The name comes from a line in a terribly problematic movie, Shag. The antagonist hollers the phrase "Your roots are showing!" at Melana as an insult. And that line always stuck with me. Always. I said it all the time. And in 2006 I saw the movie But I'm a Cheerleader on one of my first dates with Mallory (of course she helped expand my queer touchstones). And that whole scene of them talking about their roots. This one.
On the last Sunday of the month, Apollo Fermentations, a locally owned kombucha joint, hosts Analog Sunday with artist Kinta McGhee. Participants can grab scissors, glue, magazines and other paper ephemera, snag a 'booch from the bar, and collage to their heart’s content. Recently I tried it out myself alongside more than 30 other collage-makers.... Continue Reading →
They call it the Frequency Illusion (or the Baader–Meinhof Phenomenon), that once you see something, you can't stop seeing it. And now all I can see is Icarus flying, falling. It started with Private Rites by Julia Armfield. Our queer book club loved Armfield's debut novel Our Wives Under the Sea so much so that when her sophomore novel came out, we immediately placed it on our to-read piles. The novel's drenched in literary allusion...
“Reclaiming My Roots,” a printmaking exhibition by Marco Hernandez, explores the push and pull of the artist’s dual Mexican and American cultural backgrounds: the exchange between tradition, spirituality, and resources. The show is on view in the Regier Art Gallery at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas through February 12.
Disco. Witches. Fire Island. Those four words say it all, and Blair Fell's novel delivers on each and every one of them. I've been telling friends (and anyone who will listen) that Fell's novel, The Disco Witches of Fire Island, is the "more lighthearted" version of Rebecca Makkai's The Great Believers (another novel that I will talk to... Continue Reading →
Kansas author Sarah Henning has penned a dozen books. Most are geared towards young adult readers, but her novels are also popular with adults who enjoy the YA genre. Henning’s latest fantasy novel “The Lies We Conjure” is a 2025 Kansas Notable Book, one of 15 titles recognized by the State Library of Kansas. “It... Continue Reading →
As anti-LGBT rhetoric intensifies, the queer community needs stories of political engagement — and triumph — more than ever. C.J. Janovy’s 2018 book “No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas” is full of such accounts. A newly released version is arriving at just the right time. The University Press of Kansas reached... Continue Reading →
Each creative family is creative in its own way, and it’s that uniqueness of artistic expression that Derby Arts Council offers for consideration in their “Art in the Family” exhibition on display through June 24 at the Derby Public Library. The library sits just off the bustle of Rock Road, yet the building is quiet,... Continue Reading →
Burn before reading. What starts as a puzzling statement unravels in the sweeping novella This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Red and Blue are at odds, and they might also be in love. They might always have been in love, and its their stories - past, present,... Continue Reading →
Family heirlooms, travel items link immigrant stories to lives in the Midwest at the end of the 19th century, on view at the Kauffman Museum at Bethel College through June 1. "Unlocking the Past: Immigrant Artifacts and the Stories They Tell," at the Kauffman Museum in North Newton, Kansas, foregrounds the stories of Mennonite immigrants.... Continue Reading →
shelly. walston. writes. 