Arts & Letters

Music can provide the life to a dull party or maybe to calm a rambunctious toddler. On the streets of downtown Little Rock, musician Guitar Dave Fredieu found a lifesaving cure in his music: It’s helped him cope with homelessness and addiction. He was recently in KUAR’s studios recording and spoke with J. Bradley Minnick about his life and his music. If you want to hear more of Guitar Dave's music, you can find him busking regularly at the Farmer's Market Downtown.

On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with percussionist Kevin Sims, composer Scott Wollschleger and poet Abby Minor about their experimental monodrama, “We Have Taken & Eaten.” The piece is performed with an array of traditional percussion and non-traditional instruments, including cassette tape players, temple bowls and light bulbs.

On this episode of Arts & Letters , we talk with Hot Springs, Arkansas native Rashod Ollison . His memoir, Soul Serenade: Rhythm, Blues, & Coming of Age Through Vinyl , was published by Beacon Press in 2016. Growing up in Hot Springs and Little Rock in the 1980’s and 1990’s, Rashod Ollison experienced a world of “cold love, redolent of vinegar, without the slightest hint of sweetness.” And the only thing that helped him endure was music. Nicknamed “Dusty” by his family, in his memoir

On this episode of Arts & Letters , we talk with poet Terry Wright, whose book Graphs published by Kairos Editions in 2008 and chapbook Fractal Cut-Ups from Kattywompus Press in 2011 demonstrate the organic heuristics of mashing up data and Internet search strings to produce prose poetry. Wright’s books and chapbooks include What the Black Box Said , Makeover , Safehouse , No More Nature and Fun and No Fun . His most recent chapbooks Graphs and Fractal Poetry are text cut-ups/mash-ups, dada

On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with Arkansas Delta novelist and Ph.D student Sanderia Faye , whose novel Mourner's Bench published by The University of Arkansas Press in 2015, recounts the experiences of Sarah Jones from the summer of 1964 to the fall of 1965. Sarah is an eight year old who has to “navigate the growing tensions of the fictional small town of Maeby, Arkansas.” The early 1960's in Arkansas are seen through Sarah and her best friend, Malika’s eyes. They become

Each year, "Pop Up in the Rock” focuses on a neglected block in Little Rock and illustrates what is possible when community volunteers reclaim the block. On this episode, we literally "popped-up" at this 2015 urban revitalization event on West 9th Street in Little Rock, once known as Little Rock’s “Little Harlem" because of its role as the vibrant center of business, entertainment and society for the African-American community. We speak with Pop Up Co-Chair Chris Hancock, urban planners,

On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with Janis F. Kearney about her memoir Sundays With TJ: 100 Years of Memories on Varner Road -- a journey with her 107 year old father, born in 1906, just 40 years after slavery in the town of Lake Village, Arkansas. “I chose this role some 50 years ago on Varner Road. Thomas "TJ" Kearney was the storyteller and I, the rememberer of his words, even his unspoken meanings,” writes Kearney. So let's wander down Varner Road, take a steamboat down the

On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with Little Rock novelist, short story writer, prodigious list maker, and former 7th grader Kevin Brockmeier. He is the author of several national bestselling books of fiction including, A Brief History of the Dead , The View from the Seventh Layer , and The Illumination . His latest effort recounts a character named Kevin Brockmeier and his present tense misadventures throughout his 7th grade year growing up in Little Rock. Writer Karen Russell

On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with writer, fisherman, ecologist and University of Central Arkansas professor Mark Spitzer. His new book, Return of the Gar , published by the University of North Texas Press (as part of its Southwestern Writing Series) is a sequel of-sorts to his first book S eason of The Gar: Adventures in Pursuit of America's Misunderstood Fish , published by the University of Arkansas Press—the first accessible book-length study of the gar in the English

On this episode of Arts & Letters, we talk with Julien Mirivel, Speech Communication professor at the University of Arkansas Little Rock and co-director of the Academy of Teaching and Learning Excellence. His new book, The Art of Positive Communication: Theory and Practice, published by Peter Lang in 2014, is informed by "research on Interpersonal Communication and Language and Social Interaction.” “ Communicating positively can be learned,” writes Mirivel. “It is a creative art through