A Song For You

This is a week of rest and celebration, so we asked San Antonio novelist Nancy West for permission to print her new holiday song, and she graciously agreed. Enjoy! And please share your thoughts with us. To learn more about Nancy’s books, visit nancygwest.com. You can purchase her novels through the Nowhere Bookstore, 5154 Broadway.

Life in the Time of COVID-19, Part 37

This lyrical poem, “Milkweed” is by Denver-based poet and Presbyterian pastor Dana Hughes. “Next year, hope shall grow,” she says, and we share that feeling, we all do. MilkweedBy Dana Hughes Along the dry creek bedwhere the cottonwoodshave purged their branchesdown to the last tremblingcertitude of spring withits lush belief thatnormal would return,where October’s windhas heaped the litterinto rattling mounds,then …

News Roundup, Dec. 24, 2020

Ballet San Antonio has a Christmas gift for you. In a wonderful gesture of holiday generosity, the company has made its 2020 production of “The Nutcracker” accessible to all via YouTube, free of charge. Different from all previous versions, this is a COVID-19-imposed reinvention of the classical staging, born out of need and ingenuity. It will be available for streaming …

Life in the Time of COVID-19, Part 36

Today’s poem is by Austin-area writer and poet Milton Jordan, who, with his wife Anne Jordan, runs the Cypress Book Co. in Georgetown. A Grammar of Good TroubleBy Milton Jordan Have we grown comfortable with the languageof despair and the vocabulary of hopelessness we have now learned to use?Is the renewed grammar of what’s possibleoffering us a familiar structurewe’re no longer …

News Roundup, Dec.18, 2020

‘Tis the season for “The Nutcracker”!  Though Ballet San Antonio’s 2020 edition of the beloved show closed last Sunday, here comes another one, produced by the Children’s Ballet of San Antonio, the pre-professional company of talented dancers led by the former principal dancer of the National Ballet of Panama, Vanessa Bessler. These dancers may be young but many are quite …

Jazz Fest Transforming into a Concert Series

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor For 26 years, jazz lovers have flocked to the Balcones Heights Jazz Festival in July to listen to great music played outdoors on balmy summer nights. Pictures show a packed amphitheater just outside the Wonderland of the Americas Mall, with people lounging on chairs and blankets around a shallow pool of water, facing the make-shift stage …

Children’s Ballet’s “Nutcracker” will Feature Masks, Zoom and Fine Dancing

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor — Kate Thomas was seven when her parents first signed her up for recreational dance classes at the Dance Center of San Antonio. But the school’s founder, Vanessa Bessler, quickly detected that her new student had the potential to become a real dancer and suggested that the girl be moved into the intensive program. “I spotted …

Life in the Time of COVID-19, Part 35

Today’s poem is by Austin poet, Kimbol Soques, who is currently finishing a Master of Divinity degree. Aren’t we all waiting for the experts to say: Come forth!? Bell JarBy Kimbol Soques Victorian windowsare narrow, darkwith screens tight-woven 100 years in, it’s hardto remember their gift of skyuntil I stand, nose-pressed,and look up too, spring’s greenleaves are just at eyes’ …