A Finely Tuned Machine
On this edition of The Spark: Skilled piano technician John Schaldach shows there’s more ways than just performance to be involved in making beautiful music.
View ArticlePressing On
On This Edition of The Spark: Emily Hancock loves language and words, and also loves old-fashioned methods of printing them. She revels in using vintage foot-powered or hand-cranked presses, and...
View ArticleSpending Time on The Porches
On this episode of The Spark: Martha learns how Trudy Hale transformed an isolated antebellum wreck in Nelson County into "The Porches", a writing retreat on the James River.
View ArticleStreetlight in the Digital Age
On this episode of The Spark: Charlottesville literary journal Streetlight Magazine, began life in print, then morphed into an on-line presence. Martha talks with editor Trudy Hale about the challenges...
View ArticleThe Iron Composer
On this episode of The Spark: Winchester Composer, and EMU faculty member, Ryan Keebaugh was one of five finalists in this year’s Iron Composer Challenge. To compete, Ryan had five hours to compose a...
View ArticleThe Call of the Midwife
On this episode of The Spark: Maya Hawthorn knew she wanted to be a midwife as soon as she learned that midwives exist. Martha and she talk some about the practice of midwifery and some about the...
View ArticleFalling for Nepal
On this episode of The Spark: Marli Gordon is a twenty-three years old who calls Charlottesville home and has an ongoing love affair with the Nepali people. She was in Nepal during last April’s...
View ArticleFor Love of the Stats
On this episode of The Spark: Rob Arthur is a Ph.D. cancer researcher at the University of Chicago. He also writes about baseball from a Sabermetric point of view for ESPN’s online arm, FiveThirtyEight.
View ArticleMule Smarts
On this episode of The Spark: A listener appended a note to her contribution requesting more stories about mules... so this week, Diane Sypes, who lives way off the grid in Hardy County, West Virginia,...
View ArticleComic Books for Life
Martha speaks with Sophia Weideman, who has been drawing cartoons her whole life, but it took a while for her to find her own superheroes.
View ArticleBanjo on the Brain
On this episode of The Spark: Two-time state banjo champion Seth Swingle. He was ten when he fell in love with the sound of the banjo at MerleFest. Now at twenty-five, he not only plays his instrument...
View ArticleOver Time: Riches to Rags
Barclay Rives describes his family as being on a riches to rags trajectory —he’s directly descended from politicians and landowners who were part and parcel of the Commonwealth’s Colonial History.
View ArticleHealing Horses
On this episode of The Spark: New Market’s Pat Murphy survived a truly horrible childhood that left her emotionally scarred in a number of ways. Including toting around a great fear of horses. She...
View ArticleA Novel Relationship
On this edition of The Spark, Martha Woodroof speaks with writer Erika Raskin. Erika grew up the child of Marcus Raskin (a human rights activist whom Dennis Kucinich called, "the dean of the American...
View ArticleThe Magic of Radio
On this edition of The Spark, Martha Woodroof sits down for a chat with Lulu Miller. Lulu lives half her life in Charlottesville, half in DC, and spends all her time making NPR’s wildly popular new...
View ArticleAn Eye For Eating
On this edition of The Spark, Martha Woodroof speaks with freelance, commercial photographer Ron Rammelkamp.Ron is not shy. His response to being laid-off by Rosetta Stone, was to knock on the doors of...
View ArticleBoutique Catering
On this edition of The Spark, Martha speaks with Mike Lund. Mike spent seven years in the kitchen of the famed Inn at Little Washington, working his way up to second-in-command under chef/owner Patrick...
View ArticleElementary Club Music
On this edition of The Spark: Martha speaks with Perry Shank. Mr. Shank teaches music to the lucky students of Smithland Elementary School in Harrisonburg. And yes, that involves singing and playing...
View ArticleFinding the Form
On this edition of The Spark: Martha woodroof speaks with Charlottesville’s Susan Bacik. Susan has been creating sculpture out of found objects for over a quarter of a century.
View ArticleAdvising Alger
On this edition of The Spark: Martha Woodroof steps aside and lends the interview chair to JMUPresident Jon Alger.
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