The performer residency is a decades-long tradition in Las Vegas.

But from the days of the Rat Pack to today, the lineup of acts Las Vegas has to offer has broadened significantly.

Before taking a positing teaching creative writing at the University of Chicago, Vu Tran called Las Vegas home.

Vu Tran's first full memory was just a few weeks before his fifth birthday.

In the personal essay “Shadow Texts,” Mike Smith begins by admitting “one odd thing” he has done: “For six years now, I have kept alive my late wife’s Yahoo account.” The piece, published in the online summer edition of Witness magazine, goes on to chronicle how the widower seeks to preserve his wife’s voice by tending to her emails. It’s both quirky and gently tragic—expertly revealing how we grieve in our technology-drenched era. - See more at: http://vegasseven.com/2015/07/22/witness-good-literature/#sthash.E5knJKfF.dpuf

Joshua Wolf Shenk is a best-selling author living in Southern California.

BLACK MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE NAMES EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR The Black Mountain Institute at UNLV has appointed Joshua Wolf Shenk as executive director to succeed Carol Harter.

He wrote the most-read story in the history of The Atlantic’s website, he advises The Moth storytelling podcast, he champions mental health, he has webbed toes, and now Joshua Wolf Shenk is the director of the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV. The author/journalist/activist has penned New York Times-acclaimed books and contributed to all the impressive national magazines, and now he’s bringing literary journalism to BMI, which outgoing leader Carol Harter hopes will one day rival the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. –KT

UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute has a new executive director, the department announced Thursday.

Long live the Black Mountain Institute! Thanks to a $20 million gift from the Rogers Foundation—one of the largest in UNLV’s history—the institute should be financially covered for the next 25 to 30 years, BMI executive director Carol Harter says.