By Michael Martone
At 11:30 pm Mountain Time the night before, I will catch Train 5, The California Zephyr, westbound, in Salt Lake City (I splurged on a sleeper) and ride through the night, over the famous Overland Route, to arrive in Reno, if I am on time (and there is a good chance I will not be on time) at 8:35 am Pacific Time to attend the Nevada Humanities Literary Crawl.
By David Michael Slater
Some consider the act of reading itself an escape. Diving into a good book, regardless of its content, can whisk us away from the trials and tribulations of daily life. Fantasy literature is typically considered, by definition, escapist, and no doubt that is why it’s such a popular genre. It’s hard to imagine a better way to leave the cruel world behind for while than by immersing oneself in an entirely different one.
By Robin McLean
I’ve always been a solo writer. Why? Read on… It started long before I’d written anything, as a potter in rural Alaska. No lights through the forest, no road sound as I spun my pots—it changed my midwestern, very urban mind.
“Probably your brain, rather,” my dad said (a neurologist).
“How’s that?” I argued.
He was a shy man, an introvert.
“Think of trees!” he said, as if he knew.
By Sapira Cheuk
Lake Mead is a reservoir fed by the Colorado River, which currently provides water for 40 million people. The stories about bodies that were discovered this year as the lake’s water level receded are salacious and immediate; however, these clickbait headlines are short-term distractions that lead our attention away from the more serious issue of the drought, with its long-term consequences for the 40 million people who depend on the river.
By Mark Maynard
I’ve been fortunate to be a part of the Nevada Humanities Literary Crawl since its inception, and I’m thrilled it’s returning after a COVID-induced hiatus. Attendance grows every year, packing venues on California Avenue and the downtown corridor. As the event approaches, I’ve been thinking about how the energy and love of literature celebrated once a year could become an everyday fixture for Reno and Sparks.
Iain Watson
I have felt alone. I have felt abandoned. I have felt overwhelmed to the point where I had to take the time to reevaluate myself as leader of something that I have put so much time and energy into. I have had to ask myself, “is this really worth it?”, or "why aren't we thriving?" It is easy to point fingers, it is easy to blame others, but it is not easy to confront your own faults.
By Axie Oh
My first ever in-person critique group I found through the local chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators here in Las Vegas. In 2012, I was fresh out of university and excited about pursuing my dream of becoming a published author. Showing up at the first meeting, which was held at a local coffee shop, several printed copies of the first chapter of my novel in hand, I was a bundle of nerves.
By Staff of Nevada Humanities
Every year the Library of Congress hosts the National Book Festival that brings together authors and book lovers from across the United States. After taking place online for the past two years, this year’s National Book Festival will be held in-person at the nation’s capital on September 3 with the theme of Books Bring Us Together.
By Michael P. Branch
After several years of COVID-induced seclusion I’ve been on the road lately, touring my new book, On the Trail of the Jackalope. But my run of 45 book events around the American West sounds impressive only to folks who aren’t writers. As any writer will confess, our readings are often stunningly modest, attended by only a few wayward souls.
By Kesha Westbrooks
I could not imagine while I sat in my cell that my life would become what it has since my release in 2019. I spent almost four years in Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center for a first offense nonviolent money crime. I couldn’t dream that success was waiting for me on the other side of those gates. I felt like a failure and disappointment to my family.
By Kathleen Kuo
We have all felt moments of nostalgia, waxed nostalgic for times and places alternately lived and not lived in. But I have always wondered, what is nostalgia rooted in, and what is its significance? Attempting to describe nostalgia is like trying to hold onto the last remnants of a dream—how do you explain these ineffable feelings and emotions that wash over you, when they slip away into spaces outside of your vocabulary and knowing?
By Liz Galvez
lemonade and iced tea
half and half
but not Arnold Palmer to me
sweet, soured summer lemonade
seeds swallowed, stuck in my esophagus and made me a lemon tree
medieval Egyptian origins now commodity
A series of poems inspired by Humanities in Nature Walks, Spring-Summer 2022
Read MoreBy Joseph Watson
In these modern times, unification is needed more than it has ever been. Furthermore, the differences between all of us has never been so pronounced. How can we all remain unique and then unite? In Nevada, there are so many different views on life and the way that it should be lived. I believe that we will be stronger if we recognized our commonalities along with our uniqueness and celebrate them more often.
By Harry Fagel
Unity is the theme, and while often trivialized it remains the word describing a path of great importance to our very survival. While writing the poem Touch for the current Nevada Humanities Exhibition Series, Unity: Community, Family, and the Future, I spent hours scouring my mind for the truth of unity, without (hopefully) falling into the trap of cliche or the dismal truth of trite and pithy samplers oft perpetuated by bored crafters and presented for sale at hipster flea markets.
By Kris Vagner
Artists aren’t obligated to make art that “looks like art.” Take the Félix González-Torres piece that’s at the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Barrick Museum through 2023. It’s an homage to the artist’s partner, who died from AIDS, in the form of a pile of individually wrapped hard candies on a gallery floor.
By Max Stone
Listening to poets in far-reaching areas of the country from the comfort of my couch, bed, kitchen table, or desk has been one of the small benefits of the pandemic. When everything shifted to Zoom, poetry readings became infinitely more accessible. I saw some of my favorite poets read their work in ways that I otherwise would have been unable to experience. These readings were inspiring and uplifting, but I found myself missing the physical presence and connection of other people—as many did.
By Kimberly Roberts
Sometimes a photograph captures more than the material reality contained within the image. This photograph, taken by Nathan Clark in 1931 on a Sierra Club expedition, expresses the club’s most deeply held ideals, constructing a story larger than its own making. An ice cave, silhouetted in reflected light, forms an abstract frame around three figures—Nathan’s brother Lewis, Sierra Club secretary Virginia Ferguson, and Virginia Adams, the wife of photographer Ansel Adams.
By Staff of Nevada Humanities
Nevada Humanities has been having fun outside this spring with Humanities in Nature, an outdoor program that integrates the humanities into an exploration of the natural world, which is part of a joyful collaboration with Truckee Meadows Parks Foundation. These walks have introduced northern Nevada residents to their outdoor environment and encouraged them to explore and reimagine the outdoors through the lens of human connection and creation.
By Dustin Howard
Perhaps the singularly most wonderful and powerful thing about poetry is its ability to connect people across time and space. Poetry transcends age, race, ethnicity, national borders, and even time itself. There’s an element to poetry that, like many art forms, explains the endurance of poetry as an art—the human element. Poetry is one of the few art forms where a work can exist for a thousand years and still have emotional resonance with the reader.
