Sara Mae | |
|---|---|
| Genres | Indie, Bedroom pop |
| Occupations | Musician, Writer |
| Labels | Audio Antihero |
Sara Mae Henke is a writer and musician based in Philadelphia, PA. They founded the band The Noisy, [1] [2] [3] and have released two poetry collections as Sara Mae. [4] [5]
Sara Mae was raised on Chesapeake Bay, before relocating to Boston, [6] [7] and later Knoxville, [8] [9] where they received their MFA from the University of Tennessee. In 2021, they were a Sewanee Writers' Conference Scholar, [10] [5] received a Graduate Creative Writing Award in 2022, [11] and were also a Big Ears Music Festival Artist Scholar in 2023. [12] [13]
While living in Boston in 2016, Sara Mae began writing for Boston Hassle, [14] in addition to performing poetry locally, [15] [16] [7] and winning a Boston Poetry Slam in 2017. [17] They published their debut poetry collection, Priestess of Tankinis through Game Over Books in 2018. [18] [5] [19]
In 2023, they were a finalist in the Just Buffalo Literary Center Poetry Fellowship, [20] their poetry was featured in Phoenix Magazine's "Issue 65" publication and exhibit, [21] and their second collection, Phantasmagossip, won that year's Vinyl45 chapbook competition. [22] [23] Phantasmagossip was then published via YesYes Books in March 2025, [4] [24] and Sara Mae accompanied the release with a reading a tour. [25] [26]
On October 31, 2025, Sara Mae published an excerpt from their upcoming Lawn Madonna novella on The Alternative. [27] [28]
Sara Mae has also contributed poetry, [29] [30] [31] fiction, [32] and reviews [33] [34] to numerous music and literary publications, [35] including The Georgia Review, [13] Poetry Foundation, [36] FENCE, The Adroit Journal, and American Literary Review. [37] [38] [39]
Sara Mae began writing and self-releasing music as The Noisy in 2019 with Day Night Dress, [40] [2] [41] which was followed by the Charm Bracelet EP in 2021. [42] [43] In 2022, they released the Junie B Jones & The Strawberry Moons, a collection of demos from a "Song-a-Day" project, [44] and recorded a radio session for WDVX. [45]
Sara Mae evolved the project into a band lineup, [2] [41] and in 2023, The Noisy released the “Morricone” single, [46] [47] and crowd-funded the recording of their debut album The Secret Ingredient Is More Meat, [48] [49] before relocating to Philadelphia. [3] [50] [51]
The album was preceded by the “Ballerino” [52] and “Backlit” [53] singles before its self-release on May 24, 2024. [54] [55] The release was followed by a video for “Violet Lozenge.” [3]
In 2025, the band signed with the Audio Antihero label to issue a deluxe edition of the debut album, entitled ‘The Secret Ingredient Is Even More Meat,’ [56] [57] which featured new and unreleased material, [2] [1] as well as radio session for WVKR. [58] [59]
The “Twos” single was issued in June, [60] [61] and was followed by “Grenadine,” [62] [63] “Nightshade,” [2] and “Neckline (Deluxe Version)” [64] [65] before the deluxe album's release on October 24, 2025, [66] with a video for “Tony Soprano (Deluxe)” [67] [68] premiering on KLOF Mag the day prior. [1]
The original and reissued ...More Meat album album received positive coverage and support from Under the Radar Magazine, [2] KLOF Mag, [1] Jenesaispop, [69] WXPN, [70] Rockdelux, [71] God Is In the TV, [65] Spectrum Culture, [72] Muso's Guide, [73] [68] [74] Post-Trash, [75] The Alternative, [76] [77] [78] and other outlets. [79] [80] [81]
The “Grenadine” single reached No.3 in the Hype Machine “Most Posted” chart, [82] and “Twos” reached No.1 in the “Popular Now” and “Highlights” charts. [83] [84]
The releases received airplay from BBC Radio Scotland, [60] [64] WSUM, [85] Dandelion Radio, [86] WNYU, [87] WMFO, [88] CJSW, [89] [53] and KXLU, [90] as well as the band recording sessions for KGNU, [91] WORT, [92] Y-Not Radio, [93] and WVKR. [94]
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