Douglas McLennan: June 2007 Archives

I'm very pleased to introduce our latest ArtsJourna blog. It's called Flyover, an ironic reference to the geographic location from whence the blog hails. Most of the chatter about the arts in America comes from the big cities, since that's where most of the art is made and shown.

But there are many who prefer living in small town America, and not only is there some great art made there, but also some great writing about it. Four such writers - who met as winners of this year's NEA arts journalism fellowship in theatre in Los Angeles - have banded together to write an arts blog from a perspective you don't hear from very often: America's small towns and cities.

Joe Nickell is a terrific entertainment writer at the Missoulian in Montana. Jennifer Smith lives in Madison, Wis., where she manages the state's arts and culture Web site, Portalwisconsin.org and is a freelance arts writer whose work appears regularly in Madison's alternative weekly, Isthmusis. Bridgette Redmond is a freelance performing arts columnist and theater reviewer for the Lansing State Journal in Lansing, Michigan. And John Stoehr is the arts and culture reporter for the Savannah Morning News in Savannah, Ga.

They got together after their LA fellowship and decided there wasn't enough being written about the arts from their 'inside America" point of view. Each could work in larger cities, but they've made the choice to work where they are. And over the past few months as they have filled a blog called Art.Rox, they have shown a keen sense of what they're looking for in the arts and why the arts are thriving in places you might not have thought they were. Check them out and you'll make them a daily habit as I have.