Free Little Art Galleries
One of the hippest neighborhoods in East Lansing just got hipper. Building on the immensely popular Little Free Library program, the East Lansing Arts Commission, in cooperation with 10 Glencairn …
By BILL CASTANIER's Latest Articles
MSU program to tell first-person stories of Vietnam War
Using the written word, combat veterans, authors and an anti-war activist will present a program Friday underlining how the Vietnam War permeated our nation’s culture and Michigan State …
New books provide a double whammy of stunning photography
Two new Michigan-centric books are the kind you will pull off the shelf just to look at. You will turn to a page and go, “Wow.” Then you will want to show what you found to someone else. …
Ken Wachsberger details a lifetime of adventures in new memoir
Ken Wachsberger, a dedicated chronicler of the turbulent radicalism on college campuses and the national stage in the 1960s and ‘70s, is taking one more shot at telling his story in his new …
Reclaiming country music’s Black history
When you think about country music, you think white. But Alice Randall moved to Nashville in 1983 as a young Black songwriter fresh from Harvard to change that dynamic. “For 20 years, I …
Public Art of the Week
The busy brushes of Brian Whitfield The paint brushes of local muralist Brian Whitfield never get a chance to dry out, and that’s a good thing. Whitfield, who is noted for his many …
One Grand Read takes flight with Black birder’s memoir
In May 2020, Christian Cooper, a dedicated birder, was on his home turf in New York’s Central Park looking for the elusive mourning warbler when he came across a “bird” he had never …
Artstorm 2025
Murals find their way on to some unusual spaces, including street crosswalks, communication boxes and walls and windows in the downtown. And now drain grates and catch basins will be getting a …
From sidekick to protagonist
Local author RJ Erskine begins his new paranormal thriller, “The Coigreach,” like many other books in the genre: A young, enigmatic traveler has car trouble and settles in a …
How crime novelist Elmore Leonard changed his biographer’s life
(This is the second in a two-part series on Detroit’s famed writer.) C.M. Kushins was 11 when his mother gave him a copy of “Get Shorty.” It led to a life of writing. He writes …