by Todd Cohen When she was a first-grader at Mary P. Douglas Elementary School in Raleigh, Kari Howe Stoltz volunteered to help raise money for a bike-a-thon to support a girl in her neighborhood who had cystic fibrosis. She’s been…
by Wilton Barnhardt, author of the new novel Lookaway, Lookaway I suspect Sir Walter Raleigh, back in 1618, went to the executioner convinced of the utter failure of his ventures, having fallen out of favor with Queen Elizabeth as well…
by Kaitlyn Goalen photographs by Juli Leonard It may not have the juiciness of a tomato or the intoxicating perfume of a ripe peach, but the eggplant is among my favorite late summer ingredients. It wasn’t always so. Until fairly…
by Dean McCord The place is in a run-down mini strip mall scheduled for demolition in the not-too-distant future. It’s between a head shop and an old-school record store. It has the tiniest, most cramped parking lot, perfectly ripe…
by Allie Higgins A Piggly Wiggly parking lot in Warsaw, N.C., might not be the most obvious place to spend a sweltering summer afternoon, but it’s a great spot to meet Raleigh’s own Ann Edmondson. As coordinator of the North…
by Ann Brooke Raynal photographs by Lissa Gotwals As with most stories about art, this one begins with the human eye. In this case, the eye belongs not to an artist but to a leading laser pioneer, whose vision is…
text and photograph by John Rosenthal In 1996, Gibbons Ruark, Raleigh native and well respected poet, wrote a splendid poem called Swamp Mallows. It was inspired by the remarkably beautiful Ben Berns painting of the same name in the North…
by Maureen Sherbondy Place your hand in the fire imagine it is a river that can only burn the skin of one who fears and sees flame. Jump out of the plane. No parachute. Fall and grab what you need…
by Settle Monroe The radio never worked and the air conditioning was shot in the 1968 Chevrolet Impala my father inherited from his grandmother. But when I was a 5-year-old girl riding to kindergarten with my dad, its run-down condition…
by Tracie Fellers “Why?” That’s what my mother says when I tell her, while we finish our Sunday dinner – post-Thanksgiving plates of turkey, oyster dressing, collard greens, and sweet potatoes. Mom and I had joked that my maternal grandmother and…
The last 18 months have been a whirlwind for Stitch Golf founder and Raleigh resident Charlie Burgwyn. In that time, he and his partner Steve Pena have created a multi-million-dollar business, selling more than 200,000 hand-sewn leather golf club head…
by Liza Roberts photographs by Nick Pironio Meg Lowman believes in a lot of things: The sanctity of the treetops. The importance of insects, curiosity, resilience, and adventure. She believes in “no child left indoors” and “the power of one.” And kismet. “I find…
photographs by Nick Pironio In 1959, when Capitol Broadcasting Company founder A.J. Fletcher opened a lush and expansive azalea garden to the public on five West Raleigh acres surrounding WRAL-TV studios, he said he did it to pay “a tribute…
by Scott Huler photographs by Lissa Gotwals Danielle Centeno tastes in shapes. Centeno, head chocolatier of Escazu Artisan Chocolate on North Blount Street, has synesthesia – a conflation of two senses – that causes her, when she eats, to experience not just taste…