f. m. sutton-smith

F. M. Sutton-Smith is an interpretive balladeer, writer, and multimedia artist based in Central Vermont (N’dakinna). Using the moniker Fern Maddie, she has been active as a performing artist since 2019. She has released two records (one EP, one album) of transformative folk music and toured across the UK and the Northeast USA. Her songs - performed with clawhammer guitar, banjo, and clear, soulful vocals - explore themes of trauma, renewal, and queer subjectivity. Fern’s interpretations of traditional ballads have received national and international acclaim: her debut album, Ghost Story, was selected as The Guardian’s “Folk Album of the Month” for June 2022 and was later named #2 by Jude Rogers for The Guardian’s Best Folk Albums of 2022. The album was also listed by Ann Powers on NPR's Best Roots Music of the year. 

In particular, Fern’s queer-feminist rendition of ‘Hares on the Mountain,' an English ballad collected in Somersetshire, received featured placement from Tradfolk.co, Folk Radio UK, and the Guardian. Jude Rogers wrote that Fern’s “twist” on the gender roles of the ballad gave a “welcoming…[and] unnerving quality” to the interpretation, with Ann Powers agreeing that Fern’s work entered “fully into dialogue” with the ballads selected for the record. On her successful 2023 tour of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, Fern received a 4-star performance review from The Guardian’s Daniel Dylan Wray. He described her sapphically-framed a cappella rendition of  ‘Ca’ the Yowes,’ a Scottish shepherding ballad, as “a truly beautiful delivery... leaves the room in such a state of silence...the only other thing audible is the final embers of fire slowly burning out.”  

Since Ghost Story’s release, Fern’s work has been directed towards narrative musical approaches. In 2023, she received a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council and National Endowment of the Arts for the composition of a Vermont-set musical called Adult Children. After the completion of the grant work, Fern presented her original songwriting at venues around Vermont; her sets blended song performance with narrative storytelling and offered creative introductions to the musical’s characters. In 2025, she served as a member on the Vermont Arts Council selection jury for Creation Grants, collaborating with a panel of multimedia artists to assess proposals from emerging creators across the state.  

Throughout her career, Fern has collaborated with Vermont-based producers Colin McCaffrey and Peg Tassey to develop and produce new work. Fern also has professional experience contributing to local and international filmmaking projects. In 2022, she recorded an a cappella version of the traditional ballad “Wayfaring Stranger,” for London-based filmmaker Andrea Luka Zimmerman’s 2024 art film of the same name. In 2023, Fern recorded an interpretation of the American gospel song “This Little Light of Mine” for “Not Losing You,” James Lantz’ national PSA supporting trans youth. In 2025, Fern wrote and recorded the original song “One More Hill,” for Claim the Lane, a Vermont-based documentary by Jesse Huffman about trans athlete Roxy Bombardier and her relationship to cycling – to be released in 2026. In late 2025, Fern contributed score composition, sound design, and acting work to an experimental queer horror short Evelyn’s Here, directed by Vermont-based filmmakers Sean Temple and Sarah Wisner. 

Fern’s current focus, Foundling the Musical, is a multi-year research project and composition study involving archival ballad archaeology and the transformation of classic English literature. It may be her life’s work.