Artspeak Radio End of January 2024

Artspeak Radio, Wednesday, 9am – 10am CST, 90.1fm KKFI Kansas City Community Radio, streaming live audio www.kkfi.org

Producer/host Maria Vasquez Boyd welcomes writer Michelle Campbell, Mary McCrawley with Laser Lew Dude and writer Catherine Browder.

MICHELLE CAMPBELL is a Licensed Massage Therapist living and creating in Newark, Oh. She is pursuing her lifelong dream of publishing and has completed her first manuscript, The Signature of Smoke.
She began writing at the age of 14 as a way to process the experience of anxiety, depression and the feeling of “just not fitting in”. In her early 20’s she began her education in the healing arts, reconnected with her culture(s) and became heavily influenced by indigenous healing practices and motivated by Native American and Celtic authors and poets, music and nature.
Her work is not only a reflection of these experiences but also of dreams, visions and the holding of space to allow for healing and balance to occur, whether by her touch or through her words.  She is also a colossal cat mom!

She can be reached via email at   [email protected]
and facebook at Michelle Campbell

CATHERINE BROWDER The Manning Girl, a novel A single man struggles with the unexpected challenges of fatherhood in a modern reimagining of Eliot’s Silas Marner.
1992. Tyler Manning—high school teacher, part-time farmer, bachelor of 38—is planning his first day of summer vacation when a strange car approaches his Kansas farmhouse. By the time the battered Ford departs, Tyler is holding a three-week-old infant, placed in his arms by a girl of 15. The baby’s father, the girl says, is his estranged brother. Woven throughout the narrative of May Manning’s upbringing—assisted by long-time neighbors and school colleagues—is the parallel story of Tyler and his younger brother, the charming but deceitful Mickey Manning. The possibility of Mickey’s return haunts Tyler throughout May’s childhood. Does he even know May exists? When he does reappear, he brings unexpected danger into their lives. The Manning Girl reimagines George Eliot’s 1860 fable, Silas Marner, and places it in a contemporary Midwestern frame, following the girl and her uncle/father from May’s unexpected arrival in her 21st year. Like its forebear, The Manning Girl explores, with tenderness and humor, the unique situation of a single father supported by a surprising community.

“Set in rural Kansas, Catherine Browder’s The Manning Girl explores the redemptive power of parenting and community. Tyler Manning’s life is transformed when a young mother leaves his own younger brother’s baby at his doorstep. Tyler is of Free State Kansas stock, sturdy and deliberate, a meticulously organized industrial arts teacher who can make anything. Suddenly he must make a family. Uncle Tyler becomes Delia May’s legal father and a model caretaker. But beneath this tale of domestic striving is secrecy and strife, anger and resentment, the looming presence of the backstory.
Browder contrasts a family’s difficult past with a peaceful and hard-won present. The Manning Girl, heartwarming and wise, shows us that what we care about most can be made: hope, family, love, a bright future.”—Thomas Fox Averill, author of Found Documents from the Life of Nell Johnson Doerr: A Novel
“Catherine Browder’s The Manning Girl is a beautifully-crafted book about the joy, pain, and growth that the advent of an abandoned baby creates in the life of an emotionally frozen man. In graceful, lucid prose, Browder examines important themes, familial estrangement, sibling rivalry, the immense challenge of raising a child alone, and the joys and perils of lifelong friendship. The heartwarming story of Tyler Manning’s fumbling emotional growth as he fosters the childhood and adolescence of the baby dumped on his doorstep will entrance readers.”
—Linda Rodriguez, author of Every Hidden Fear
Available through: Regalhousepublishing.com, IndieBound.org, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble (as paperback and e-Books) or your favorite Independent Bookseller.

Catherine Browder is the author of several books of short fiction: Now We Can All Go Home: Three Novellas In Homage to Chekhov; Secret Lives (winner of a Missouri Writers Guild Best Book Award); The Clay That Breathes; The Heart, a feuillet; and Café Deux Mondes, an audio book and E-Book from Ploughshares Solo (as a Kindle Single).  Her award-winning stories have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies including Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, New Letters, Nimrod, Kansas Quarterly; New Stories from the Midwest 2016, Kansas City Noir, The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Ex-Patriates in Literary Japan, Exposures: Essay by Missouri Women Writers, and elsewhere. Her plays have been produced regionally and at the HotInk! New Play Festival in NYC. A recipient of fiction fellowships from the National Endowment for Arts and Missouri Arts Council, she has worked as a facilitator for the Memory Project at the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education. She taught creative writing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and was for time an advisory editor at New Letters magazine, where her book reviews appeared. Mostly she has supported “the writing habit” by teaching English as a second language overseas and in the USA for refugees, immigrants and university students. She lives in Kansas City, MO, with her husband and their three-legged cat.
www.catherinebrowder.com

MARY MCCRAWLEY- LASER LEW DUDE brings His Psychedelic Laser Visions to Kansas City’s Planetarium
Kansas City, MO – Kansas City’s renowned Planetarium is set to host the trailblazing digital artist, Laser Lew Dude, in an awe-inspiring laser show titled “Laser Visions.” The event, scheduled for March 16, 2024, promises to be a captivating experience combining art and technology. In the dynamic realm of digital art, Laser Lew Dude stands out with his unique ability to blend cutting-edge technology with creative vision. Hailing from Indianapolis, Indiana, Lew has become synonymous with creating spellbinding art using lasers, glass, mirrors, and water – a feat of physical setup without the aid of digital enhancements like Photoshop.
Lew’s work is often mistaken for 3D-rendered art due to its bright neon lines, spheres refracting light, and vibrant color play over dark backgrounds. His style evokes a “vapor wave disco” aesthetic, setting him apart in the digital art scene. This real-world manipulation of light and color results in art that is both futuristic and psychedelic, pushing the boundaries of conventional digital art.
Laser Lew Dude’s acclaim is not just in his unique style but also in his remarkable journey through various prestigious shows. He has displayed his innovative works at Miami Art Basel in 2022 and 2023 and participated in NFT NYC in 2022. His collaborations are just as impressive, including working with DJ Chris Holmes and immersive tech company COSM for “The Journey Within,” which debut’s in Los Angeles in the spring of 2024.

The upcoming show at the Union Station Planetarium is not just a showcase of Lew’s
extraordinary talents but also an invitation for Kansas City’s residents and visitors to immerse themselves in an extraordinary cosmic experience. This solo debut is expected to draw art enthusiasts, technology aficionados, and curious minds alike, offering an unforgettable journey through the interplay of light and art.

For tickets and more information, please visit UnionStation.org
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to witness the convergence of art, technology, and
imagination in a stunning display of laser artistry.

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