Today we preview Utah State University's Guitar, Bass, and Drum Festival which happens in the Russell/Wanlass Performance Hall on the USU campus today and tomorrow . We feature conversation and great music with guitarists Corey Christiansen and Steve Kovalcheck . The USU Guitar, Bass, and Drum Festival and this episode of Access Utah are part of USU's Year of the Arts.

Salt Lake City resident Gabriel Tallent’s debut novel “My Absolute Darling” has been getting rave reviews. Here’s a synopsis:

Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) is a consortium of public power agencies (Logan is a member). UAMPs reportedly is considering building a small modular nuclear reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls. It would likely be one of the first small modular reactors (SMR) in the country. Proponents say that SMRs are small, scalable, flexible and dramatically safer and less expensive than the traditional gigantic reactors. They also say that SMRs could replace coal-fired electrical generation and would complement wind and solar because they can ramp up and down quickly, providing c

David Yokum is Director of The Lab @ DC. Under his leadership, The Lab conducts applied research projects to generate evidence that informs the District’s decisions. Yokum was previously a founding member of the White House’s Social & Behavioral Sciences Team and Director of its scientific delivery unit housed at the U.S. General Services Administration. President Obama further institutionalized the work in Executive Order 13707, “Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People.”

On her Twitter account, which by the way is @LindaHyphen, Linda Shaver-Gleason describes herself as a “musicologist, mother, cancer patient. Recently adopted by a cat.” She writes a blog, Not Another Music History Cliché, in which she debunks music history myths and offers commentary on many aspects of classical music culture, from snobbery to composer hero-worship to the question: Is music a universal language?

On the day President Trump is set to deliver his first State of the Union Address, we’ll talk politics with Deseret News columnists LaVarr Webb and Frank Pignanelli.

What do the following have in common? Ghost beads, biotic communities, gin, tree masticators, Puebloan diapers, charcoal, folklore, historic explorers, spiral grain, tree life cycles, spirituality, packrat middens, climate changes, wildfire, ranching, wilderness, and land management policies. The answer is the juniper tree.

110 independent films from 29 countries will be presented at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, which is hosting screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort, through Sunday.

Ben Jones, is a single, 38-year-old truck driver on the verge of losing his small trucking company. Ben's route takes him back and forth across one of the most desolate and beautiful regions of the Utah desert where he meets a mysterious cellist and the embittered owner of a small diner. That’s the plot, in brief, of James Anderson’s debut novel, “The Never-Open Desert Diner.”

For nearly 2 decades, professional photographer Jim Herrington has been working on a portrait series of influential rock and mountain climbers. The resulting book, “The Climbers” documents these rugged individualists who, from roughly the 1930s to 1970s, used primitive gear along with their wits, talent, and fortitude to tackle unscaled peaks around the world. Today, these men and women are renowned for their accomplishments and, in many cases, are the last of the remaining practitioners from the so‐called “Golden Age” of 20th century climbing.