On Nevada Day
By Bobbie Ann Howell
Growing up in Nevada, one of the coolest things was our celebration of Nevada Day. Out of school, often heading to a theme park in California filled with kids from Nevada, or heading out to Lake Mead or hiking the Valley of Fire and, of course, planning for the best places to secure a trick-or-treat haul.
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Water in the Desert: A Writer’s Perspective
By Jarret Keene
Water defines survival, dictating what can be built and where life thrives. Water determines how long we will exist.
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A Line of Silver, Threaded Through Dust
By Safiyya Bintali
“Water.” The third college essay prompt choice, consisting of just those five letters. Water.
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Finding Nevada Wild: A Personal, Unending Quest for a Second, Longer Look
By Sydney Martinez
When’s the last time you were set up to truly discover without the distraction of civilization, a digital nuisance, or anybody else?
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On Teaching, Writing, and the Quiet Guilt of AI
By Dakota DeFiore
In the early 2000s when I first trained in pedagogy, technology and education were just beginning to solidify their future-forward merger. Even at the time, I was told teaching completely without tech was too antiquated for the 21st-century learner. A professor of mine made an excellent point: “Why would we be irresponsible and ignore the emerging research?” And that stuck with me.
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read because
By Jen Nails
read because
insurmountable doesn’t mean
what you think it means
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In Conversation: Gabriel Urza and Willy Vlautin
By Gabriel Urza and Willy Vlautin
Gabriel Urza: The Motel Life was the first book I read that portrayed the Reno I grew up in, that I knew. What drew you to write about the side of Nevada that often gets overlooked—the transient life, the life of a casino town? Were you anxious about getting it right?
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At the Heart of Nevada: Community, Collaboration, and the Basin and Range National Monument
By Julian Kilker
Visitors often wonder if there’s real community beyond the commercial spectacle of the Las Vegas Strip. On the tenth anniversary of the Basin and Range National Monument’s designation, an exhibition shows that there is, and that it’s thriving in surprising ways.
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Green Grass
By Chelsey Trybus
She didn’t ask for help.
She didn’t even want help.
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Always Rich
By Quest Lakes
When I was a kid, my dad would say, “I’m temporarily financially embarrassed,” which was his inside joke referencing Steinbeck’s famous observation that “we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist.”
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Toothpicks
By Sheila Bock
On a shelf in my living room in Las Vegas, Nevada, there is a model of the train station in Skagen, Denmark. It was a gift given to me by my dad, Russ Bock, who built it as a memento, of sorts, of the time I spent studying abroad in Denmark when I was in college.
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What Translation Teaches Us
By Wendy Chen
Growing up in a bilingual Chinese American household, I was a translator long before I called myself one. Daily acts of translation shaped my understanding of language and transformed my approach toward my own writing.
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Communicating Risk about Heat and Wildfire Smoke in Nevada
By Ashley Payette
Due to climate change, high temperatures and wildfire smoke have increased in intensity across Nevada. Communities need to be informed of these events so they may take action to protect themselves. To learn how the risks of heat and wildfire smoke are communicated, with the public, I talked with Kristin VanderMolen, assistant research professor at the Desert Research Institute.
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Climate Change from a Photographer’s Lens
By Ashley Payette
Nevada is filled with tall mountains shifting into low valleys, and pretty dull hues spotted with bright cities and small towns. This landscape is constantly changing, with much of it altered at the hands of humanity. Scott Hinton is a photographer who offered me insight into how climate ebbs and landscapes flow.
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Tribes Have Trouble Accessing Water in the West
By Ashley Payette
As temperatures in southern Nevada rise, the water levels in Lake Mead fall. Droughts put our water, and the people who rely on it, at risk. To further understand the impact of drought on Nevada and surrounding regions, I spoke with Elizabeth Koebele, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno.
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Conversations on Nevada’s Changing Climate
By Ashley Payette
I grew up in a land between vast mountains, vaster casinos, pink and purple sunsets, black and grey pavement, and a desert landscape interrupted by concrete and palm trees: Henderson, Nevada.
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Why We Still Come to English Class When Everything Is Not Amazing
By Molly Appel
It’s been a rocky ride on our university campus since the new federal administration came to power. Students, faculty, and institutional structures are on shaky ground, with the sudden disappearances of everything from federal aid to undocumented family members.
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York Fire Reflections
By Alina Lindquist
The work displayed in Avi Kwa Ame: Between Presence and Protection celebrates the beautiful natural environment of Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. One prominent feature of this landscape is the Joshua tree, which serves as an indicator species of the Mojave Desert and is one of my favorite plants in this region.
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Building Community Through Live Storytelling
By Delight Ejiaka
Telling stories is one of the oldest art forms in our civilization. Humans tell stories to show each other how to be, what was, and things to come.
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Humanities and Art, Mano y Mano
By Marie Valencia
Growing up in the Southwest, I have always felt a strong connection to these lands that call to home for so many of us and our ancestors.
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