“The Women”
In 1966, after her brother Finley is killed in the Vietnam War, twenty-year-old Frankie McGrath decides to volunteer as an Army nurse and, despite the disapproval of her parents, heads off to the battlefield.
By Fran Withrow 04.2024
Blazing Trails
I love reading about hikers who explore trails I might never see, describing their beauty and the experience of being out in nature. So when Charles McGuigan told me about “On Trails,” I rushed out to pick up a copy at the library.
By Fran Withrow 03.2024
Doing the Right Damn Thing
As a child, Will Harris delighted in exploring the woods near his farm, and “knew how everything was and how it all fit together.” His family farmed the land in Bluffton, Georgia, for decades, and Harris grew up to became the fourth generation owner of what is now called White Oak Pastures.
By Fran Withrow 02.2024
The Art of David Rohrer: A Sense of Place
With brush and oils, David Rohrer captures place in an extraordinary way. It is in the slant of light, the play of colors, and the characters, which are houses or other structures—and occasionally human forms, that he is able, with his brushstrokes, to make you feel as if you are there.
By Charles McGuigan 02.2024
Where the Wild Things Are Right In Your Backyard
Nancy Lawson, author of “The Humane Gardener,” has written a thoughtful new book about how you can appreciate and nurture the natural world in your own back yard. In “Wildscape,” Lawson says, “Studies show that being around nature makes us smarter, happier and kinder.” Boy, does the world need that.
By Fran Withrow 12.2023
Art Classes at Studio Art 1229
Right next door to Little House Green Grocery in the heart of Bellevue there’s Studio Art 1229 which offers classes in painting, from acrylics to oils to watercolors, for beginning, intermediate, and advanced painters. The two instructors at the studio are owner Brenda Stankus, and her fellow artist Elizabeth Eubanks.
By Charles McGuigan 12.2023
Paved with Good Intentions
We sure do adore our roads, unless we are inconvenienced by them. Traffic jams, construction blockages, and poorly maintained expressways will have us tapping our feet in frustration and peeking at our phones. The world is criss-crossed with roads and more are being built all the time. But there is a downside to our love affair with roads, and it is a doozy.
By Fran Withrow 11.2023
True Love
“Fran, you just have to read this book,” said my friend Nancy, thrusting her copy of “Foster” into my hands. I nodded assent, tucked it into my bag and went on about my morning.
Later that afternoon, I opened her book and fell in. I gulped it all in one sitting and then started over again. Each time I was swept away by the gentle lyricism of this short, sweet novel that is now part of the school syllabus in Ireland, where its author, Claire Keegan resides. And I can certainly see why.
By Fran Withrow 10.2023
Love Makes a Perfect Landing
I once read that if you're asked what made you fall in love with someone, and you immediately list some specific reasons, it's not true love. That sounds about right. True love is ineffable, right? And since it was 2:43 am and I had recently discovered Chat GPT, I had to ask it "write about how you can't write about love." No sooner had I typed that last e, than a list of pretty good reasons populated my screen scarily fast, defying its own premise, sort of.
By Anne Jones 10.2023
Ellie’s Hot Dogs & Ice Cream
It was a Thursday afternoon like any other. Work ended at 4, errands had to be done, dinner was a distant mystery, and it was a steamy 97 degrees in the late afternoon. One of those days when a walk was out of the question, the car was as cold as I could get it, and outside seemed almost dangerous with heat. I’d dropped my pup off at home to lie on the couch in the ac, and had set off down Arthur Ashe Boulevard towards Broad Street with Lowe’s in mind.
By Anne Jones 09.2023
Finding Joy on Spaceship Earth
Most of us focus on the everyday things of life: fixing meals, getting kids off to school, going to work. The yard needs to be mowed, we have to buy groceries, the next door neighbor is annoying, and the laundry never gets caught up.
If we do stop to take a breath, it is only to read emails, scroll through social media, and peruse the never-ending dismal news about climate change and politics. There is grief everywhere.
By Fran Withrow 09.2023
A Boy’s Harrowing Journey To the United States
In 1999, when Javier Zamora was nine years old, his grandfather gave him into the care of a “coyote,” Don Dago, who would help Zamora and other immigrants travel from El Salvador to the United States so Zamora could be reunited with his parents. The trip was supposed to take a couple of weeks.
By Fran Withrow 08.2023
Bleach Drinking, Laser Lights, And Other Quack Cures
Our current healthcare system isn’t perfect, and some people are so disillusioned with it they are willing to seek medical answers outside the system. And there are scores of practitioners of “medical freedom” just waiting to take people’s money and send these sufferers their own version of the “One True Cure.”
By Fran Withrow 07.2023
The Richmond Theatre Fire Rekindled
“The House is on Fire,” is Rachel Beanland’s fictionalized account of the real life Richmond theatre fire of 1811. This fire, which occurred at the site of the current Monumental Church on East Broad Street, was at the time the worst calamity ever in the United States. Seventy-two people of the six hundred or so patrons who packed the building died, and scores more were injured.
By Fran Withrow 06.2023
Northside Grille: Music to the Ears
After a twelve-year run, Shenanigans on MacArthur Avenue closed its doors for good and all on the last day of 2011, and just like that Bellevue lost its live music venue.
But now, thanks to Brett Cassis, live music has finally returned to the Northside, and in a very big way. Every Thursday through Sunday (times vary) there’s live music of every conceivable genre either inside Northside Grille or out on the Patio.
By Charles McGuigan 05.2023
Knitting Your Life
Are you a knitter? If so, were you an SLFHM (She Learned From Her Mom)? Peggy Orenstein learned to knit from her mom at age eleven, so when Covid-19 turned her world upside down, she decided to knit a sweater “from scratch,” first shearing a sheep, then carding, spinning and dyeing the wool before knitting what she calls “the world’s ugliest sweater.” I found her sweater endearing, though, precisely because it wasn’t perfect.
By Fran Withrow 05.2023
Incanto—Words and Sculptures Coming to Lewis Ginter
“Incanto”, coming to Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden at the end of April, explores human nature, while inviting visitors into a transformational space of self-inquirty. Created from metal and words, two artists—sculptor Kate Raudenbush and poet Sha Michele—combine their creative skills in five monumental sculptures that exploring profound concepts of identity and the higher self.
04.2023
Live Music at Northside Grille
On Saint Patrick’s Day the band begins playing at the stroke of nine to a house already packed to the seams. Of course this is at Northside Grille, Bellevue’s home of live music since last summer, and the band playing is appropriately enough The Ex-Patriots—Pogue-like in the Celtic punk tradition.
By Charles McGuigan 04.2023
The Great Escape
Many enslaved people bravely attempted to escape to freedom during America’s long and terrible history of slavery. Most of their stories are lost to the annals of time, but not all of them, fortunately. One of the more fascinating true stories is “Master Slave Husband Wife,” which chronicles the 1848 escape from slavery of Ellen Craft and her husband William.
By Fran Withrow 04.2023
Frederick Douglass Comes To Life at the VMFA
Isaac Julien’s “Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass”, now at the VMFA, could not have arrived at a more opportune moment. Consider the revisionist history Virginia’s current superintendent of public education is foisting on our youth.
By Charles McGuigan 03.2023
How Awe Transforms Us
“Awe is the emotion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don’t understand.” So Dacher Keltner explains in his thoughtful book, “Awe,” which looks deeply at this emotion through the lens of science and shares how becoming aware of awe can change your life for the better.
By Fran Withrow 03.2023
Tweedledum and Tweedledumber
Andy Borowitz is an American author and comedian whose new book reveals how our country’s politicians have become dumb and dumber in the last fifty years. “Profiles in Ignorance” made me laugh—but also feel alarmed—as it traces the slippery slope leading from our more intelligent leaders to the “nightmare” of Donald Trump.
By Fran Withrow 01.2023
Racism in America: A Heavy Boulder
Andre Henry is a Black activist, artist, and writer. In his book, “All the White Friends I Couldn’t Keep,” Henry shares how his close white friends and family do not truly understand how racism undergirds the foundation of our country. The heartbreaking ways his white friends dismiss racism eventually leads him, with grief and reluctance, to drop them from his life.
By Fran Withrow 12.2022
The Murder of a Teenaged Bride
I was captivated last year when I read Maggie O’Farrell’s book, “Hamnet,” a fictional account of the short life of William Shakespeare’s son. Now she is out with another story from the same time period: “The Marriage Portrait.”
By Fran Withrow 11.2022
Storied Strings: Fascist Killers
She may have been born in Spain, but the guitar, this European immigrant, assimilated so thoroughly into the American tapestry that you’d swear she was a native daughter.
The VMFA’s latest exhibition pays homage to this stringed instrument that for the past two centuries has defined American music in all its permutations.
By Charles McGuigan 10.2022
Seeing the Forest For the Trees
Lyndsie Bourgon’s book, “Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods,” is a real eye-opener. Bourgon traveled along the west coast of North and Central America to focus on the problem of timber poaching.
By Fran Withrow 10.2022
“Yonder”: Another Chapter In America’s Shameful Past
A book that keeps me up at night and consumes my thoughts during the day is one I want to share with you. “Yonder” is just such a book. Author Jabari Asim has added a compelling fictional account of the dark era of slavery to the growing assemblage of novels set during that time period.
By Fran Withrow 09.2022
Learning to Love Like a Dog
I was a little worried that “A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home” would be yet another sweet story of a dog who changes the life of their family but dies in the end. I would read, clutching my box of tissues, while swearing never to open another book like it.
By Fran Withrow 08.2022
The Brave Mary Lumpkin Changed the World
Almost a year ago, I reviewed Sadeqa Johnson’s “Yellow Wife,” a story inspired by Mary Lumpkin. Lumpkin was the enslaved concubine of the owner of Richmond’s most notorious slave jail. So when I heard that Kristen Green, author of “Something Must be Done About Prince Edward County” had published a non-fiction book about Lumpkin, I couldn’t wait to read it.
By Fran Withrow 07.2022
The Transformative Power of Being in Love
“The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. Didion’s account of her life after the sudden death of her husband is extraordinary.
By Fran Withrow 06.2022
Whistler to Cassatt: A Revolutionary Movement
It was a time not unlike other times. A time of almost climatic change, as new ideas blew away the archaic prevailing norms. Not much different than the time we now inhabit.
By Charles McGuigan 05.2022
May Art 2022
-Unstill Life At Eric Schindler
-Northside Art Show & Sale At LGRA To Benefit Feed More
-Single-Use Account At 1708 Gallery
“The Sign for Home” Is Sublime
Arlo is a DeafBlind Jehovah’s Witness who lives with a strict and controlling uncle, Brother Birch. Arlo is isolated and lonely, and has blocked out his past, as it is one of heartache, mystery, and loss.
By Fran Withrow 05.2022
April Art Events
-Whistler to Cassatt Opens April 16 at VMFA
-New Works by Mark Pehanich at Eric Schindler Gallery
-April Art Exhibits at the Main Richmond Public Library
04.2022
The Fullness of Our Precious Days
Ann Patchett, the prolific writer whose previous books include “Bel Canto,” “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage,” and “Truth and Beauty,” is out with a new offering. “These Precious Days” is a collection of essays, all just as thoughtful and profound as you would expect from this gifted author.
By Fran Withrow 04.2022
March Art Events
-Landscapes by Jason Bennett at Eric Schindler
-Artspace Satellite Exhibition at CVA / U-Turn Inc.
-March Art Exhibits at the Main Richmond Public Library
-Tsherin Sherpa: Spirits at the VMFA
-Works by Lilian Kreutzberger at 1708 Gallery
03.2022
Documenting Jim Crow on Leather
Winfred Rembert was born in Georgia in 1946 and his mother quickly gave him to her aunt to raise. Rembert grew up during the Jim Crow era, got involved in a Civil Rights demonstration in 1967 and stole a car to get away from two white police officers.
By Fran Withrow 03.2022
Truth Cannot Be Silenced
Kate Moore, author of the absorbing “The Radium Girls,” has written another satisfying book about a little known feminist, and it is equally as compelling. “The Woman They Could Not Silence” tells the story of the courageous feminist Elizabeth Packard, and after reading this book, I think her name deserves to be better known.
By Fran Withrow 1.2022
January/ February Art Events
-David Narum Exhibit at Eric Schindler
-Recent Works by Steven Roebuck at ADA
-Art Exhibits at the Main Richmond Public Library
-Japanese Woodblock Prints by Kawase Hasui at VMFA
01.2022
Louise Kirchen’s Debut CD “The Waiting Game”
Even though it took Louise Kirchen a lifetime to come out with her first cd, “The Waiting Game”, it would be all wrong to call her a late bloomer. She's been writing and singing good old country songs since her early days at 1960's Berkeley, smack dab in the center of the Summer of Love and witness to the many watershed musical events that defined a generation.
By Anne Jones 12.2021
Sweet Water in The Deep South
I picked up “The Sweetness of Water” because of the exquisite title, then became spellbound by the beauty of the writing. Lyrical and haunting, Nathan Harris has written a tale about the South just after the Emancipation Proclamation with understated power, pulling the reader into the story with an accomplished hand.
By Fran Withrow 12.2021
November Art Events
-The Northside Painters’ 4th Annual Art Show and Sale
-New Works by Blythe King At Eric Schindler Gallery
-Set It Off at 1708 Gallery and ICA
-Art Exhibits at the Main Richmond Public Library
-43rd Street Gallery 36th Annual Holiday Open House
11.2021
Reconsidering the “Throne”
When was the last time you talked about your toilet? For most of us, bathrooms and body waste are not typical conversation topics. However, perhaps they should be. Chelsea Ward, in her book, “Pipe Dreams,” has no hesitation about discussing the worldwide sanitation system (or lack thereof) with candor, humor, and insight, and what she shares is worth your attention. You might be as surprised as I was at what you learn.
By Fran Withrow 11.2021
Life Among the Stars
Are you curious about astronauts? Do you wonder about what it takes to be one, and how it feels to be free from gravity? What’s it like to be at the International Space Station for an extended period of time? How do astronauts manage toileting, bathing, and eating? Do they get along with colleagues from other countries?
By Fran Withrow 10.2021
Recent Works by Matt Lively and Ed Trask Coming to VisArts
The Visual Arts Center of Richmond and Glave Kocen Consulting present an exhibition of work by Matt Lively and Ed Trask titled “Blip of the Moment”. This joint show will open on September 17, with a public reception from 5 till 8 pm in the outdoor Cabell Courtyard at VisArts. Artist talks begin at 6 pm. The exhibition will be on view at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond’s True F. Luck Gallery until October 24. Masks are required inside the building.
09.2021
The Overground Railroad
When I was small, my family would drive from West Virginia to New England to visit our cousins. Sitting in the back seat of the station wagon with my squirmy siblings, I never worried that gas station owners might refuse us service, that we might be unable to find a restroom we would be allowed to use, or that we would not be welcome in any restaurant we wanted to patronize.
By Fran Withrow 09.2021
Ruby Scoop and the “Essence of Ice Cream”
Jonathan Gold, Giles Coren, Pete Wells - all famous food critics known to those who follow such matters. But when it comes to ice cream, they've got nothin' on me. Embarrassing truth be told, I've devoted a phenomenal number of hours of my life thinking about and savoring ice cream.
By Anne Jones 08.2021
Novel Inspired by Lumpkin’s Jail
In 2016, Sadeqa Johnson, new to Richmond, walked with her family along the Richmond Slave Trail. She became fascinated by the story of Robert Lumpkin and his infamous jail where enslaved people were bought and sold.
By Fran Withrow 08.2021
World in a Zip Code At Library of Virginia
Columbia Pike: Through the Lens of Community, a unique exhibition of photographs at the Library of Virginia, celebrates the extraordinary cultural diversity found within a single community in Northern Virginia.
08.2021
Art Returns to the Main Richmond Public Library
Art returns to the Richmond Public library after a 19-month long hiatus. This September, the galleries at the Main Public Library will unveil the works of a number of Richmond artists.
08.2021
New Northside Mural: What’s Love Got to Do with It?
What’s not to love about Northside?
Absolutely nothing.
But there’s a lot to love about it.
So much in fact that it’s going to be hard to decide exactly what will make up the Northside Love Mural to be painted on the side of the old dry cleaners building at the southwest corner of Brook Road and Bellevue Avenue.
By Charles McGuigan 07.2021
On the Nature of Oak Trees
I’m a big fan of Doug Tallamy, a University of Delaware professor who advocates for native plants and protection for local wildlife like nobody else. I previously reviewed his book, “Nature’s Best Hope,” in which he explains how we can support biodiversity by what we plant right in our own back yards. I appreciate his congenial, positive approach to promoting environmental causes and his commitment to conservation.
By Fran Withrow 07.2021
Children Under Fire: An American Crisis
Tyshaun, age nine, is good friends with Ava, age eight. Tyshaun lives just outside of Washington, D.C., while Ava lives in South Carolina. They connect via video often, even though their backgrounds are different, because they share one critical commonality: they both live with the aftermath of gun violence.
By Fran Withrow 06.2021
The Dirty South: Baptism by Sight and Sound
Total immersion is the best sort of baptism: every pore, every follicle, every pathway to your senses, caressed or assaulted, by water, by fire, or, in the case of the VMFA’s latest installation, by sight and by sound.
By Charles McGuigan 06.2021
A New Dawn For Hopewell
Back in early May, Northside artist Nico Cathcart began painting a massive mural on the side of Butterworth Lofts at 245 East Broadway in downtown Hopewell. It would strive to capture the real story of this small city that sits at the confluence of the James and Appomattox Rivers, a city that thrived and then went bust on several occasions, a city at one time called the “Wonder City”.
By Charles McGuigan 06.2021
Through A Glass Clearly: Reflections and Distortions
John Crutchfield, owner of Artemis Gallery, recently purchased a number of new Richard Lee Bland pieces for his gallery’s permanent collection. It’s a totally different direction for Richard who has been an integral part of the Richmond art scene since the 1970s and is known for his representational oil on canvas paintings. “The thing I find unusual is the way the reflected light off these 1800 window panes creates an abstract image as if it were painted by a modernist,” John said.
By Charles McGuigan 06.2021
Three Not-So-Weird Sisters
I had witches on my mind, having just finished Alice Hoffman’s “Magic Lessons,” when I received “The Once and Future Witches.” I couldn’t wait to dive in.
It took me a while to get into this book, but when I finally did, oh, dear reader! This story tossed me on its back and away we flew on one of the grandest adventures I’ve experienced in quite a while.
By Fran Withrow 05.2021
The Magic of Love
Alice Hoffman’s genre is magical realism, and she is so adept at it one half suspects it is all true. This is certainly the case with her latest novel, “Magic Lessons,” which is set in the 1600’s during the Salem witch trials.
By Fran Withrow 04.2021
Virginia Arcadia: The Natural Bridge in American Art
VMFA presents Virginia Arcadia: The Natural Bridge in American Art. Explore the artistic legacy of an iconic natural wonder. Depicted and celebrated for centuries, the Natural Bridge is the Shenandoah Valley’s breathtaking centerpiece—a towering, primeval witness to human history and timeless muse.
New Work by Nicole Renee Randall at Eric Schindler Gallery
Among Women, an exhibit of new works by Nicole Renee Randall, will be featured through April 3 at Eric Schindler Gallery. In an interview with Nicole three years ago, the artist said this: “Art is the intersection of craft and idea.
Searching for the Gold Bug
“Miss Benson’s Beetle” came to me at just the right time. I was ripe and ready for a story that was bursting with heart, and this charming novel by Rachel Joyce, author of “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry,” fit the bill perfectly.
By Fran Withrow 03.2021
Nobody’s Child: A Tragedy, a Trial, and a History of the Insanity Defense
Dorothy Dunn (not her real name) certainly seems guilty. There on the floor lies her three-year old grandson, dead.
By Fran Withrow 02.2021
Unbreakable Bonds Forged In Bondage
“White Chrysanthemum” is the gripping story of two girls living through the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1943. Hana, her sister Emi, and their parents make their home on a small island off the coast of Korea.
By Fran Withrow 12.2020
Bittersweet Hilarity
The juxtaposition of “hilarious” and “depression” in “The Hilarious World of Depression” was so jarring to me I just had to read and find out more. And while author John Moe did have me laughing as he describes his lifelong battle with this illness, the bigger takeaway is how important it is for those struggling with depression to feel they can open up about their mental state and not be stigmatized for it.
By Fran Withrow 11.2020
Recent Paintings by R. Sawan White
R. Sawan was a provost scholar at Virginia Commonwealth University and earned a first degree in printmaking at in the Midlands of England. She has taken her love of process and technique found in etching and applied it to her current painting work.
11.2020
Visual Art Studio is Now Open
Anne’s Visual Art Studio will be open to the public from 1 till 3 pm every Thursday and Friday through December 18.
11.2020
Home of the Brave: Real Stories of Courage
In “After the Last Border,” author Jessica Goudeau shares the real life accounts of two women who seek to escape civil war, persecution, and violence in their home countries.
By Fran Withrow 10.2020
Conservation Starts In Your Own Back Yards
It’s easy to get discouraged these days, what with the pandemic, the ongoing struggle for racial equality, and the political scene. So it was with reluctance that I started “Nature’s Best Hope,” because reading about the decline of wildlife populations on top of everything else makes me want to hide and eat chocolate.
By Fran Withrow 09.2020
Remembrance of Things Past and Present
“Remembrance” is the story of four strong Black women, each with a special power that will ultimately connect them to one other and to Remembrance, a safe haven for Black people who have escaped from slavery.
By Fran Withrow 08.2020
The Kamoinge Workshop: Shooting with your Heart
Justice can be poetic. At times, ironically fitting in the extreme.
By Charles McGuigan 05.2020
Daily Dose from the Poetry Pharmacy
Dealing with hardships can be tough, and while there are many ways to tackle difficulty, William Sieghart has one novel suggestion: read a poem.
By Fran Withrow 04.2020
Bringing the War Horse Back to the Front
After standing sentry for more than twenty years near the front entrance of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture (formerly the Virginia Historical Society), “The War Horse”, a bronze sculpture, was unceremoniously removed from its perch last May.
By Charles McGuigan 03.2020
HAMILTON: Bending the Arc
HAMILTON, the musical, which played at Altria Theatre through December 8, was the perfect entrée to serve up with the impeachment hearings.
By Charles McGuigan 01.2020
One Life Shy of a Cat
After I finished “The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna,” I turned to the beginning again, wanting to refresh my memory for this review.
By Fran Withrow 01.2020
Kehinde Wiley’s Rumors of War Inspired by Confederate Monument
Come December 10 Richmond will finally have a monument we can all be proud of. Rumors of War, a gargantuan statue unveiled last month in New York’s Times Square, will find its permanent home late this fall in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts on Arthur Ashe Boulevard.
Unlike many of the other equestrian statues in Richmond that celebrate white men who tried to destroy our Republic while preserving the evil enslavement of human beings of color, this new monument describes a contemporary African-American man proudly mounted on a steed.
By Charles McGuigan 12.2019
Edward Hopper and the American Hotel Opens at the VMFA October 26
Edward Harper, unlike any other American artist, captured on canvas the true nature of our national psyche. That rootlessness. That constant search for sense of place. That utter and final aloneness. His backdrops are often as stark and spare as a Raymond Caver short story, and peopled with just a few characters, but, more often than not, just one.
By Charles McGuigan 10.2019
