Leah Dawn Found Her Calling in a Listening Room

For Leah Dawn, songwriting wasn’t something she stumbled into gradually. It arrived like a bolt of lightning.

About a decade ago, following a divorce, the Houston-based musician attended the Red River Songwriters Festival in Red River, New Mexico. It was her first real experience in a listening room, surrounded by songwriters performing their own work for an audience there to listen.

“I knew that songwriting was my calling,” Dawn says. “I had finally found the exact community and style of music I was interested in creating.”

She immediately started writing songs on the plane ride home.

Since then, Dawn has written more than 100 original songs while balancing an engineering career and raising two daughters. Her songs draw on her own experiences and the lives of people around her, finding stories in the emotions, joys, and struggles of everyday life.

For Dawn, songwriting has also become something much more personal. “Songwriting continues to provide a way for me to process and express my feelings and emotions,” she says. “Truly, it saved my life and will continue to be my constant companion for the years to come.”

That belief in the power of a song extends into the community she has built around songwriting. Dawn is the co-founder of the Iron Bridge Songwriting Retreat, an annual gathering at Lake Tawakoni, Texas. She also organizes a songwriting prompt group for half of each year. Participants receive a prompt every month, then gather to perform what they created.

“It’s such a blast to hear all the different interpretations of the prompt and get feedback on your song,” she says.

In summer 2025, Dawn released her debut album, Livin’ the Dream, produced by Mandy Rowden. She has since been performing solo to support the record, bringing her country sound, with touches of folk and Americana, to audiences around Texas.

She also splits her time between Houston and Austin, where she plays bass with the all-women country band Rhinestone Renegades.

But original songwriting remains her first love. One of Dawn’s frustrations is how difficult it can be to find venues built around original music. She often mixes covers with her own songs when performing for general audiences, but nothing compares to the environment that first inspired her a decade ago.

“A 100% original set in a listening room environment where people really engage and relate to your original music is the best,” she says.

That connection is central to the way Dawn performs. She likes talking to the audience, telling stories, and explaining where songs came from before playing them, because for her, the story and the song have always belonged together.

Dawn believes music is a universal love language that can heal. Ten years and more than 100 songs after that first listening-room experience, she’s still finding ways to share some of that healing with everyone willing to listen.

Keep Up with Leah Dawn

Find Leah Dawn’s music, upcoming performances, and more at leahdawnmusic.com.