Bruce Holsinger in the HotSeat

Best-selling author Bruce Holsinger knows what it takes to produce rock-solid fiction. The writer, professor, and Guggenheim fellow penned Culpability, the 116th selection of Oprah’s Book Club. His novel The Gifted School earned a Book of the Month Club selection and won the Colorado Book Award, and The Displacements was named the inaugural title in […]

Lisa Woolfork in the HotSeat

Scholar, maker, and cultural critic Lisa Woolfork has been making space and creating community in Charlottesville, centering her efforts on functional fiber arts. Woolfork hosts the award-winning podcast “Stitch Please,” a platform for conversations about sewing, quilting, fashion, labor, memory, and liberation featuring sewists, artists, designers, historians, and makers from across the African diaspora. The […]

Willa Barnhardt in the HotSeat

The staff and volunteer physicians at the Charlottesville Free Clinic helped more than 3,000 patients in 2025—more than 1,600 of them new to the clinic—obtain medical and dental care. Roughly 40 percent of those patients earned less than the federal poverty line of $15,650 for individuals or $32,150 for a family of four. More than […]

Ruby Lopez Harper in the HotSeat

The City of Charlottesville and the surrounding region’s robust arts community has lacked a centralized arts council since the Piedmont Council for the Arts shuttered in 2017. A new effort to establish an equitable, accessible, and focused arts organization is now in the works, facilitated by independent consultant Ruby Lopez Harper. The initiative invites artists, […]

Jane Colony Mills in the HotSeat

Charlottesville’s Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry provides free groceries to an average of 12,000 people every month. “Our goal for each visiting household is to provide a week’s worth of food, based on household size, that accommodates dietary restrictions and cultural preferences,” says Jane Colony Mills, the nonprofit’s executive director. C-VILLE recently caught up with […]

Nicole Thomas in the HotSeat

The Women’s Initiative has a new leader: Nicole Thomas, Ed.D. As she stepped into the role of executive director of the Charlottesville org in August, Thomas brought more than a decade of experience in higher education and nonprofit leadership, with a career rooted in equity, wellness, and trauma-informed care. Most recently, she directed UVA’s Contemplative […]

Kristen Chiacchia in the HotSeat

Since taking the reins at Second Street Gallery in 2016, Executive Director and Chief Curator Kristen Chiacchia has expanded the nonprofit’s reach while creating programs that connect artists and audiences in fresh ways. One of her biggest successes is “Teeny Tiny Trifecta,” the annual exhibit and art sale that has grown from 72 artists its […]

Khalilah Jones in the HotSeat

Now in its fifth year of celebrating Black excellence in Charlottesville, the Soul of Cville festival returns with a week of engaging and exciting events throughout the city. Kicking off on August 10 with a free Soul Skate at McIntire Park and peaking with Soul of Cville at IX Art Park on August 16, the […]

Nici Cumpston OAM in the HotSeat

Hailing from the city of Adelaide in South Australia, Nici Cumpston OAM, the new director of the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at UVA, is a Barkandji Aboriginal artist, curator, writer, and educator whose family is also of Afghan, Irish, and English descent. Barkandji are the river people who belong to the Barka, the Darling River […]

Jay Pun in the HotSeat

To say that Jay Pun is a busy guy is an understatement. The musician, restaurateur, educator, and father of two recently authored a children’s book, Som Tum and Sticky Rice, and co-founded VeryAsian VA, which in turn launched the VeryAsian VA Celebration. The fourth annual music event takes place on Friday, May 9, at Ting […]