UNLV’s medical students conduct walkability studies of Las Vegas neighborhoods to get a more holistic view of factors that affect people’s health outcomes. They evaluate transportation, food access, air quality, and amenities, identifying gaps and devising plans to address issues. Students have spoken about their experiences at legislative sessions about inequities in healthcare.

To the rescue came Colette LaBouff. The former executive director of New Mexico’s Taos Center for the Arts, as well as a published poet, LaBouff had a lot of work to do with a smaller staff. And in June 2022, she got to work. And she’s here to tell us what she and BMI have experienced and accomplished over the past year.

UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute has a new executive director who’ll start on the job June 1.

Those who know Beverly Rogers know that when she puts her mind to a goal, it’ll get done.

Jorge Olivera Castillo, a Cuban poet, fiction writer and journalist, takes up a five-month residency in downtown Las Vegas this month.

Kristen Radtke’s drawings resemble movie stills. We peer into a bedroom window, where a woman watches TV alone, her face lit by the screen.

The Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute at UNLV, producers of The Believer magazine and its eponymous yearly literary festival (fingers crossed for 2021), now invites you on the proverbial journey into sound. Black Mountain Radio, a locally focused conversation and storytelling program airing on KUNV and widely available on podcast services, combines interviews, aural histories, poetry and prose into a word portrait that reveals itself in considered, expressive brushstrokes. The pilot episode, featuring Fawn Douglas, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Toni Jensen and others, makes for a compelling listen.

Whether you’re young or just young at heart, this new program is for you. Two beloved local cultural institutions—the Neon Museum and UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute—have teamed up to present a virtual storytime.

While the coronavirus crisis is keeping Nevada art institutions shuttered, Nevada Museum of Art, the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art and Believer Magazine are creating prompts, lessons and virtual engagement to help Nevadans cope with the pandemic through creative expression.

It’s widely accepted that one of the key ingredients in the recipe for a vibrant city and a strong economy is the arts.

Las Vegas will be the home of a monthly Moth storytelling showcase beginning in April.

We named it Best Fest in our 2018 Best of Vegas issue, and from April 30-May 2, the annual literary and cultural gathering known as the Believer Festival will return with another noteworthy lineup.