Artspeak Radio with Browder, Barrett, VanHoozer, DeFreece, & Gann

Artspeak Radio, Wednesday, noon – 1pm CST, 90.1fm KKFI Kansas City Community Radio, streaming live audio www.kkfi.org

Producer/host Maria Vasquez Boyd welcomes writers Catherine Browder, Joel Barrett, artists Robin VanHoozer and Laurel DeFreece, and Robb Gann Habitat Gallery owner.

CATHERINE BROWDER is a fiction writer based in KCMO. “Resurrection City: Stories from the Disaster Zone” won the Spokane Prize for short fiction from Willow Springs Books (Eastern Washington Univ., Inland Northwest Center for Writers, December 2022). All the stories deal in some manner with the Great East Japan Disaster of 2011–earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown at a Fukushima power plant. After a Japanese friend shared his post-disaster experiences, my imagination was fired up, knowing there were stories here. In 2016 I returned to Japan (where I once lived) and traveled down the affected coast. The region–called Tohoku– was/is still in recovery. My friend arranged for me to speak to survivors of the catastrophe as well as those affected in less dramatic ways. Back home, I became a compulsive researcher into the event. It has been an astounding journey. The stories in the collection explore the impact of such an event on both Western and Japanese characters, although those characters are entirely my invention. I am, after all, a fiction writer.
I have several published story collections, and a novel (my first) is coming out in November of 2023. My short stories have appeared widely. I taught for time in the creative writing program at UMKC and served as an advisory editor for NEW LETTERS magazine under Robert Stewart.
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

JOEL BARRETT-The Kansas City Rainbow Tour is a self-guided, app-narrated, driving tour of Kansas City’s rich LGBTQ+ history.Years before the Stonewall Riots erupted, The Gay Rights movement was conceived in Kansas City.
The Kansas City Rainbow Tour utilizes the VoiceMap app/website to guide you on a colorful, story-filled drive through Kansas City to over 20 specific destinations with reference to that many more. The approximately 60-minute tour will begin near UMKC and wind its way northward with the final stop at the Kansas City Museum in the historic northeast.
As you drive, you’ll hear voices from past and present tell you their stories. Stops include historic gay bar locations, Womontown, the Liberty Memorial, the Jazz District, and many, many more.
The Kansas City Rainbow Tour Launch Party is Saturday, June 3 at the Kansas City Museum with a festive celebration that includes special guests, giveaways, and historic reveals!
I am a survivor of ex-gay therapy. Some call it conversion therapy, reparative therapy or just plan counseling, but the goals are the same: To eliminate or reduce homosexual desires and actions. Needless to say, it didn’t work. ​
I am a recovering fundamental Baptist. If you don’t know what a fundamental Baptist is, I can explain: We thought the Southern Baptists were liberal.​
I was a Baptist pastor married to a woman living the midwest raising our three children. Yes, I spent over 15 years in ministry before exiting that line of work to focus completely on becoming fixing myself so I could save my marriage and live as a straight man.
​I always knew I was gay, but being gay wasn’t an option in the world I lived in so I kept trying to make it go away through church, prayer, scripture, and the pursuit of godliness because everyone told me that being gay was a sin and probably just about the worst sin anyone could commit.
​Today I am happily married to my husband of over a decade. I share my colorful story with audiences everywhere to encourage them to live each day as their authentic, powerful and beautiful self. A life that isn’t motivated by fear. It is my goal to encourage people to LIVE. I hope to build bridges of understanding between what may seem to be opposing communities such as the LGBTQ community and religion.
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ROBIN VAN HOOZER & LAUREL DEFREECE – Artists Laurel DeFreece and Robin VanHoozer present a collaborative Art Exhibit “Fate” at the Lenexa City Center location of the Johnson County Library. This exhibit will be on display May 25th through August 21st, 2023.
Fate Exhibition -From today’s current events that foreshadow change tomorrow Missouri artists Laurel DeFreece and Robin VanHoozer collaborate to create Fate, an exhibition that explores the random riot of events that intertwine the common threads of our tomorrow. Encaustic, mixed media, and collage techniques combine to depict themes of nature, truth, time, and destiny in rural America. Climate and nature are at the forefront of issues affecting our world’s future. Our goal in creating Fate is to depict and document the incremental temperature increases plus dramatic weather events, such as increased flooding throughout the Midwest, growing throughout time, which affect farmers and rural communities and in turn urban centers.
The Lenexa City Center branch of the Johnson County Library, located at 8778 Penrose Lance, Lenexa, KS, is open to the public Monday through Thursday from 9:00 am to 8:00 pm, Fridays from 9:00 through 6:00, Saturdays from 9:00 through 5:00 and Sundays from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Open hours may change due to holidays. For more information, email Robin VanHoozer at [email protected] or visit the Johnson County website at https://www.jocolibrary.org/…/robin-vanhoozer-and… or https://www.jocolibrary.org

ROBB GANN Weinberger Fine Art and Habitat Contemporary are pleased to present the second iteration of Sexhibition: Rated Art, a one night only, art viewing experience like never before.
sex·hi·bi·tion
/ˌseksəˈbiSH(ə)n/
noun
1. a public display of sexual works of art,
come-hither curating, an exploration of the erotic,
a celebration of the scintillating, provocative art for the fearless and curious,
challenging perceptions of sex and art
Sexhibition: Rated Art is a highly curated, fully immersive experience, and not for those offended by nudity. This exhibition will explore the boundaries of human desire through art, music, and performance and will include works by:
Gerry Trilling | Winton Kidd | Jared Horman | John Brant | Kathryn McRoberts | Jonathan Virginia Green | Dean Kube | Madeline Brice | Larassa Kabel | Andy Gershon | Linda Lighton | Kathryn Marie Hogan | and Luke Reichle
With performances by: Stephonne Singleton | Quixotic | DJ Rico Dejoia | and more
Turn up the heat with our curated cocktails and aphrodisiacs featuring a wine selection curated by Cellar Rat, fine-crafted cocktails with Apuesto Estilo de Vida tequila, beer from Boulevard Brewing Co and culinary delights crafted to stimulate your taste buds and senses, with alluring appetizers, indulgent mains, and decadent desserts by Shroom catering.
This is a safe space, everyone is welcome. Feel free to show up as your true self.
View our moodboard here: Sexhibition: Rated Art Moodboard, for outfit inspo.
Tickets at eventbrite.com, we have a limited capacity, therefore a limited number of tickets available. Grab one before we sell out. 18+ ONLY
Saturday June 10, 7pm, Weinberger Fine Art 114 Southwest Blvd. KCMO

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