Metro Arts Sept 1

The Georgia Radio Reading Service provides a program for the print-impaired audience. The Metro Arts program, sponsored by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, discusses various topics. The Atlanta Magazine Online article highlights six podcasts from Atlanta, including "King Slime," "Disgraceland," "The Boom," "Politically Georgia," "Battleground Ballot Box," and "The 85 South Show." The article also mentions other podcasts being released by WABE, such as "Wake Up and Create" and "Calls for Justice." The Montgomery and Company podcast, hosted by Renee Montgomery, is now being aired on WABE. Additionally, there is an update on the refurbishment of Spaghetti Junction's abandoned presidential hotel, which has faced many challenges and is considered a blight on the area. This program is intended for a print-impaired audience and is brought to you by the Georgia Radio Reading Service, GARS. Welcome to Metro Arts for Friday, September 1st. I am Kristen Moody for the Georgia Radio Reading Service. Metro Arts is brought to you by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. For our first articles, we move to the Atlanta Magazine Online for What's New in Atlanta Podcasts? Six Shows to Listen to. From sports to comedy, politics to music, the Atlanta podcast scene is booming. Here's what's happening in the local podcast scene, including new productions and the latest on recurring favorites by Rachel Garbus. King Slime, the Prosecution of Young Thug and YSL, produced by iHeartMedia, Vibe, juicy legal drama, hip-hop lore, for fans of infamous The YNW Melly Story, Disgraceland, a sprawling organized crime, RICO charges, and Fulton County D.A. Fannie Willis, nope, we're not talking about former President Trump. Amazingly, the sensational arrest and subsequent legal dramas of Jeffrey Lamar Williams, better known as the rapper Young Thug, is only the second biggest criminal trial in Atlanta right now. But that doesn't mean it's not wild. In this new iHeartMedia podcast, music journalist Christina Lee and crime reporter George Chidi, both Atlanta contributors, dig deep into the trial of Young Thug and 27 co-defendants from Young Slime Life, who are charged with murder and robbery, among other charges. Lee and Chidi also dive into the wider history of hip-hop in Atlanta and beyond. The Boom, produced by WABE, Vibe, film industry insider intel, thoughtful conversations with creatives for fans of long-form film riot. As Atlanta's film industry blossoms, so too the conversations around it. If you're hungry for stories about the local moviemaking business, WABE's new podcast, The Boom, has plenty to offer. Hosted by award-winning journalist and podcaster Jewel Wicker, another Atlantic contributor, The Boom explores what's happening in and around the city's booming film industry. It features interviews with local filmmakers, cast and crew, and sheds the spotlight on the trends and dynamics impacting moviemaking across the Southeast. WABE is also unveiling two more podcasts this year, Wake Up and Create, which will focus on Atlanta's creative community at large, and Calls for Justice, deep diving into the state's criminal justice system. Politically Georgia, produced by Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Vibe, deep political analysis, local news with a national context for fans of Politico Playbook or CNN Inside Politics. Politically Georgia, long a mainstay of Atlanta political coverage, is getting a new platform and a big new co-host. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's marquee podcast is helmed by politics reporters Greg Blustein and Patricia Murphy, who take deep dives into the many trending stories in Georgia politics. In August, the AJC announced that the show will air on WABE beginning in the fall, streaming live every weekday morning at 10 a.m. In addition to the new platform, Politically Georgia will also add two new hosts, Tia Mitchell, the AJC's Washington correspondent, and Bill Nygut, the veteran journalist who hosted Political Rewind on Georgia Public Broadcasting for 10 years before the show canceled in June. With four veteran journalists sharing the mic and Atlanta making political headlines every day, Politically Georgia is a must-listen for critical coverage of the many trends shaping news across the state. Battleground Ballot Box, produced by Georgia Public Broadcasting, vibe, narrative-driven political coverage, deep dive into a single political story. For fans of Slate's Slow Burn, Trump Incorporated. The third season of GPP's Popular Politics broadcast will closely follow the election interference investigation currently being prosecuted by Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis. Correspondents Stephen Fowler and Riley Bunch have spent years covering the many ups and downs of this investigation, which began after the 2020 presidential election and the infamous phone call between then-President Trump and Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Now that a grand jury has indicted Trump and 18 associates, there will be plenty to discuss as the proceedings make their way through court. If you're looking for a thorough, nuanced play-by-play of the case, Battleground Ballot Box is a great resource. The 85 South Show, produced by iHeartMedia, vibe, hilarious laid-back banter from Atlanta comedians, sharp takes on culture and comedy. For fans of Too Dope Queens, WTF with Marc Maron. Like many Atlantans, you may already be a fan of this wildly successful comedy podcast hosted by comedians Carlos Miller, DC Youngfly, and Chico Bean. But if not, this is a great time to catch up, starting with the trio's new Netflix special released in June. 85 South Ghetto Legends was freestyled live on stage at College Park's Gateway Center Arena in front of a local crowd that does not disappoint. Directed by comedy impresario Stan Lathan, it features the comedy trio at their finest, riffing on whatever catches their fancy, plus musical guests Rich Homiquan and Goody Mob. Once you've watched that, you've got eight seasons worth of comedy content to indulge in with new episodes out every week, featuring a wide range of special guests and freewheeling jokes on everything and anything. The self-styled podcast for people who don't know what a podcast is will have you snorting Coca-Cola through your nose like a true Atlantan. Montgomery and Company, find it on WABE. Vibe, fresh and lively sports talk, thoughtful conversation about culture, entrepreneurship, and black women in America. For fans of The Pickup, Jemele Hill is unbothered. Renee Montgomery, a legendary UConn basketball alumna, WNBA champion, former Atlanta Dream star, and now part owner of the team she once played for, has been homing this successful podcast for several seasons. Now WABE will add Montgomery and Company to its regular broadcast. Seasons will now air every Saturday at 6 p.m., both on 90.1 FM and on the station's live stream. Montgomery co-hosts the show with a powerhouse team of family members, including her mother, Bertalee Montgomery, sister, Nicole Young, and wife, Serena Grace. In addition to interviews with sports luminaries from college ball stars to WNBA marketing gurus, Montgomery and her family go deep on culture, business, and what it means to be a black woman in America. Montgomery brings insider knowledge and game day level energy to the show, making this podcast as thoughtful as it is entertaining. That was What's New in Atlanta Podcasts, Six Shows to Listen to by Rachel Garbus. Next, Ask Atlanta. What's the status of the refurb of Spaghetti Junction's abandoned presidential hotel? The blighted property was bought in 2018 and was planned to become active senior housing. Little progress has been made, however, by Josh Green. Ask Atlanta is a regular column where we answer your questions about life in ATL, our infrastructure, our politics, our history and culture, and much more. Have a question? Ask us here. And that is a hyperlink that goes to a form in the Atlanta magazine, which you can complete to submit a question about the Atlanta infrastructure or culture. At this point, it's not just rundown, not merely blighted or even post-apocalyptic. It's like a 15-story set for one of the Saw movies. All bleak corridors, scary shadows, busted concrete and bad graffiti. And unfortunately, the former presidential hotel serves as a sort of cylindrical front door for not just DeKalb County, but all of ITP Atlanta, at least for anyone headed down from, say, Lilburn, Buford or Charlotte. It's been called one of the Metro's most visible buildings and one of its worst eyesores. So what's happening with this abandoned, windowless, hulking, skeletal mass of a concrete corncob now a half century after its construction? It's complicated. Still known colloquially for its 4001 presidential parkway address and original purpose, the presidential hotel was built in 1973, where I-85 and I-285 meet. The completion the following decade of the Tom Moreland Interchange, aka Spaghetti Junction, only boosted the building's status as a local icon, putting it on full display for hundreds of thousands of commuters daily. According to the AJC, its long slide into infamy began in the 1980s when it became an unauthorized mini-police precinct and a hotspot used by cops for free drinks, food and rooms for sexual trysts. Following years of declining patronage, the predicted development boom around Spaghetti Junction never came, and the original presidential hotel closed in 1987. The property rebounded as a Ramada-branded hotel in time for the 1996 Olympics. In the late 90s, a legendary nightclub called Club Europe roared to life at the building's base. Various attempts to rejuvenate the tower followed, but it went to auction, and by around 2010, it was operating as condos, the Presidential Boutique Condotel. As infighting began between the owners, a pair of local business partners, the building's maintenance and utility bills reportedly fell by the wayside, and without basic amenities like a working elevator, condo owners were forced out. The vacant building fell into receivership, a legal quagmire. Squatters, vandals and thieves pounced. By 2016, the swimming pool, former nightclub and units themselves had devolved into a wasteland. Proposals for converting the tower to student housing and self-storage never took off. Nancy Jester, a former DeKalb County Commissioner who worked for years to fix the presidential's blight, recalls one meeting in her office where local entrepreneurs unveiled a harebrained idea to sheath the tower in advertising that resembled a gargantuan Coca-Cola can. It was the most epic, hilarious thing, Jester says. I keep the rendering to this day in my office. A potential new dawn for the presidential came in 2018. Atlanta architect Dean Peacock, managing principal of the development firm Peacock Partnership, bought the ailing property for a relative song, $1.5 million, or millions less than its sale price in the 1990s. Peacock began the arduous process of buying up condos from vanished owners and announced plans for a $100 million project with active senior housing called a Wavi to include about 401 bedroom and studio condos. A new high-rise would jut up from manicured grounds beside the cylindrical tower, along with a spa, rooftop gardens, a top flight fitness and wellness center, and other features meant to pamper residents later in life. Where the project stands now is unclear, though the Wavi website remains active. Multiple interviews request to Peacock, who remains the owner, were not returned. An open records request filed with DeKalb County shows no recent building permits activity. On the bright side, according to Daredevil Urban Explorers on YouTube, the presidential is clear to squatters and beyond secure now, with barbed wire fencing and motion-activated wildlife cameras that alert authorities to intruders within minutes. Beyond legal issues regarding condo ownership, Jester says, the presidential's problems were tremendous. Access from interstates is confusing and difficult, and being a huge rock of poured cement means that reconfiguring individual units is next to impossible. Trying to implode it would cost millions more than the property is worth. The onset of COVID didn't help, though Jester notes optimistically that Metro Atlanta's current housing shortage could move the needle on a presidential revamp. I just think it's going to take some elected official, whether a county commissioner, state rep, or head of economic development to say, you know, we've got to fix that, says Jester. If someone doesn't force the issue of blight hard, it's dead in the water. It's not a sexy issue. Without question, the presidential's sexiest and most fitting use in the modern era came five years ago when Peacock rented the property to Hollywood. The film, Zombieland, double tap. That was Ask Atlanta, What's the Refurb of Spaghetti Junction's Abandoned Presidential Hotel by Josh Green. Next, we move to the Burnaway publication for Down River by Coulter Fussell at Institute 193 Lexington by Megan Bickel. Coulter Fussell's exhibition Down River at Institute 193 serves as a material testament to the diverse and interconnected American South. Fussell hails from Mississippi and comes from generations of seamstresses and quilters. She also organizes her studio to be a place of boundless, completely donated, and wildly romantic materials. In her artist statement, Fussell says of her studio, the place is around 100 feet long and 25 feet wide, and it's absolutely jam packed with thousands of textiles, all in various states of wholeness, clothes, bed sheets, curtains, carpets, blankets, quilts, pillows, t-shirts, beach towels, lawn chair cushions, drapes, sleeping bags, tents, parachutes, and tablecloths. There's also a substantial number of antique sewing machines, from beautiful little household singer featherweights to industrial machines from milltown denim factories. Fussell goes on to say that her goal is to tell stories about how these textiles came to her practice by way of donation or reclamation. I'd extend that she succeeds by cultivating a textural mirror of our personal and historical lives. Fussell's illustrative depictions of her studio and practice demonstrate the same imaginative dexterity that permeates the exhibition. Coverage area, 2023, hangs on the wall, peering over the viewer. Hovering three feet above my head, the striking vertical work includes tie-dyed bed sheets, arched oven mitts, reclaimed wood borders, an iridescent flowing skirt, denim, blue, and white pieces from a quilt. Cadmium reds appearing from underneath, as does a quiet donated photograph of a friend's child covered with a comforter to simulate a ghost. The various textures are stitched and adhered together indiscriminately. Some are cross-stitched, some loosely hand-stitched, and other pieces, like the photograph, are attached with an adhesive. A myriad of found and donated items fill her practice, but Fussell utilizes tools of formalism to create her objects, and in doing so, employs abstraction as a means to collect memories and conjure untold stories. Formerly a painter, Fussell isn't utilizing specific textiles to refer to any of their possible economic or social value. However, she does rely on formalist issues of color, pattern, texture, value, and scale to cultivate an object-rich and incidental narrative. Fussell recognizes that some of the materials hold meaning due to their age, while others rely on the viewer's ability to recognize the original source and utility of the fabric. Fussell becomes both an interpreter and a color-fueled painter. The works at Institute 193 are primarily culled from Fussell's series of river raft quilts. According to the artist, these works are set to journey on an imagined river rolling through valleys past the bankside mills, foundries, and army bases amidst the southern economic fallouts rain upon the natural world. Fussell's work is in conversation with a history of artists using found materials often referred to as art pevora, culling from trash bins and discard-only piles. But rising from the remains is evidence of where the region and the nation have been. Using what is already here reminds us of how we should hope to move forward. Though the artist doesn't seem to make declarations or even announce an opinion on the future of America, her habits favor community, gifting, and the comfort of our clothes, blankets, and stored ephemera. That was Down River by Coulter Fussell at Institute 193 Lexington by Megan Bickel. Next, Recovering River Cane by Robert Alan Grand. It was a Tuesday in mid-July when Adam Griffiths agreed to take me to a healthy patch of river cane outside Cherokee, North Carolina. Griffiths is the director of the Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources, and we'd planned to tag along as renowned Cherokee artists and sisters Betty Maney and Mary Thompson harvested the tall grass by the handful. I had said yes without question, failing to recognize that it was the peak of a record-setting heat wave and we'd still be dealing with lingering smoke from the Canadian wildfires, obscuring our visibility with a dense cloudy haze and making my eyes water. By this point, the circumstances felt like a new, sordid normal. I had heard that suitable river cane is hard to come by these days, and it wasn't clear how successful the day's harvest would be. A type of bamboo native to the United States, river cane was, historically, one of the most abundant plants in the Southeast. However, due to European agricultural practices, modern overdevelopment, and a changing social fabric, its quantity has diminished significantly. Researchers estimate that river cane covers less than 2% of the land it once did, and even less of that small percentage is ideal for makers like Maney and Thompson. Good cane, the kind that's an inch or so in diameter with no knots, needs to be harvested, processed, split, and sometimes dyed before it's woven into intricate baskets of all sizes. The work can take days, and is often an all-hands-on-deck affair. Thompson described trips with her daughter, Sarah, an accomplished basket weaver in her own right, Maney, and additional children and grandchildren, to assemble bundles of about 25 to 50 combs, the hollow stems of the grass. They load their bounty into pickup trucks, and return home to wash, clean, peel, scrape, and split the rod over many afternoons while it was still green. Ballpark, you're going to get eight splints out of a good cane, and three, four, or five splints out of a smaller cane, Thompson said. I asked her how many stalks of river cane it would take to make a small basket, but with scarce resources, it sounded like she often had to work the other way around. She told me that the size of a finished basket depends on the height of the cane. If I have a long cane, she joked, stretching her arms out wide, I'm not going to cut it short. We were talking in Thompson's studio, which seemed more like an art museum than a dedicated workspace. There were baskets, ceramics, beadwork, and plaster casts created by Thompson and other family members throughout the room, carefully arranged on various tables and shelves. If you're looking at a basket like this, she said, grabbing a double weave basket made by her mother, Geraldine Walkingstick, it's not a huge basket, but the splint has to be double the length. Double weaves, iconic in Cherokee culture, are literally a basket inside of a basket, woven by the maker in a continuous undertaking and sharing the same rim. The intricate weeding procedures baskets that are incredibly strong and watertight, while also creating a dynamic, eye-catching, and unmistakable pattern. Thompson kept talking as she grabbed a soft tape measure. If you consider that this one is 30 inches, then you'll need a 60 inch split to do that double weave. And look how narrow those are, she said, bringing the basket closer to me. They're very thin. It probably didn't start that thin, but the more you strip it down, the more narrow it becomes. The revitalization of traditional Cherokee artisan resources, RTCAR, started in 2004 to help protect, promote, and educate local farmers and non-Native people about essential but dwindling Native materials, like river cane, white oak, natural clay, a coterie of dye plants, and more. It's supported in part by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, a tribal-sponsored non-profit focused on cultural and environmental preservation alongside economic development. Griffith, a geographer unaffiliated with any tribe, has been RTCAR's director since 2019, but this work isn't new to him. He managed Western Carolina University's River Cane Restoration Project from 2006 to 2014, an experience that led to his master's thesis and now, years later, his current role. My job, he explained to me in simple terms, is to make sure Cherokee artisans have what they need. This responsibility is a tall order for many reasons. The challenge with finding river canes suitable for artisans is that the cane break needs to achieve some level of depth, Griffith remarked. River cane canopies grow in a lens shape, with the grass low on the edges and the center combs reaching the greatest heights. Each canopy's cover prevents light from pouring in, keeping the center stems free of leaves, knots, or stem scars. These towering smooth stalks are ideal for blowguns, baskets, mats, and other crafts. River cane needs a significant amount of space to form this convex patch. RTCAR works with landowners and nature conservancies willing to devote a considerable area to the cause. Its funding both helps transplant river cane rhizomes to new locations and builds upon patches that are already flourishing. Its agreement with collaborators includes a memorandum of understanding that allows tribal artisans to harvest under RTCAR's supervision. Partnerships with conservancies and private landowners are crucial, Griffith told me, because most of the harvest-friendly cane found today are in remnant patches or spots relegated to the narrow strip of land between a body of water on one side and a road, a railroad, or a mowed field on the other. Before our trip, Griffith pulled up the patch we would visit on Google Maps. It was near the Tukosegee River and under the spiraling cement interchange where Highway 74 meets 441. We'll make a U-turn, go down to this exit, make another U-turn, and park underneath the bridge, he continued, his mouse tracing how we'd make our way to the small patch beside the highway on-ramp underneath some high-tension power lines. It was a far cry from the bucolic walk in the woods that I had imagined. RTCAR's work primarily relies on another dwindling resource, time, which can lead to unexpected hiccups. In 2005, the organization granted Main Spring Conservation Trust in nearby Franklin, North Carolina enough resources to plant 500 white oak trees on their property. White oak is another highly sought-after traditional basket material. In 2020, Griffith accompanied a group of artisans to harvest from the now-mature site. The harvest wasn't a failure by any means, but after 15 years, he said with a laugh, it was determined that the trees were just okay. The trees at Main Spring grew too fast, partially because the soil was too nutrient-rich and the resulting white oak splints were not ideal for basket weaving. They were hard to pull apart and not as flexible as artisans would like. White oak is desperately needed by Cherokee craftspeople, more so than river cane, but it takes a long time to grow. Establishing a big patch of river cane is a little bit faster, Griffith clarified. You can do it in about a decade. RTCAR also funds educational programs, including classes at the local high school, area art centers, and the legendary Cherokee-owned craft cooperative, Kuala Arts and Crafts Mutual. The nonprofit aims to bolster weaving supplies, traditions, and crafts from all directions, both by helping tradition-bearers acquire the stockpiles they need and inspiring younger generations to continue age-old practices. Educating folks about the scarcity of native crops and trees in the region, their importance to Cherokee culture, and the detailed work RTCAR supports is the first step in this uphill climb. Thompson hopes that sharing this knowledge will convince landowners and organizations to preserve natural ecosystems and help make reserves available for Cherokee artisans and craftspeople all over Appalachia. Maney echoed that sentiment, adding, it may not be valuable to some because they have no purpose for it, but we do, as Cherokee artisans, basket weavers, carvers, as people. It's important to us, to who we are. These materials connect our history to the present and help keep it alive. We didn't end up harvesting any river cane on that sweltering Tuesday. It was too hot for Maney and Thompson to venture out, and Griffith wasn't sure what there would be to salvage. Last November, Duke Energy and the North Carolina Department of Transportation flagged the area for some tree work. Then, despite Griffith's emails and continuous pleas to let him and others care for the site, they mowed down the whole patch, he said, pointing to a part of the satellite image that's now brown and grainy. When you zoom in here, you can see all the stumps where the river cane used to be. They mowed all of this just to cut down a couple of trees. That was Recovering River Cane, by Robert Alan Grand, from the Burnaway publication. Next, we move to Arts ATL for Q&A. Best-selling author, Vanessa Riley, minds history to find rich characters, by Beth Ward. New York Times best-selling author, Vanessa Riley, digs deep for her stories. She considers herself a detective in that way, mining research databases, combing through historical tomes, scouring old newspapers to excavate the lives of the Black women that history has left behind. She collects period fabrics, glistening taffetas that she can watch shimmer in the light, and burns period-specific candles, scents like evergreen, as she writes to help her render old worlds new again. The results are cinematic novels, historical fiction, romance, and mystery, that bring back to life towering figures, such as Grand Toya, a West African-born woman and warrior who helped drive the French out of Haiti. In her most recent novel, Queen of Exiles, Riley introduces readers to Queen Marie Louise Christophe, who alongside her husband, Henry I of Haiti, reigned over the first free Black nation in the Western Hemisphere. After their kingdom is overthrown, the Queen flees with her daughters to Europe, where she establishes herself and her family as royalty in an elite, white, male-dominated world. Riley, whose 2023 novel about Grand Toya, Sister, Mother, Warrior, was just named the 2023 Georgia Author of the Year Award for Literary Fiction, spoke with ArtsATL about growing up with stories, recreating lost worlds on the page, and uncovering the buried and beautiful histories of exceptional women. ArtsATL, can you tell us a bit about your own personal history with books and stories? Were you a big reader as a child? Vanessa Riley. I was a very big reader, and I had the best of both worlds. My mother loved literature, so she made sure she indoctrinated us with Shakespeare, Thoreau, and Baldwin. My father was from Trinidad and Tobago, and he was this wonderful storyteller. He had rhythm in the way that he told stories, and he would tell us these exciting things that would happen in the Caribbean. Because I'm the only girl, I usually had one story in there that was just for me, so I grew up in story. As a high schooler, I was always journaling, writing little short stories, but I was also very good at math. My mom sat me down one day, and she was like, you always need to be able to pay your bills. Having a full-time career in writing is like lightning striking, and if you look like me with my background, you need a hurricane. So I went the math route. I had a fun time with the math route, and it does definitely pay the bills. ArtsATL. Right. You're the author of over 20 books now, but you did start in STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math. You have a doctorate and two master's degrees in engineering from Stanford. What did that shift look like, going from engineering to being a full-time author? What was so alluring about writing that it took you away from that field? Riley. For a long time, I wrote technical papers, and I can distinctly remember one boss saying, oh, this report's a little too interesting. So writing was always a thing. I had a difficult pregnancy, though, and I had to sit down. My doctor said, you can't do anything for four months, and I said, okay, type a person, and you're telling me I can't do anything for four months. Are you insane? So my husband went up to the attic, and he pulled out a box of some of my early journals. I'm looking at these, and I see a story that I'd written in high school, and I thought, I can do that better now. I know more. No, I did not know more, but I tried hard, and I just fell in love with writing again. For a long time, I've only been full-time writing for two years. I had four jobs. I was in engineering during the day. I was a wife at a certain point, and mommy, and then 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. was my writing time. Arte Tio. Did you find that any of the skills from engineering transferred to your writing? Riley. Oh, definitely. Engineering taught me the value of asking how and why. How does something work? Why was it built that way? I bring that to my writing. I go very deep in my research because I need to answer those questions. Why would a woman leave her home country, go to someplace totally different? Why is this? How did she think she would manage? Also, the ability to research. You give me a database, and I'll make that thing sing. I love my engineering because it gives me that mindset. It also makes me a timeline stickler. When I find out what is happening in the world I'm writing about or the character's lives, I won't shift a date for convenience or the story's sake. So you get both the rigor from engineering plus that depth of asking those two valuable questions, and the wordsmith weaves it all together to make it engaging, make it something that captures your attention. Arte Tio. I read an article where you talked about how you became a detective when you write a book. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Riley. You find a life. For Sister Mother Warrior, I found Grand Toya. Grand Toya was a Dahomey warrior who literally taught Jean-Jacques Dosselin how to fight, how to move troops, how to position his troops based on the stars. This is all from her African heritage of being a warrior in the Dahomey kingdom. But when I found her, she was in a comic. She was in one page of a graphic novel, a graphic comic book, and you just get the feeling sometimes like this is not a made-up character. Let me go do some research. And then you start digging and digging. One question leads to another. How did this person become a Dahomey warrior? Then the engineering mind kicks in. Her given name is actually Adbariah Toya. So what does that mean? It means separated by a warrior. It's got Yoruba roots. So she was probably in one of the nomadic villages the Dahomey took over. That's all from asking that one little question. So constantly you're a detective. And sometimes you have to disbelieve the narrative because people write with agendas in mind. I mean, I write with an agenda in mind. Mine is to bring these women back, to water the roots, to show the strength and the character of the people who are displaced in time or who have done something phenomenal that's not expected of them. I love that. But oftentimes you'll read these 200 or 300-year-old books that didn't value women, didn't value black women. For my book, Island Queen, there was one reference book trying to describe Dorothy's first two children that she bore to her half-brother, the son of her massa, as the result of a relationship. I threw that 200-year-old book across the room because there's no agency in enslavement. Arts ATL, right. Sometimes it's a matter of asking, what if this dominant narrative is not true? Riley, exactly what if the dominant narrative is lying to you to cover up something else? And the author didn't want to get into all of the things that these histories involve. And so they tried to package it up really nicely. You have to analyze things. So, yeah, I'm a detective all the time, finding the right story, finding where these characters are. Where did they go? Who helped them on these journeys? Trying to find that, trying to build that. You become a detective every time. Arts ATL, for your new book, Queen of Exiles, you have Haitian Queen Marie Louise Christophe, who fled a coup in Haiti and went to Europe to build a new life, build her own royal court. How did her story find you? What was it about her life that most compelled you? Riley. She was a minor character. Thomas Mario is a historian who wrote about the Haitian Revolution ten years after the revolution. So he was able to actually interview Marie Claire and some of the principals. It's a nice thick four volumes in French. As I'm translating these, I find little snippets of really cool things. But one of the people I find was the wife of Henri Christophe, Jean-Jacques Dessalines' number two man, Marie Louise. Just one or two sentences. She seemed to be very unassuming in those sentences. But once again, that could have been the perspective of Mario. Then I don't know if I was reading some British newspapers or what, but I saw that they started putting plaques in London, these blue circle heritage plaques. They put one up very close to Mayfair saying Madame Christophe and her daughters lived there. Then a few weeks later, another showed up in Hastings. Modern historians have always talked about Marie Louise, Queen Louise, as a sorrowful individual. They make it sound as if when she got to England that she was excluded from society because she was black and poor. But if she's poor, why is she living in Mayfair? I went to Hastings. I actually got to walk into her house. It's gorgeous. You go into the sitting room that Marie Louise has, and it looks out into the Hastings Sea. This is top tier real estate. As I begin to dig, I find that she is also the first royal that I would say was media stalked. We see the Princess of Wales going into different places, and we see this media frenzy. But I have found countless articles saying Madame Christophe and her daughters going to Austria. Madame Christophe and her daughters going to Belgium. Madame Christophe and her daughters going to Florence, Rome. They're listing her hotel. They are listing how many attendants she has with her. If there's any gossip about the daughters, those are being put in the newspaper. One of my favorite scenes that's in the book is when, true story, there's a big opera opening. All the royals have been invited. If you were ever a royal, you were invited in this big premiere. And they mention the front row, and it's the ex-kin of Westphalia, the ex-king of Holland, Madame Christophe and her daughters, the Prince of Prussia. They're seating them in order of precedence. If she was excluded, she wouldn't have been invited. If she was poor, she wouldn't have been invited. Royals understand royalty. She and her daughters are members of this club. They are living as queen and two princesses in Europe. It's a story that defies modern conventions. Arts etio. You've previously written about Grand Toya and an island queen. We learn about Dorothy Dahl Kerwin-Thomas, who was born into slavery and went on to become the wealthiest woman landowner in the Caribbean. How do you choose which women you want to bring to life? What are the characteristics you're looking for in your main characters? Riley. I'm looking for the power women. The women who have done something completely unexpected for our gender, unexpected for our race. I want to blow away these preconceived narratives. Women are put into this little box. I want all the women that got out of the box and had fabulous lives. The enslavement narrative is an important narrative. It focuses and grounds the struggles of the race. But it's not the only story. Sometimes those stories are tangential. Queen Louise was never enslaved. Her husband was, and it's a tangential piece. But I love her journey and what happened to her. How she thrived beyond the hurtful things, beyond the things that might have driven others into the ground. She kept going. I want the narrative to reflect the resilience of this woman. You don't know how many articles I've seen saying sorrowful queen about her. Yes, she had sorrows, but she also went to spa resorts and operas. I want to see more of that because it makes you realize that no matter how bad things may be, there's peace on the other side. There's joy that comes in the morning. So I look for people who I see have gone forward. Arts ATL. Early in Queen of Exiles, the queen and her youngest daughter are standing and looking at artwork. Queen Marie Louise asks her daughter as they're looking, what of the future? Art should be about that, not just about the past. What do you think stories about the past, about women like this queen can teach us about the present and the future? Riley. I think they can teach us that it's okay to stand up for your belief. That it's okay to be as feminine as one wants to be and still have power. It's about understanding that we all have power. It might not look like somebody else's power, but we all have power. To say no, to go different places, to do different things. And lastly, the only thing to be afraid of is not trying. When Queen Louise and her daughters went to Europe, that was a gamble. They knew they weren't safe, but at the moment in time they left, they were in a status. They weren't being tormented. So one could have made an argument for them to stay. But she made sure they moved forward. She kept moving forward. I think that's really key. That was Q and A, bestselling author Vanessa Riley, Minds History to Find Rich Characters by Beth Ward. Next, Briefs. Cleage receives Robeson's Award, Pains, You Enjoy Myself Staged, and more by Arts ATL staff. The Actors' Equity Association and the Actors' Equity Foundation have awarded the 2022 Paul Robeson Award to Atlanta playwright Pearl Cleage. Presented to individuals or organizations leveraging theater to go beyond the stage to a commitment to freedom of expression and conscience, the Paul Robeson Award recognizes responsibility to society and dedication to the betterment of humankind. It's the only award jointly administered by Actors' Equity Association and Actors' Equity Foundation. Cleage is the current playwright in residence at Alliance Theater. Her newest work, Something Moving, a Meditation on Maynard, will be staged at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. and directed by Sima Suekho. Performances begin September 22nd and continue through October 15th. The award ceremony took place at the Woodruff Art Center. Atlanta playwright Topher Paine's new play, You Enjoy Myself, premieres this month in Boulder, Colorado, as part of local theater company's 13th season. According to Paine, the theater's co-artistic director, Betty Hart, was based in Atlanta before her move to Colorado and directed the world premiere of another of Paine's plays, Evelyn in Purgatory, at Essential Theater in 2012. As for other local connections, Paine's husband, Charlie James Coate, serves as the dramaturge for the production, and the cast includes Anne Sando, who is the mother of Atlanta actress, Kate Donovio McQueen. Betty reached out last year to ask if I had anything I was working on that I would like to submit to their new play development series, Paine told Arts ATL. I took that as a prompt to pick up the script I'd set down at the beginning of lockdown in 2020. You Enjoy Myself is a powerful reflection on our current society about what happens when we have true friendship and time to explore who we want to be, Hart said in a press release. Paine said the workshopping process for You Enjoy Myself was joyous and productive. I was delighted to continue collaborating with them on a premiere, he said. Atlanta audiences will have the opportunity to see You Enjoy Myself, the October 12th performance will be live streamed and available for five days. Underground Atlanta has partnered with Audio Video Club and Kristen Wolford for a joint cinematic vision on Friday, September 1st. FilmCon will offer an engaging platform for emerging filmmakers, such as Brittany E. Walton, Morgan Matthews, Laniece Love, Vincente Varela Gomez, Esther Jane Lord, Naima Cooper, and others to showcase their talents. According to Bianca Cato, founder and executive director of Audio Video Club, we are a projector and screen, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to elevating the art of film and local filmmakers. AVC is very excited for the partnership with Underground Atlanta's first Fridays to elevate a few locals and their film creation. That was Briefed. Cleage receives Robeson Award, Pains, You Enjoy Myself, Staged, and more by Arts ATL staff. Next up, Review. In Alliance's English, characters show their relationships to culture by Luke Evans. What is a common saying in your language? What does it mean to you? These questions are posed on a lobby display while the crowd gathers at the Alliance Theater for Sanaz Toothy's Pulitzer Prize winning play, English, on stage through September 17th. The play tells the story of four Iranians who are enrolled in an English language course as they grapple with how different forms of self-expression impact identity. What parts of themselves do they have to give up in order to speak a language that the rest of the world has deemed mandatory? Toothy's script handles these questions deftly, using a shabby classroom as a container for this exploration of linguistic identity. Each character has a distinctly different relationship to the English language, the most contentious of which is Elham Sadehmimi. A graduate student hoping to study gastroenterology in Australia, Elham is taking the class out of necessity despite her stubborn preference for Farsi. Her resistance to English puts her at odds with Marjan, Pouya Mohensi, the class's instructor, who is enamored with the language. The conflict between Elham and Marjan forms the dramatic and emotional crux of the play. Elham insists that she cannot express herself in English the way she can in Farsi. The words are just words to her without deeper meaning. When she stumbles over English words, she worries that she sounds like an idiot. Marjan loves the way English feels in her mouth, but privately struggles with feeling like neither language captures the fullness of who she is. Elham and Marjan sit at opposite ends of the spectrum with the other characters filling in the space in between with their own varying relationships to language and culture. These contrasting ideas about what it means to assimilate into a new language raise a question. Where does the line between education and assimilation lie? All of this thematic depth is carried by a talented cast of actors anchored by a commanding yet vulnerable performance by Mohseni as Marjan. Nameh also finds some compelling layers in her performance as Elham. Avin Desgarhan is an absolute sweetheart as well-meaning teenager Goli. Saye Yavinde's portrayal of Roya, a mother and new grandmother who is learning English so she can live with her family in Canada is hilarious one minute and heartbreaking the next. Ash Khan brings a certain charisma to Ornid, the teacher's pet, whose relative ease with English makes Elham suspicious. Each character feels specific and knowable, each defined by the tension between their relationships to their culture and their relationships to English. The multifaceted meetings that English takes on when filtered through the experiences of each character speak volumes to Tusi's dramatic skill. Director Shadi Ghaheri employs a number of techniques to highlight this idea. Soft spotlights are used at the end of multiple scenes to single out characters who have just made linguistic mistakes, emphasizing the shame and scrutiny non-native speakers often endure. The play also weaves the music into its sonic storytelling, further emphasizing the extent to which sounds can carry entire cultural identities. Sound designer Bahar Royaie contributes much to the overall experience. The ambient sounds she uses to create the sonic landscape of Iran are at times transporting, while the use of recordings in Marjan's class creates a fascinating dynamic between the characters and the audience. While we sit and listen to recordings of English speakers that are perfectly intelligible to us, the students on stage listen in near total confusion. Providing a sense of place also seems to be the focal point for other designers, as scenic designer Sajra Tehrani cleverly divides the stage between the interior of a low-budget classroom and the evocative trees and graffiti of urban Iran. Costume designer Afsena Ayani also does good work with the costumes, imbuing a certain level of personality into each ensemble. Credit must also go to dialect coach Ana Bayat, whose extensive resume shows in the way the production uses accents to augment the story. Whenever the characters speak English, the actors deliver the lines in thick Iranian accents, while the lines meant to be in Farsi are delivered naturally with no added inflection or dialect. This choice reflects how much more easily the characters are able to express themselves in their native tongue. However, the accents are also cleverly varied with the characters who are more proficient in English, like Ornid and Marjan, speaking with much lighter accents than characters like Elham and Gholi. The play will surely land differently on audience members who only speak one language, but even for them, it manages to walk a deft line between educational and didactic. For those who have never been forced, persuaded, or required to converse in ways that are foreign and uncomfortable, the play gives voice to a feeling that so often goes ignored. That's all the time we have for this article, which is entitled Review. In Alliance's English, Characters Show Their Relationships to Culture by Luke Evans. That concludes today's Metro Arts program, which is brought to you by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. This has been Kristen Moody for GARS, the Georgia Radio Reading Service. Thank you for listening to GARS. Thank you.