Longtime Seinfeld writer and producer Peter Mehlman aims higher than laughter with his debut novel, as he examines racism, religion, tragedy — and feet. A reflective social commentary, It Won’t Always Be This Great is both comic and poignant. From beginning to end, the novel artfully cultivates a philosophy opposed…
John Updike described the career of Joyce Carol Oates better than anyone when he said, “. . . if the phrase ‘woman of letters’ existed, she would be . . . entitled to it.” She’s written novels, short story collections, nonfiction, novellas, plays, poetry, collections, children’s and young adult books,…
A great book is like a great song, once it gets in your head, it’s in there for the rest of your life. Just ask Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and George Clinton, two of America’s greatest living recording artists, and now authors. Their albums and shows have pushed the creative boundaries…
“Maria and I didn’t start out an interfaith couple. We became one 15 years into our marriage. Up until then, my wife was a lapsed Catholic and I was a bad Jew. We shared a New Age spirituality and read mystical books to each other as we carpooled to work…
What’s the most important invention of the 20th Century? Is it the telephone? The assembly line? The airplane? Nope — it’s the birth control pill. That’s according to author and journalist Jonathan Eig, whose book, The Birth of The Pill, traces the pill’s origins and the risk-taking innovators who pushed…
A few years before HBO turned Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency into a show, casting Jill Scott as the female Sherlock Holmes of Botswana, I read the first in this very, very long series of novels. You can be as cynical as you want, the story…
Whether you’re a science nerd, a fantasy geek, a comic book dork, or any one of a dozen types of dweebs, the Miami Book Fair International always has your back. Year after year, MBFI caters not only to high-minded literati snobs, but also to all manner of geek. Did you…
When John Waters arrives in Miami for this year’s book fair, it might just feel like home. Waters, who directed Pink Flamingos and about a dozen other twisted cult films, is known as the Pope of Trash and the Prince of Puke; he’s most comfortable at the intersection of gross,…
For the last 14 years, the Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) has strengthened the bonds between science and art as a means of creating awareness and insuring the survival of the Everglades — a unique and delicate ecosystem that is unique and should be of utmost concern for all…
Forget Ultra or Art Basel — the best week of the year is here: Miami Book Fair International! This litany of literary wonders is taking over downtown Miami for the next two weeks, and all kinds of awesome events (many of them free) are lined up. This is your chance…
The Sweat Broadside project has been going strong since “a sweltering evening in 2009, a group of visual artists and writers met at Sweat Records in Miami to share their work and talk about ways they might work together.” Showing the tangibility of modern poetics, writers and visual artists have…
It’s the most wonderful time of the year for book nerds: Christmas, Mardi Gras, and New Year’s Eve rolled into one glorious week to charm and delight South Florida’s bibliophiles. The Miami Book Fair International has almost arrived. But with a massively long schedule of awesome events and only one…
What Bram Stoker was to the 18th century, Anne Rice is to the 20th and 21st. Though the latter has dabbled in various themes throughout her writing career and is known for writing about both demons and gods, Rice’s legacy all started with a vampire. He can be hailed as…
It was Shakespeare who once said “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” That pronunciation also implies that it boasts both triumphs and tragedies. Bree-Anna Obst can relate to philosophy as well as to the bard that implied it in the first place. Obst,…
Music and spoken word are the traditional bedfellows of radio. When one listens to these art forms, it’s generally the imagination that must create a visual aid to the aural story. Dance, in its highly visual nature, is not usually associated with a radio program. Until now. Presented by MDC…
Robert Mazur was an undercover federal agent famous for staging a fake wedding, inviting the biggest coke lords and drug bankers in the world to his bachelor party, and arresting them when they showed up. As mafia leader Bob Musella, he infiltrated the cocaine banking underworld, where black market blood…
The litany of gay and lesbian writers is practically endless. From Plato, to Proust, Wilde, Ginsburg, and Capote, there seems to be an inordinate number of gay scribes relative to the number for straight writers. Their mastery of language, coupled with a unique, and non-heteronormative view of the world prompted…
Anyone who’s ever felt they were on the fringes of society knows what it’s like to be marginalised and shunned for not fitting in. Richard Blanco experienced that feeling while growing up, and although his popularity as a poet and storyteller allowed him to finally realize his dreams, the road…
Perhaps one of the creepiest things about scary movies is when they are based on real events. There’s nothing more frightening than seeing a horror flick and realizing that art, indeed, imitates life. As a culture, we’ve always been fascinated with all things supernatural. Heck, even the word itself sounds…
Mwahahahaha. It’s a very spooky edition of free events in Miami. Actually, all this stuff is pretty fun and it’s cheap. Nothing too scary about that. There is free food and candy galore, especially if you’re a kid in a cute costume. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a few tricks…
There’s no better way to describe our aquatic metropolis than in the words of the ancient mariner: “Water, water every where.” Here in Miami, water is kind of our thing. It washes up on our shores, soaks us from above, floods businesses on Alton Road. And eventually, we’ll be under…
As if the line-up for the Miami Book Fair International wasn’t already exciting enough, another announcement on the roster was made last night. Actor, writer and musician Jason Segel, mostly recognized from his long career in both television and film, will be attending the fair on Saturday, November 22, at…
