By Sally Denton
A year ago, I returned home to Nevada after many years in New Mexico. I came to Reno seeking answers to a serious health issue, and I found the medical specialists who helped save my life. I am a third-generation Nevadan born in Elko, raised in Boulder City, and educated at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Read MoreBy Ann M. Wolfe
My colleague Pamela Chadwick and I were approaching Middlegate, headed east on Highway 50 to visit an artist in eastern Nevada. For at least a few years at this point, we had been immersed in research for the exhibition that would become Sagebrush and Solitude: Maynard Dixon in Nevada. Suddenly, Pam yelled, “Stop!” There it was, just north of the highway: Fairview Peak. The mountain was immediately recognizable as the one in Dixon’s 1935 painting, Elements of Nevada.
Read MoreBy Hue Chen
Back in 2022, I got to meet Richard and Astrid, members of the Esmeralda High Desert Institute (EHDI) in Goldfield, Nevada. Astrid and I met online when I blurted out on a Nevada Arts Council discussion panel about how it’s important to just start making the community spaces you want to exist here in Nevada, even if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Read MoreBy Candace Garlock
Dear Friend,
I feel like I can call you my friend since you are reading this short letter that is now in your computer. As my friend, you will connect to my story of living in that “other” land, that space of illness that we all venture into during our lives; some for a short time, but for many it’s a permanent address.
Read MoreBy Jeannie Hua
When you google “Lunar New Year,” you would see that for 2024, it’s February 10, when the first new moon of the lunar calendar year reveals itself to us. This is the Year of the Dragon based on the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac.
Read MorePor Genevy Machuca
Hola a todos, mi nombre es Genevy Machuca y estoy encantada de compartirles el emocionante inicio de mi viaje de pasantía con Nevada Humanities. Como estudiante de primer año en la Universidad de Nevada, Reno, estudiando dos carreras, una en periodismo televisivo y la otra en español, mi camino hacia esta increíble oportunidad comenzó con una pasión por la poesía y hablar en público.
Read MoreBy Emilee Wirshing
you may have noticed something missing,
an inventory of your guest rooms will tell you
someone kept a souvenir
and while your kind,
no-questions-asked policy
of covering the shipping
on the bronze stamped diamond tags
is often an invitation to return them…
my grandfather had no intention
of giving back your keys;
By JM Huck
Ekphrasis is creative writing inspired by artwork. There are many entry points to this type of writing; I wrote about a few of them in a recent Ekphrastic Writing Challenge. It took three visits before I could write this ekphrastic poem on one of the artworks at the Rita Deanin Abbey Art Museum in Las Vegas.
By Shaun T. Griffin
Floating the Yangtze Shallows, Still as Rice—
one oar tipping the water to shore,
and Wang Wei lays a reed across the bow
like the heron, quiet overhead.
No thing can stop such flight—the poet
in his boat—a single tremor
on the water. This is how the smoke
By Morgan Jerkins
When I got the email that my second book, Wandering in Strange Lands, was a read for the Nevada Humanities’ Nevada Reads program, I was delighted. I hadn’t been to Nevada in over five years since The Believer Festival in 2018 ,and I’d been thinking of this special desert ever since.
Read MoreBy Melanie Perish
Over the Virginia Range In Reno we listen, see the news where
the sun slips up the wide sky buildings dangle stoves
humbled by last night’s pink moon and Russian soldiers
By Christina Barr
When the members of the Nevada Humanities Board of Trustees and our staff gather together we often begin our meetings with a round robin of people sharing their most recent humanities moments. Everyone talks about humanities programs they have attended; books, movies, holidays, and celebrations laden with cultural significance; journeys they have taken to explore new cultures; family history projects; and much more.
Read MoreWishing you peace, blessings, and joy this holiday season.
Read MoreBy Rossitza Todorova
Between Earth & Sky: Exploring the Great Basin Through the Eyes of Northern Nevada Artists is a vibrant group exhibition celebrating the unique high desert of Nevada’s Great Basin. Thirteen artists, including Galen Brown, Grace Davis, Gerald Lee Franzen, Ahren Hertel, Scott Hinton, Asa Kennedy, Kirsten Mashinter, Melissa Melero-Moose, Elaine Parks, Austin Pratt, Gail Rappa, Rachel Stiff, and Sidne Teske, employ diverse mediums such as painting, photography, sculpture, and mixed media to capture the landscape's expanse, fragmentation, and distinct vantage points.
By Mckenzie Papa
“If you think we panicked, if you think the event was canceled, if you think we didn’t have fun, if you think we were unprepared, if you think we struggled, not only might it show that you don’t fully understand Burning Man, but it may also mean that you're not ready for it. While friends and family were understandably worried due to the media spreading misinformation, we proved to each other how much we can strive when we stick together.”
By Phoebe Coogle
At the start of my first year at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), I went into a student worker interview knowing only that the position ‘literary editor’ seemed like something my English major self would enjoy.
By Staff of Nevada Humanities
Thank you for reading the Double Down Blog this year. We are grateful for you.
By Dr. Jennifer Verive
Finding new ways for college students to engage in metacognition – thinking about how and what one thinks – can be a challenge. This is especially so in my “Strategies for Academic Success” course. Often, this course does not gently invite contemplation, but instead demands self-reflection through a battery of psychological assessments, detailed time tracking, and relentless insistence on weekly To Do lists.
By Zeb Hogan and Stefan Lovgren
The collaboration that led to our book—Chasing Giants: In Search of the World’s Largest Freshwater Fish—goes back almost two decades. We first met in 2006 in Cambodia to start a National Geographic story series on The Megafishes Project, which was Zeb’s quest to find, study, and protect the largest freshwater fish species around the world.
Read MoreBy Simon Hunt and Heather Lang-Cassera
Via the Humanities at Play virtual series, Nevada Humanities Program Manager Kathleen Kuo recently chatted with authors Simon Hunt and Heather Lang-Cassera about collaborative poetry. They explored the benefits and challenges of writing poems with other people. During the session, they compiled lines of verse from participants to create a collaborative poem!
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