Hello Friends and Colleagues,
I hope this message finds you safe, healthy, and continuing to navigate these extraordinary times as we slowly begin to emerge from another long winter of the pandemic. I’m writing you because I want to share the launch of a new project that is close to my heart.
I am now the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of DC ArtsWire, a multimedia news platform dedicated to reporting on the visual, performing, and literary arts community in the Washington metropolitan area (the DMV).
Why DC ArtsWire?
It’s very frustrating trying to find local arts coverage in the mainstream media past the big museums and performance venues. And what you do find often feels like grudging afterthoughts buried in the “Arts and Entertainment” sections of news sites, the tiny listings in the of back of print publications, or the rare segment on broadcast news.
While reporting on the big events at places like the Kennedy Center or the Smithsonian campus is welcome and important, there is also a vibrant and diverse community of artists and arts organizations making things happen in every corner of the DMV that deserve media attention as well.
Artist are creating dazzling new works in their studios. Cabaret performers are birthing new forms of expression on small stages tucked above shops and restaurants. Poets and writers are spinning language with spellbinding fierceness and publishing at a record pace. Where are their stories being told? Where are their histories, reviews, and critical analyses being published? Now they have a home at DC ArtsWire.
I am on a mission to serve the DMV arts community, and those that support it, with an independent source of news and information delivered with journalistic vigor. As I start this adventure, I invite your feedback and tips to make this newsletter an inclusive space that celebrates the best of traditional locals arts and keeps an eye open for the new and the next.
Please help me do that by sending send messages, tips, and story ideas directly to me at editor@dcartswire.com. The arts are my beat, I will follow it wherever it leads.
How can you support DC ArtsWire?
Please help spread the word by sharing this message to people in your networks.
If you are seeing this message by email, you are already subscribed to the free bi-weekly DC ArtsWire newsletter on Substack. The first issue will be released tomorrow - Tuesday, 2/22/22.
However, if you would like to help support newsletter production costs, please consider a paid subscription (just $7/month) which will gives you access to the main bi-weekly newsletter plus:
Weekly arts event picks recommended by local artists and art lovers
Monthly listings of vetted local artist opportunities on the forthcoming DC ArtsWire website launching March 1.
The DC ArtsWire Podcast series featuring in-depth interviews with local artists and arts organization leaders
Bonus video content like artist studio tours, performances, local art and literary history and more as the platform grows
Also, if you wish to unsubscribe, please click on the “unsubscribe” button in the email footer.
When lockdowns impacted the DMV arts community in 2020, I learned how much making the unintentional error of taking the creative output of our region for granted can cost us individually and collectively. If we don’t support our artists and their work in a substantial and sustained way, it could all disappear. I refuse to let that happen on my watch. Will you join me?
The time is now!