Keith Shepherd at Portfolio Gallery & Education Center

The connection wasn’t merely kinship but of generations of shared experiences.–Keith Shepherd Portfolio Gallery and Education Center’s current show is 4 OF A KIND featuring the work of Anthony High, Keith Shepherd, Bonnye Brown and Edward Hogan, all artists from the Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas community. I had the pleasure to interview…

JUNETEENTH: Dick Gregory speaks on “The Game” at the Starlight Room on Broadway in North St. Louis

Juneteenth is “the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States”. I celebrated my first Juneteenth in the early 1990s as a member of Luisah Teish’s “Full Accord Ensemble: Arts at the Crossroads.” This year, though, I celebrated Juneteenth with Dick Gregory at the Starlight Room on Broadway in North…

St. Louis Social Life: 5 things I’ve learned about our city’s culture in the past 12 months

1) In the year I’ve been here I’ve learned that St. Louis is such a Big Small Town. I love going to functions and watching everyone greeting one another with such warmth—folks they’ve often known all through school, grown up in the same neighborhoods, and can compare the ages and names of brothers and sisters…

Walter Bargen, Missouri’s First Poet Laureate, guests for St. Louis Writers Guild

I was eager to hear Walter Bargen, Missouri’s First Poet Laureate, read his poetry and give good advice on writing a first line that arrests the attention and makes the reader want to keep going. He did not disappoint. With charming diffidence and low key humor he kept us enthralled and left us wiser for…

David Sedaris in St. Louis at Left Bank: Like a Rock Concert

It was like a rock concert this week when David Sedaris (pronounced as in “dare”) came to town to speak at Left Bank Books. Folk who couldn’t find seats stood up inside. Folks who couldn’t get in the room stood up outside or lounged in those great portable camp chairs. I sat next to a…