MaKshya Tolbert practices poetry and placemaking in Virginia, where her grandmother raised her. She is the 2025 Art in Library Spaces artist-in-residence at the University of Virginia and co-stewards Fernland Studios, an open-ended studio insistent on rest, rejuvenation, and reciprocity as a core compositional practice. Tolbert was the 2024 New City Arts Fellowship guest curator, […]
MaKshya Tolbert practices poetry and placemaking in Virginia, where her grandmother raised her. She is the 2025 Art in Library Spaces artist-in-residence at the University of Virginia and co-stewards Fernland Studios, an open-ended studio insistent on rest, rejuvenation, and reciprocity as a core compositional practice. Tolbert was the 2024 New City Arts Fellowship guest curator, […]
Known for her honed and exacting prose, Kathryn Scanlan is a writer of essays and novels, including Aug 9—Fog, The Dominant Animal, and Kick the Latch. From her tightly constructed short stories to novels informed by real-life stories and research, Scanlan is intensely dedicated to form and craft. In her “Notes on Craft,” published in […]
Editor Becky Calvert describes the tiramisu banana pudding recipe in City Market Cookbook as “Southern Grandma meets an Italian Nonna.” Fresh chevre from Caromont Farm replaces mascarpone for a tangy take on the classic dessert. The cookbook is full of recipes like this, unexpected versions of familiar foods. Take l’etoile catering’s pumpkin and Virginia peanut […]
If you think spring is the season of book festivals, think again. The Crozet Book Fest will take place on October 25, featuring free panel discussions and book signings with authors of fantasy, suspense, and romance, as well as middle grade and picture books. Now in its second year, the Crozet Book Fest is presented […]
Whether you embrace artificial intelligence or not, it seems almost mystical in its abilities—despite the fact that it was created by humans. It can also feel unreal that asking ChatGPT to write an email actually reflects billions of dollars, millions of gallons of water daily, and countless jobs being streamlined out of existence. Award-winning journalist […]
Monica Ong is a visual poet and author of the new book Planetaria. With a focus on family and diaspora as well as astronomy, the poems in Planetaria are tactile—not just visual but multidimensional. The book features a poem that takes the form of a wheel that’s viewed through a View-Master toy, a poem with […]
Chet’la Sebree is the author of Blue Opening, a poetry collection published earlier this month, as well as Field Study, winner of the 2020 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and other work. She is an assistant professor at George Washington University and teaches in Randolph College’s low-residency MFA program. She spoke […]
Tochi Eze is a Nigerian fiction writer and scholar whose debut novel, This Kind of Trouble, explores the relationships between language and power through intergenerational identity, mental health, colonialism, and the African diaspora. Spanning a century and told through multiple perspectives in Nigeria and the United States, the plot follows how choices made by the […]
Lydi Conklin’s first novel, Songs of No Provenance, was published earlier this month, and tells the story of Joan, a disgraced New York musician seeking reinvention by teaching songwriting at a teen writing camp in rural Virginia. Conklin is also the author of Rainbow Rainbow, a story collection that was long-listed for The Story Prize […]
Danzy Senna’s latest novel, Colored Television, tells the story of Jane, a novelist and tenure-track professor, and her husband Lenny, a painter and teacher at a Los Angeles art school that’s described as “a white hipster playground.” As a self-identified mulatto woman married to a Black man, Jane is abundantly aware of issues of race […]