Arts & Letters

On this episode of Arts & Letters, we explore the historical fiction of Andrew Malan Milward's collection,  I Was A Revolutionary, interrogates historical Kansas from the Civil War to the present through literary fiction and artifacts, including Wikipedia entries, photographs, maps and satirical cartoons.

Winner of the 2016 Arkansas Times Musician’s Showcase, the Little Rock-based band The Uh Huhs are certainly friends of KUAR. The band members Zach Hale, Zach Hunter, Tyler Nance and Trent Whitehead recently played during KUAR's Open House on August 16. That day, band mates Zach Hale and Zach Hunter sat down with J. Bradley Minnick to talk about how public policy and popular culture inform their music. 

Members of the southern band Radio Birds write about a variety of subjects, but with one rule: no politics. However, these musicians are now breaking that rule, feeling the need to respond to the current political turmoil. J. Bradley Minnick recently sat down with the band, who are currently harmonizing on tour.

This back-to-school season, we highlight a father and son musical team from central Arkansas who spent a large part of their summer playing, practicing and laughing together.

Kevin and Gus Kerby sat down in the KUAR studios with J. Bradley Minnick of Arts and Letters. They talked about how playing music together has fostered a good sense of humor and strengthened their relationship.

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.

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.

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.”

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.