Category: Arts & Culture

Creating Spokane

Spokane has outgrown its inferiority complex and is keeping artists in Lilac City. The creative scene is blossoming thanks to people like Terrain founders Ginger Ewing and Luke Baumgarten, Spark Central director Brooke Matson, and Alan Chatham, founder of Laboratory.

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Two Georges: A talk with poetry legends Bowering & Stanley

Sitting down with George Bowering, Canada’s first poet laureate, and George Stanley, recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award, Seattle-based poet Paul E. Nelson engages in a lively exchange with two venerated British Columbia poets as these longtime friends banter about the process of creating art.

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A poet and scientist listen to the bees

The book Listening to the Bees is a collaboration between poet Renée Sarojini Saklikar and renowned biologist and bee expert Mark Winston. In a conversation with poet Rachel Rose, the authors discuss the ways science and poetry can change how we perceive our interactions with the natural world.

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Laughing through darkness: an interview with Eden Robinson

Eden Robinson, a Haisla/Heiltsuk author from British Columbia, talks with poet Rachel Rose about her Trickster series of novels, her goofy sense of humor, forming a writing community among Indigenous writers, and her approach to crafting narrative and finding a compelling narrator.

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Book review: Lawn Boy

Michael Upchurch reviews Seattle-based author Jonathan Evison's "Lawn Boy," a novel about a good-hearted young man with two passions: books and garden care. It's a swift, engaging read with a wry sense of humor that faces a pertinent issue head-on: the inescapable trap of inequality in America.

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Book review: theMystery.doc

TheMystery.doc is not an easy book. At 1,660 pages, even hauling it around is a challenge. The fragmented narrative jumps between September 11 transcripts, phone conversations with AI bots, and page after page of a code that is never explained. But for the patient and adventurous reader it is worth the effort.

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Mighty Tieton to the rescue!

Seattle art book publisher Ed Marquand helped create a vibrant artisan incubator space called Mighty Tieton in a tiny Yakima Valley town, a place where creative businesses employ bookbinders, printers, and mosaic artists. It all began when a "goat head" thorn gave his bicycle a flat tire...

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The Uranium Files

Photographer Dan Hawkins and former Washington poet laureate Kathleen Flenniken witness the toxic legacy of nuclear sites in Washington: Hawkins' obsolete process involving uranium gives his images a reddish tint; two poems from Flenniken's collection Plume shed light on radioactivity lingering in the Columbia River.

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