by Liza Roberts photographs by Mark Petko Like so many of life’s most important things, Lisa Sykes’ dream house came when she wasn’t looking for it. What she wanted instead were rugs for the North Raleigh house she and her…
by Andrew Kenney photographs by Geoff Wood The wooded shoreline of Lake Wheeler is still dark this early, but the water is sunlit, and young rowers already are hauling their long pencil-boats down to the water. Like everything in the…
by Larry Stogner While shooting a story at RDU recently, I recalled the day I returned home from Vietnam in late 1968. There were no jetways then. There were stairs. A 50-yard walk led to the only doorway into Raleigh-Durham…
As families across Raleigh gather this month, many will raise a glass to toast the season of thanks. But while we can all use recipes to help plan the meal, how do we pick the wine? Walter asked two local…
photographs by Tierney Farrell A silver pendant in the shape of North Carolina shines above Nicole Stewart’s ear as she sips coffee at Joule. The busy downtown coffee shop, filled with young professionals, is a fitting location for the…
by Tracy Davis photographs by Tim Lytvinenko If there is a modern, downtown version of a Renaissance couple, Skillet Gilmore and Caitlin Cary may be it. They’re both musicians. They’re both artists. They’re both mover-shaker types in the city’s arts…
by Tony Avent illustration by Ippy Patterson Since Raleigh is known as the City of Oaks, most residents like to think they can identify oak trees, but when I show Henry’s oak to garden visitors, their jaws drop to an unnatural…
by Emma Powell Wood bowl artist Darrell Rhudy, 83, first discovered his love of woodcraft in the third grade. “I told my teacher I wanted to build birdhouses,” he says, standing in the workshop he built behind his house off…
by Ann Brooke Raynal illustrations by Ippy Patterson Family came first for Sabrina Goode’s father, Robert Akins Goode, and for her mother, Emily Morgan Goode. Maybe that’s why, even though they lived a military life that took them far and…
by David Rigsbee My father came to me in a dream to walk with me around a stadium. Not wearing the jaunty motley of his last months: the patchwork newsboy cap and paneled shirt he wore when tearing around…
by Kaitlyn Goalen photographs by Nick Pironio Until I was a teenager, my Thanksgivings took place in Mexico. My family would retreat to the beach for a vacation that appeared nowhere in the lexicon of turkey, Pilgrims, or pie. The first…
by Cam Higgins “Should I use the autograph I’ve been practicing, or just sign my normal name?” Few 13-year-olds get the chance to ask their coach that question, but then again, Dante Defranco and his fellow players on the West…
When celebrated poets Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar moved from Oregon to Raleigh in 2008, they brought a love of verse they wanted to share. Laux, a professor of poetry in N.C. State’s creative writing program, had just the…
When celebrated poet and Raleigh native Gibbons Ruark heard that Seamus Heaney, his cherished friend of more than 30 years, had died on Aug. 30, he was bereft. Heaney, the Irish Nobel Laureate, had been a hero, kindred spirit, and touchstone…