the songwriter

As with many songwriters, Clark showed a passion for songwriting at a young age.  By the time she was in 7th grade, she had written her first complete song that was produced and made into a music video with her theatre friends.  “You’re No One” reflected the feelings of many young people, especially shy awkward ones.  And while it may not have won a GRAMMY, it started her down the path to use songwriting for working through life’s issues. 

And why wouldn’t she?  After all, Clark comes from a songwriting family.  In fact, her cousin, Drew Womack, lead singer with Lonestar, co-wrote Kenny Chesney’s first #1 hit, “She’s Got It All”.  Drew went on to pen several top 10 hits for himself, as well.  

Clark picked up the guitar at age 13, which she still uses as her main instrument of choice for songwriting, and began performing at songwriter rounds and showcases through out Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and later California.  Most notably, she was asked to perform her original songs at Loretta Lynns’ Ranch when she was 14.  

Throughout her teens Clark continued her music education at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA for three sublime summers, focusing on songwriting.  During her last summer at the Five Week Program, she auditioned and won a vocal scholarship and a place on the highly coveted Singer, Songwriter, Performer Showcase  at age 15 where professor Melissa Ferrick said “Clark writes award winning lyrics” after hearing her song “A Little Faith”.  

Clark began to be paid to perform both acoustically and with her newly formed band for many charity, radio, and city events.  This gave her the opportunity to perform popular songs to experience what people like to hear and what makes a hit song.  She also won First Place for Guitar Performance at her highly competitive high school.  Life was good.

Onward to college, Clark moved west.  As a student at the University of Southern California (USC), she interned with a boutique music publisher in Nashville, TN and with The Recording Academy in Santa Monica, CA.  She also began writing about new topics and in new genres, expanding her knowledge and her experiences widening.  At one point, a college professor told her she had a lot of potential, so she wrote “Potential” which earned her the honor of being named Artist to Watch by Young Hollywood.  

While in her freshman year, Clark’s hometown of Parkland, FL came under siege when a crazy school shooter took aim at fellow students at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School.  This inspired her to write “Shot Down (Stand Up)”, boldly speaking truth to power and voicing the concerns of her peers.  “This problem has answers that won’t be found / If every time we try to stand up, we get shot down.”  The music video was filmed at a Los Angeles Unified High School, and was exclusively premiered by RollingStone Magazine.  She wrote this song independently while on a Songwriter Retreat in the peaceful Catskill Mountains in NY (where she had won a full scholarship to attend the Judy Stakee Songwriting Retreat).  AXS named her an Artist to Watch for writing this song.

“I knew that songwriting had helped me get through hard times before, but this was so much more emotionally charged than any topic I had written about.  I wanted to write a song that could inspire people and make them realize the weight of this issue.”  

She graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Thornton School of Music and the Marshall School of Business, all while still writing songs independently and with other songwriters on her projects, songwriting on other artist’s projects, and performing songwriter rounds and showcases around L.A. and Nashville.  

Clark credits her major influences are songwriting superstars Taylor Swift, John Mayer and Stevie Nicks. 

Since then, Clark has been racking up Songwriter Awards in many genres, including Pop, Folk, Adult Contemporary and Country.  Clark most recently won the 2024 USA Songwriting Competition OVERALL Third Prize Winner for her First Prize in Pop winning song “my best friend’s getting married”, and Finalist in Folk for “evergreen” where she describes healing from a covert narcissist and finally finding peace without their presence; 2024 20th Annual IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards) Finalist for “Do I Miss You?” which was also premiered with American Songwriter and the music video premiered on Pop Culture; 2023 Unsigned Only Finalist in Adult Contemporary for “If there Was No Traffic in L.A.” and the list goes on. 

Additionally, Clark’s solely written original “It’s Christmas Time” hit Top 15 on the Holiday Chart (Media Base) in 2023 and Top 15 on the What’s in-Store Chart (Media Base) in 2023 and 2024.

“A lot of time you can feel very alone and like no one understand the struggles you’re going through,” Clark explains, “but whenever I hear a song that describes exactly what I’m feeling, that connection makes it so much less painful.”

And as if Clark is not busy enough, she has also built a foundation in sync licensing, rights administration, and music publishing as a creative manager in Film & TV for a boutique firm in L.A..  Working with music supervisors, she connects the right music for the right opportunity, resulting in music placement in your favorite shows, such as Grey’s Anatomy.  Clark is also a co-founder of Women in Sync, an event series she started four years ago with 15 women gathering in her small apartment in Larchmont (and now it has grown exponentially to over 100 women).  Clark says it’s “a space for women industry professionals to connect and collaborate”.  Passionate about the intersection of music and storytelling, she continues to create opportunities that bring powerful soundscapes to screens worldwide.

Clark writes in her journal every, single, day.  Get to know her and she might write about you, too.