Arts in the Valley, Saturday (8 PM) & Sunday (9 AM), January 7 & 8, 2012, 1480 KYOS AM, Merced, CA

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Tune into Arts in the Valley on Saturday and Sunday, January 7 & 8 as host Kim McMillon interviews poet Mary Jo Bang, and Sophoan Sorn, the producer of the 5th Annual San Joaquin International Film Festival.

To listen to poet Mary Jo Bang, click onto the link:Poet Mary Jo Bang
Mary Jo Bang is the author of six books of poems: Apology for Want (1997) received the Bakeless Prize and the Great Lake Colleges New Writers Award; Louise in Love (2001) received the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay di Castagnola Award; The Downstream Extremity of the Isle of Swans (2001) was chosen by Mark Strand in the University of Georgia Contemporary Poets Series competition; The Eye Like a Strange Balloon was published in 2005; Elegy (2007) was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her most recent book of poems is The Bride of E (2009). Her work has been translated into Spanish (Elegia, Bartleby Editores, 2010) and German (Eskapaden: Ausgewählte Gedichte, Luxbooks, 2010). She has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University and teaches in the creative writing program at Washington University in St. Louis. Her translation of Dante’s Inferno, with illustrations by Henrik Drescher, will be published by Graywolf Press in 2012.  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/mary-jo-bang

To listen to Sophoan Sorn click onto the link:film fest

Sophoan Sorn began the creation of the San Joaquin International Film Festival in 2007. SJIFF inaugurated on June 4, 2008 at the historic Bob Hope Theatre in downtown Stockton. His collaborative spirit, innovative leadership and steadfast advocacy began an unprecedented and growing film culture for the area. He founded the year-round San Joaquin Film Society in 2009, curating unique programs as the San Joaquin Children’s Film Festival, Cinema Italia and French Cinema Days; while building strong collaborations with many institutions across the area, such as University of the Pacific, San Joaquin Delta College, The Haggin Museum and Modesto’s State Theatre. He is currently the third-year Director of San Francisco’s Berlin & Beyond Film Festival, America’s largest focus program of recent films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Presented by the Germany’s official cultural center, the Goethe-Institut San Francisco, Berlin & Beyond has been held annually since 1996 at the legendary Castro Theatre. He is based in San Francisco, California, and annually attends the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival in Germany.

The San Joaquin International Film Festival (SJIFF), the annual flagship festival of the San Joaquin Film Society is a special showcase of new, innovative, and award-winning works from emerging talents and master directors from around the World and America. The 5th Anniversary San Joaquin International Film Festival will take place January 12-14, 2012 at Stockton Empire Theatre and January 15th at the Janet Leigh Theatre at University of the Pacific. SJIFF will feature a bold collection of new films – along with directors in attendance and programs for all ages.  http://sjiff.org/schedule.html

Arts in the Valley, Saturday, November 26, 2011, 8 PM, 1480 KYOS AM, Merced, CA

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Tune into  Arts in the Valley on Saturday, November 26th as host Kim McMillon interviews Club Mercedes boardmember Les Contreras, Merced Shakespeare Festival founder/artistic director Heike Hambley, and  UC Merced Community Coordinator Geneva Skram.

To listen to Les Contreras discuss Club Mercedes, click onto this link:club mercedes-2

Les Contreras will discuss Club Mercedes upcoming holiday programming, and their Social, which happens the last Wednesday of the month.  There is a free dinner at 6:30 pm.  The next social is the last Wednesday in January.  Club Merced is located at the corner of 9th & “M” Street in Merced.

For more information, call 383-9906 or 769-9282.

Club Mercedes, 64 years of raising money, and giving back to the community

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To Listen to Heike Hambley discuss Merced Shakespearefest, click onto this link:Merced Shakespearefest

Heike Hambley will produce The Merchant of Venice this winter. Performances are Feb 24-March 4, 2012. Rehearsals will be in January and February. Heike loves Shakespeare and all his characters, the lovers, the fools, the witches, the witty servants, the warriors and the timeless poetry. She also lovesShakespeare festivals and Renaissance fairs and theatre and working with people to put on a finished production everybody can be proud of and have fun with.

Merced’s own Shakespeare festival was born out of these sentiments and helped by a successful production of “Twelfth Night” that she directed for Merced Center for the Performing Arts, now Playhouse Merced, in February 2002. Cast and crew had so much fun that at the cast party they decided to explore the possibility of bringing a Shakespeare festival to the whole community. Wonderful Shakespeare enthusiasts like Michael Egan, Julianne Aguilar, Carolyn Hart, and others brainstormed and discussed and worked hard. Three months later they had raised some money from generous friends, relatives and art lovers, got rehearsal space from the Playhouse, a non-profit umbrella from the Merced Arts Council and had rented the rarely used Merced Open Air Theatre in Applegate Park. This stage is a perfect Shakespearian space, wide open with pillars on both sides, a lot of sun and natural light for the performers, but green grass and shade trees for the audience.

They are incorporated as Merced Shakespearefest, Inc. and have their own non-profit status. The city of Merced is co-sponsoring their events and many individuals and businesses are contributing.  It pays to dream.

For more information about  Merced Shakespearefest, call Heike Hambley at (209) 723 3265 or visit mercedshakespearefest.org.

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To Listen to Geneva Skram discuss the Community Engagement program, click onto this link:uc merced conf-1

UC Merced Community Coordinator Geneva Skram will discuss the Community Engagement and Scholarship program, which took place on December 2nd at UC Merced.

University of California, Merced Chancellor’s Task Force on Community Engaged Scholarship hosted a conference on its campus in Merced focused on youth development in Merced County. The conference was intended to advance the agenda for the Building Healthy Communities (BHC) initiative in Southwest Merced/East Merced County, which has as a primary goal to improve health outcomes for youth.

The aim of the conference was to inform our community about youth development and stimulate new ideas and efforts in Merced County. The conference  featured community engaged research and programs that are based on research evidence that advance youth development.

Geneva Skram was hired 5 months ago as UC Merced’s Community Coordinator within University Relations. Through the Chancellor’s Task Force on Community Engaged Scholarship she is responsible for promoting, supporting, and highlighting Community Engaged Scholarship on-campus and in the community through workshops for community members and UC Merced faculty, students, and staff, database building, organizing an upcoming conference, among other activities. Currently, the Task Force’s work is being funded by The California Endowment’s, Building Healthy Communities initiative which is a 10 year, $10 million goal of radically improving the health in 14 California communities one of which includes Southwest Merced/East Merced County. Geneva and the Task Force are working hard to strengthen collaborations between faculty, staff, and students at UC Merced and community members with a focus on building a body of knowledge about community health issues and factors that influence health equity in Merced County.

For more information visit communityresearch.ucmerced.edu or contact Geneva Skram, UC Merced Community Coordinator, at gskram@ucmerced.edu.

Arts in the Valley, Saturday, February 5, 2011, 8 PM, PST, 1480 KYOS AM

Please click onto the link below to hear the show.

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Brenda Cobb, founder of the Living Foods Institute, and Healer, and founder of School Without Walls Julia Carmen on Arts in the Valley, Saturday, February 5th, 8 PM, PST, 1480 KYOS AM

Brenda Cobb, the Founder and Director of the Living Food Institute, overcame the early stages of breast and cervical cancer without the use of drugs or surgery by following the simple principles of detoxification and nutrition. She also got rid of allergies, acid reflux, indigestion, arthritis, obesity, age or liver spots, and gray hair. Her eyesight even improved! She looks and feels 10 years younger than she did 10 years ago. Brenda now devotes her life to educating others.

The Living Foods Lifestyle® is Brenda Cobb’s fascinating first work on Living Foods. In her book, Brenda describes her healing journey from breast and cervical cancer. She also highlights the stories of many students that have gotten tremendous results from a variety of ailments and diseases by adopting The Living Foods Lifestyle®. Additionally, she discusses the cause of disease, why Raw and Living Foods is so beneficial, and the contribution of our thoughts to our overall health. Finally, the book is packed with over 50 delicious recipes that Brenda has perfected with her marvelous understanding of how flavors mix to formhttp://www.livingfoodsinstitute.com%0D%0Ditute.com/

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Julia Carmen has been a healer for over 20 years. Julia Carmen was born with a gift of a Curadora de Alma (Healer of the Soul). Her gift of being able to see a person’s true soul/self has guided clients to quiet themselves to hear their own true divine soul/self.

Julia is also highly involved in a non-profit based in the SF Bay Area called Antolino Family Wellness Center, Inc., an organization dedicated to the wellness of families and community. To learn more about Antolino Family Wellness Center, Inc., please visit their website atwww.domesticharmony.net.

Julia Carmen created The School Without Walls, a school for healers to awaken to their soul self of the ALL. The School Without Walls provides a space for healers to release the busy mind of the Self and to hear their soul of heart so they can be in their fullness of themselves.

The School Without Walls offers several workshops, trainings, and retreats for those seeking truth and reverence in who they are. The School Without Walls also offers individual guidance through the Curandera de las Curandera’s(Healer of Healers), which is the vessel for individuals into their Soul Self. http://www.theschoolwithoutwalls.net/About-Julia-Carmen.html%0D%0D%0D%0Dmen.html

Arts in the Valley, Saturday, January 29th, 8 PM, 1480 KYOS AM

Saturday, January 29th Arts in the Valley, 8 PM, PST

Homeopath Michalene Seiler  & Dr. Nick Begich

Click onto the link  to listen to the show:ARTSINVALL0129

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Homeopath Michalene Seiler, CCH, RSHom(NA) study of homeopathy began informally in the late 1970’s when she began searching for a means to treat her family’s illnesses naturally. She was dismayed by the side effects and non-curative results of antibiotics, vaccinations and suppressive therapies and instinctively believed that every illness must have its cure somewhere in nature. When her own migraine headaches and skin condition disappeared after homeopathic treatment, she then pursued a formal education at the Homeopathic Academy of Southern California and continue to deepen her insight through advanced professional seminars with international masters of the art and science of homeopathy.
http://www.michaleneseiler.com/AboutMe.en.html

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Dr. Nick Begich co-authored with Jeane Manning the book Angels Don’t Play This HAARP; Advances in Tesla Technology. Begich has also authored Earth Rising -… The Revolution: Toward a Thousand Years of Peace and and his latest book Earth Rising II- The Betrayal of Science, Society and the Soul both with the late James Roderick. His latest work is Controlling the Human Mind – The Technologies of Political Control or Tools for Peak Performance. www.earthpulse.com

Arts in the Valley, 1480 KYOS, Saturday, December 18th, 8 PM, PST

To listen to the December 18th show, click on to this link, artsinval1213.mp3

Kevin Sessums, Journalist, and  author of Mississippi Sissy  

 Kevin Sessums is an American author, editor and actor from Forest, Mississippi. Sessums served as executive editor of Interview and as a contributing editor of Vanity Fair, Allure, and Parade. His work has also appeared in Travel+Leisure, Elle, Out, Marie Claire, and Playboy. He has written theatre criticism for Towleroad.com and cultural postings for Thedailybeast.com. He attended the Juilliard School of Drama.

 Sessums, who is openly gay, published a 2007 memoir titled Mississippi Sissy, which is about the conflicted life of a self-aware gay boy growing up in Forest, Mississippi. It made the New York Times Bestseller list and won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Male Memoir of 2007.  His audio recording of Mississippi Sissy was nominated for a 2007 Quill Award. Sessums portrayed the character Peter Cipriani in the miniseries adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City.  St. Martins Press will publish his sequel to the bestselling Mississippi Sissy which is titled I Left It on the Mountain.

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Merced County Superintendent of Schools

Lee Andersen

 Lee Andersen is currently serving his second term as Merced County Superintendent of Schools, having been re-elected in 2006.  As County Superintendent of Schools, Lee Anderson leads Merced County Office of Education staff members to support student success. Their work includes direct service to students in Migrant Education, Regional Occupational Programs, Special Education, Valley Community School, Court School, Early Care and Education, Head Start, and Jack L. Boyd Outdoor School.

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Lucha Corpi, Winner of the PEN Oakland National Literary Award

1990, Lucha Corpi was twice honored: she was awarded a Creative Arts Fellowship in fiction by the City of Oakland, and she was named poet laureate at Indian University Northwest.

The publication of Eulogy for a Brown Angel: A Mystery Novel (Arte Público Press, 1992) was the culmination of a life-long dream. The novel won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and the Multicultural Publishers Exchange Best Book of Fiction. Cactus Blood (Arte Público Press, 1995) is Corpi’s second mystery novel featuring Chicana detective Gloria Damasco. Hispanic culture, the United Farm Workers movement and other social issues texture a suspenseful search for a ritualistic assassin. The publication of Black Widow’s Wardrobe (Arte Público Press, 1999) rounded out the trilogy known as The Gloria Damasco Series.

“We Chicanos are like the abandoned children of divorced cultures. We are forever longing to be loved by an absent neglectful parent –Mexico-and also to be truly accepted by the other parent –the United States. We want bicultural harmony. We need it to survive. We struggle to achieve it. That struggle keeps us alive.”-Black Widow’s Wardrobe

Saturday, November 27, Arts in the Valley, 8 PM

ARTSINVAL1127 Click this link to listen to the November 27th show.

Mitch Horowitz, Author, http://www.mitchhorowitz.com/

Mitch Horowitz is a writer and publisher of many years’ experience with a lifelong interest in man’s search for meaning. He is the editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin in New York and the author of  Occult America (Bantam), which The Washington Post Book World called: “Fascinating…a serious, wide-ranging study of all the magical, mystical, and spiritual movements that have arisen and influenced American history in often-surprising ways.”

A widely known writer and speaker on the history and impact of alternative spirituality, he has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, Dateline NBC, All Things Considered, Air America Radio, The History Channel, The Montel Williams Show, and Coast to Coast AM. He has written forThe Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, Parabola, the Religion News Service, and the popular weblog BoingBoing.

Mitch Horowitz‘s Occult America is the winner of the PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National Literary Award. “This book is a delightfully original tour through American history, as seen through the lives of men and women devoted to all manner of mysticism. Across these pages troop spiritualists, prophets, seers, psychics, numerologists, transcendentalists, theosophists, and historical figures from Mary Todd Lincoln to Marcus Garvey to Henry Wallace. Their stories are part of the deep-seated American tradition of searching for the new—a tradition that Occult America both explains and enriches.” — Stephen Kinzer, author of Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq and All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

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Michael Winder, Playwright, http://writingprogram.ucmerced.edu/resources

UC Merced Lecturer Michael Winder with the Merritt Writing Program will discuss UC Merced students collaboration with Playhouse Merced.  On November 13th,  Playhouse Merced and UC Merced’s Merritt Writing Program  collaborated on A NIGHT OF LOVE AND MUTANTS: NINE ORIGINAL PLAYS WRITTEN BY UC MERCED STUDENTS.  Winder discusses this program, and the upcoming 2011 season.  

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Gerald Haslam, Author, http://www.geraldhaslam.com

Gerald Haslam is a professor emertius of English at Sonoma State University, whose The Great Central Valley: California’s Heartland won several major non-fiction awards in 1993 and whose Workin’  Man Blues won Rolling Stone’s Ralph  J. Gleason Award in 2001. His novel, Straight White Male, won the 2000 Western States Book Award for fiction and was named Book of the Year by Foreword magazine. He is a native of Oildale.

In Haslam’s latest novel, Grace Period, journalist Marty Martinez thinks his life can’t get any worse: His beloved son has died of AIDS, his wife has divorced him, his daughter blames him for the disintegration of their family, and a medical examination reveals that he has prostate cancer. Then he meets a divorced doctor named Miranda Mossi and everything takes a turn for the better.  The action takes place in two communities: Sacramento, and Merced, CA.