It’s a highly discriminatory practice, but on this small tump of an island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, dark-haired boys are the ones rewarded as harbingers of good luck for the coming year. If such a c […]

Last week it rained for three days. Outside my window the light pearled gray and rain drumming on the roof inspired me to ignore my to-do-list and wander among my bookshelves. My books have a way of wandering […]

On a drizzling November day our poetry group gathers around the workshop leader’s kitchen table. Before we begin the critique of our poems that we wrote during the week, our workshop leader, Sharron Singleton g […]

I had a fantasy when I began volunteering for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Charlottesville. I would help newly arrived refugees document their identities, tell their stories and illustrate […]

“Just meet me at my internist’s office,” my mother texted.

“Oh, ok. You have an appointment?”

“Yes, I’ve had some internal bleeding.”

“Oh, ok. I can be there by 4:30.”

I was going to visit my mom for […]

For photographer Andrew Shurtleff, the goal in covering sports and political events is “to report the story — whether winning or losing — through photographs. I l […]

Beyond the obvious grief of losing a parent or relative to old age, there is a particular tragedy that accompanies a person’s passing rarely whispered inside the comfortable blandness of funeral homes or o […]

I live in a town where the writer who cranks it out rakes it in. I can’t get past page three in any of John Grisham’s books before I give up. Those books are page-turners though, you betcha, the whole who […]

Over the past year, I watched Mike, one of my best friends, die of a brain tumor. In the midst of this misery, I came to think about things that make life worth living. Foremost is love, of course, but after that […]

I’ve encountered many different roads to take on my quest to develop my style as a poet. Sometimes I’ve moved forward and sometimes I’ve stayed still, uncomfortable with change. I expect this has been the case […]

One day I decided I wanted to write a short story with a sex scene in it. I decided this for two reasons. One, first and foremost, I had read a short story by my sister’s high school boyfriend and he e […]

                      Balancing Craft and Business…

Sharyn McCrumb, known for her Appalachian “ballad” novels, including The New York Times best sellers The Ballad of Tom Dooley, The Ballad of F […]

You’re watching a show, and suddenly it happens: the story cuts to a scene of a naked woman about to take a shower. Her breasts — huge and gravity-defying — jiggle and roll as she enters the shower stall, […]

I have always thought of myself as being by nature a slow kind of person. I am, and always have been, slow in the morning to awaken to the day and slow in the evening to let go of it, though my habits are changing […]

Juliet Da Luiso, also known as Judy Longley when writing poems,

studies abstract oil painting with Jean Sampson at Macguffey Art Center.

Juliet talks about her painting:

“Poetry has consumed my […]

Rick Weaver seems an artist equally interested in what can and cannot be seen. Whether working with paint brushes, carving tools or modeling clay, his creations blend the subject at hand with what he […]

 
                                            LOOK3…
 
June 10-13th all eyes will be on LOOK3, Charlottesville’s stellar photography festival now in its seventh year. The town will host numerous famous […]

There is a saying that if you don’t know what you’re doing, ask your neighbors. Once upon a time when I first moved to Nelson County, Virginia, and knew no one, I experienced an untethered queasy feeling of not […]

I move around a lot — not kinetically, but like a hermit crab from home to home. And as a consequence, my Facebook account has become cluttered with groups of friends from all the various cities where I have […]

Birds in residence are the stuff of metaphors and dreams for New York City artist Dina Brodsky.

Mysterious feathered fowl — from crows to blue jays — land in unexpected interiors, their res […]