By Caitlin McCarty

I’ve always been curious about the way words can construct and deconstruct our lives. I love you – construct. I think we should go our separate ways – deconstruct. Words have the ability to build us up or tear us down and sometimes, they do something in between.

By Christina Barr

As summer kicks into high gear, I am reminded of how important it is to connect with friends and family. The humanities are the perfect catalyst for this. Festivals, cultural events, family celebrations, barbecues, music, art, literature, and all of the social elements that make us human are the glue that binds us together as families and communities.

By Gailmarie Pahmeier

Gailmarie Pahmeier, Reno Poet Laureate, Emerita, teaches in the MFA Programs at UNR and Sierra Nevada College. She is a recent inductee into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame and last year’s recipient of the Outstanding Teacher in the Humanities Award from Nevada Humanities.

By staff of Nevada Humanities

What do these three historical figures — Samuel Clemens, Madeleine L’Engle, and Evel Knievel — all have in common? They will all converge at the same time and in the same place in Sparks, Nevada. The Nevada Humanities Great Basin Young Chautauqua Showcase presents the stories of these and other historical characters through live theatrical performances on Thursday, June 28 and Friday, June 29 from 6:00-9:00 pm at the Restless Artists’ Theatre in Sparks.

By Ann Keniston

A different version was published (under the title “Dreamed Beloved”)
in the Missouri Review Online.

By Maxwell Johnson

As a young child, I was oblivious to the amazing qualities and history of the place that I lived in. In the dusty hills and mountain towns, I saw them at face value, not understanding the people who had helped build them and the communities that have flourished within them. I was being left out of the stories that were hidden among the sagebrush and streets of my community.

By Katherine Fusco

There’s a tradition in American literature of the minor character, the survivor, narrating the life of the charismatic tragic protagonist, be it Moby Dick’s Ishmael, The Great Gatsby’s Nick Carraway, or even Lolita’s Humbert Humbert. The trick of such tales is in giving readers enough to sink their teeth into, while also indicating the limited nature of the narrator’s vision.

By Paige dePolo

Our state has adopted many symbols to honor and give a sense of the character of its high deserts, mountains, and valleys and of the pioneering spirits of the folks who live here. Of the state symbols, our state fossil, Shonisaurus popularis, the ichthyosaur, stands out at almost mythical proportions.

By Gus Pappas
This letter is the 2018 “Letters About Literature” Level 3 winner for the state of Nevada.

Dear Connor Franta,

I am sitting here writing a letter to a simplistic, beautiful, aesthetic human being on a Wednesday morning, 8:06 AM, on the spot, how thrilling.

By Anne Hoff

Community. Through ink, blood, sweat, and tears. The tactile quality, the magical appearance of transferred image, the heartbreak of visual “bust,” long hours of toil, rewarding surprises… this is printmaking.

By Heidi Kyser

In early 2012, I had coffee with an acquaintance who wanted to talk to me about a looming public health crisis. A nurse practitioner and the mother of a boy who’d recently started using heroin after abusing the opioid painkillers that he’d been prescribed for a lacrosse injury, she stood at the intersection of institutional medicine and drug addiction.