Arts May 19 MerleFest celebrates music from the Appalachian region and boosts the local economy MerleFest has been a mainstay on the music circuit since 1988. People flock to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina each year to celebrate music of the Appalachian region, which has helped the local economy. Jeffrey…
Arts May 16 Young playwrights use the theater to confront the trauma of gun violence In 2021, more than 1,500 children and teenagers in the United States were killed by gunfire. Activists across the country are working to shed light on that issue through a series of plays written and performed by young adults, many…
Arts May 09 ‘I’m just getting started’: Musician Jon Batiste on the next phase of his musical journey Multi-talented musician Jon Batiste received the most nominations of any artist at the recent Grammys, capturing a total of 11 in all in a wide variety of categories. He also came away with the most wins, including the biggest, "Album…
Arts Apr 29 New novel imagines how memories can be accessed and reviewed by ourselves and others Imagine a beautiful cube in which you can store all your memories, allowing access to them whenever you want. But there is a tradeoff. Others can access it, or, in a sense, you. Jennifer Egan has dreamed up this nonexistent…
Arts Apr 28 Preserving Ukraine’s cultural treasures with digital tools In Ukraine, as everywhere, much of contemporary life, including history and culture, is documented in the digital space. With so much at risk, new efforts are taking on a new kind of digital "cultural preservation." Jeffrey Brown reports for our…
Nation Apr 27 Harvard University details its ties to slavery and promises a reckoning America’s oldest institution of higher education, Harvard University, is beginning to come to terms with its own history and role in slavery. The school is out with a new report detailing its extensive entanglement and legacy. Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean of…
Arts Apr 22 Margaret Renkl writes about the environment from her ‘blue dot’ hometown in red state Writer Margaret Renkl doesn’t have to travel far to appreciate nature. She basks in the nearby parks of her hometown Nashville to draw inspiration for her essays on the environment. Through a regular column in the New York Times, Renkl…
Poetry Apr 18 Citizen poets share details of their pandemic lives in ‘Dear Vaccine’ A new poetry anthology called “Dear Vaccine: Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic” illuminates how people around the world have experienced COVID-19. Jeffrey Brown sits down with Naomi Shihab Nye, an author, editor and current Young People’s Poet Laureate, to…
Arts Apr 12 Artist Faith Ringgold’s life’s work celebrated in New York exhibit A major retrospective at the New Museum in New York looks at the remarkable life and work of artist Faith Ringgold, 91, who has fought for change in the art world and beyond for 60 years. Jeffrey Brown visited with…
Arts Apr 11 Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov on preserving his country’s culture during war Andrey Kurkov is one of Ukraine's best-known novelists, and his new book, "Grey Bees" addresses his country's past struggles with Russia. It's set several years ago in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, amid what was then a simmering conflict…