sing songs, dance, and beat the drum, literally or figuratively.

It’s only us stopping us from doing that. There is a lot we can’t control right now in this world, but there are some things we can, and I’ve said before this moment, the only way to deal with destructive forces is to out-create it. That’s the only way that I can see.

So, to those who have a pen, a paintbrush, a guitar, a trowel, a frying pan, flour, a bowl: I have faith in the Muses, and I believe that they are there for us. How we find them—and this is the story of the book—is different for each of us, and sometimes it takes us time to find them.

Tori and the Muses by Tori Amos, illus. by Demelsa Haughton. Penguin Workshop, $19.99 Mar. 4 ISBN 978-0-593-75034-6