Why Books Are More Important Than Ever Now

“Reading gives you an opportunity to understand someone else’s perspective, no matter how much you disagree with it. I wish that everyone had the opportunity to try to inhabit someone else’s experiences for a few hours, and literature is a great way to do that. Books are especially useful because the depth of engagement that someone has with a book allows them to really stay with it and to spend some time with that different perspective. I wish I could give all of my friends and family members I have arguments with a book and say ‘read this and tell me what you think!’ They may not end up agreeing with me, but they might understand a bit better where I’m coming from.”

A Literary Magazine Produced By Homeless People

“Writers Group, as it’s known in the community, is a space for the homeless writers of downtown Boston (“homeless, transitional, or recently housed” is the rubric), and we meet every Tuesday morning at 9:30, in the basement of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul on Tremont Street. Out of Writers Group comes The Pilgrim, a literary magazine that I’ve been editing for the last five years. Large chunks of The Pilgrim are summoned into being, conjured from the chaos-state of potentiality, by Robert’s magic coffee.”

Iowa State Legislators Want To Raid State’s Culture Fund To Cover State Budget Shortfall

“The Iowa Cultural Trust fund is on the chopping block as state lawmakers strive to cover a shortfall in the state budget for the fiscal year that ends in June. A tentative budget agreement would take the entire $6 million in the fund, and use it to offset cuts to a range of state agencies. The fund was established in 2002.   Lawmakers over time have appropriated money for the fund, with interest used for matching grants to artists and arts organizations.”

Karen Finley: Art Is At The Heart Of America. So How Are Going To Support It?

“Whether it’s transcribing Great Negro Spirituals, protecting indigenous Native languages, attending outdoor jazz concerts, preserving quilting by the Amish or the Gee’s Bend women, singing the Delta Blues, weaving narratives of neglected LGBTQ history, creating plays of the immigrant experience or collaborating across state lines, we are a country of expression. Art is the bridge when walls of fear keep us insulated and reactive. A society loses meaning, purpose and direction without it.”

Long-serving Mayor Of Harrisburg PA Worked On Museum No One Wanted, Then Stole Artifacts

“The fact that no one seemed to share in his dream of making a less disturbing Westworld on the banks of the Susquehanna did not deter Stephen R. Reed. Nope. He employed that coal-mining country grit in every step of his totally un-mandated, batshit quest to built another Gene Autry Museum in Pennsylvania. And then he got really carried away, and purloined more than 500 items that were slated for the non-existent institution and paid for with public funds, storing them (accidentally! he claims) at his house.”

This Year’s Oscar Best Picture Nominees – Not Exactly Box Office Winners

“For only the second time in the last 10 years, none of the best picture nominees — at the time of nomination — has grossed more than $100 million domestically. And that first time was in 2015, and that’s only because American Sniper had just opened in wide release; it would go on to gross $346.7 million in North America.”

Russell T Davies: Theatre Is A Better Venue For Free Speech Than TV

“That’s generally why I am getting more and more interested myself in trying to find a voice for theatre. I’m definitely heading that way. I think you’ve got to – when you say that television can’t express certain things then you have to move beyond it. And I speak as someone who has got away with an awful lot on television.”

‘A Rainbow-Colored Dream’: Check Out China’s International Ice And Snow Sculpture Festival

“Preparations for the event [in Harbin] begin months in advance, with workers digging huge ice blocks from the frozen Songhua River. … Sculptors compete to create more and more elaborate buildings of ice, all illuminated in multi-colored lights.”

Jill Soloway Says Male Directors Should Just Stop Making Movies About Rape (Then She Womansplains Why They Do It)

On a panel at Sundance, the writer/producer (Transparent, United States of Tara, Six Feet Under) said, “We get it, guys. You want us to stay inside because you want us to be afraid we’re going to get raped. We get it! Stop making movies and TV shows about rape. Let women make those movies if they want to.” Then she started talking about why she thinks Paul Verhoeven made Elle