Announcing an exhibition of cast iron sculpture by Alabama Art Casting simultaneously with the premier of the first East Village Guitar Festival.

The festival will feature the company & music of Birmingham’s most creative improvised and experimental guitarists!  There will be a collaborative “round robin” of guitar solos from local & regional guitarists, along with feature collaborative sets by guest guitarists North Carolina’s Kris Gruda with Athens & Atlanta’s Killick & Klimchak, and the famous 1000 lb. cast iron guitars!  Along with the featured music there will be opportunities for the audience to stroke, touch and tingle the metal strings of cast iron guitars and experimental Jean Jacques Gaudel art-guitars that will be on display for the public to explore.
Headlining from Ashville N.C. is Jupiter, featuring Ashville guitarists Kris Gruda & John English, with drummer Jeff Arnal. Gruda’s style ranges from explosive, electric improvisatory excursions to a lightning fast down-home finger picking bonanza of folky-misfit’ns.  Along with side-servings in “round-robins” of experimental steel guitars & zithers, the cast iron guitar and bass can be played by musicians and audience alike. Local guitarists & string instrumentalists from Birmingham include Joan Mills, Taylor Hollingsworth, James Fahy, Jody Nelson, Dada ‘u’U & Rodney Hasty among others. The simultaneous opening exhibition comes to Birmingham by Alabama Art Casting, headquartered in Green County features a variety iron art from artists from Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, and Tennessee.

It’s tempting to view guitarist Kris Gruda, a North Carolina resident, as part of a lineage of demented Southern avant-pickers stretching back to Chadbourne, and while that’s not false, it’s unnecessarily reductive, Gruda is but one particle in a contemporary wave of traveling minstrels plying the interstates and unnumbered highways of the Deep South, navigating between urban centers from Asheville to Amarillo, dipping into the free jazz songbook and a bottomless bag of improvisational tropes.” Killick\'s style blends primitive folk, heavy metal, and sacred music from around the world.   Taylor Hollingsworth is one of Birmingham’s generative young singer-songwriters and guitar pickers, whipping up a potent blend of folk, rock and blues. More than this, meet a significant array of Birmingham’s most creative guitar-artists in congruent solos circling the audience in real time. East Village Arts is a Community Arts center located at First Avenue North and Oporto.

Beep Beep! Join Vocabby’s World and your ArtPlay friends to learn new vocabulary words! We will explore new words through song, movement and creativity. (Children Ages: 0-5 years)

Vocabby’s World is a community vocabulary program in partnership with ArtPlay and sponsored by PNC Foundation. The adventures of Vocabby take pre-K children on travels around the world as they learn vocabulary words through science and arts concepts. Through this partnership, ArtPlay is providing hands-on activities that reach families in our communities and across the country. Free books, curriculum and art materials reinforce the new vocabulary learned.

If you have any questions about this event, please contact Dylan Ferniany, dhfernia@uab.edu.

Our dear friend Kerry has a new book out, and we're so excited to welcome her to the shop to talk about it with another local children's book superstar, Irene Latham. WEREWOLF HAMLET is the story of theater-obsessed 10-year-old Angus, his big brother Liam, and their changing relationship within the ecosystem of their loving, troubled family. Heartfelt, funny, and emotionally true, this is a middle-grade book that adults will love, too. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion. Free as always, but please RSVP here. Kerry Madden-Lunsford has been a regular contributor to the LA Times OpEd page. For several years, she directed the creative writing program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she is still a professor, and she taught in Antioch University’s MFA program in Los Angeles for a decade. She is the author of the picture book Ernestine’s Milky Way. She also wrote the Maggie Valley Trilogy, which includes Gentle’s Holler, Louisiana’s Song, and Jessie’s Mountain. Her book, Up Close Harper Lee, was one Booklist's Ten Top Biographies for Youth. Her first novel, Offsides, was a New York Public Library Pick for the Teen Age. Kerry is the mother of three adult children, and she now lives full-time in Birmingham, Alabama. Visit her at kerrymadden.com and on Threads and at her Substack. Irene Latham is an Alabama poet and author of more than twenty books, including the co-authored African Town, winner of the Scott O'Dell Award; Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship, a Charlotte Huck Honor book; The Cat Man of Aleppo, awarded a Caldecott Honor; Meet Miss Fancy, and Wild Peace. Read hundreds of Irene's poems for free at irenelatham.com.

Our pal Margaret Renkl calls Valley So Low: One Lawyer's Fight for Justice in the Wake of America's Great Coal Catastrophe "brilliant," "necessary," and "a triumph," and who are we to argue? It's an honor to welcome author Jared Sullivan to TYB to discuss his "tense investigative chronicle" (The New Yorker) of one of the most catastrophic industrial disasters in U.S. history, along with its tumultuous aftermath. Fans of legal thrillers, environmental journalism, and riveting, masterful stories of triumph--you don't want to miss this! Sullivan will be in conversation with our own wonderful Nellie Beckett. This event is free, but please RSVP here. Jared Sullivan has written for The New Yorker, Time, Garden & Gun, and USA Today, and he formerly held editorial positions at Men’s Journal and Field & Stream. He lives in Franklin, Tennessee. His book Valley So Low was named one of the best books of 2024 by The New Yorker and Garden & Gun. Nellie Beckett is Community Engagement Producer for the Gulf States Newsroom, a public radio collaborative between Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana that tells stories about the challenges and strengths in the Gulf South. The newsroom's beats include economic mobility, environmental justice, sports and culture, incarceration and gun violence, and health equity.

Sally Rooney calls it "a magnificent novel"; the NYT says it's "a powerful, thoughtful book by one of the great living writers on the subject of family"--The Wren, the Wren is a multigenerational saga of longing, betrayal, and hope by Dublin author and professor Anne Enright. Free as always and open to all!

🎭✨ Perform with Tony Award-winner Ali Stroker in our FREE Inclusive Musical Theatre Workshop!

Led by the talented Alie B Gorrie, this workshop is open to performers of all abilities and offers an incredible chance to learn and grow in a supportive, accessible environment.

📅 Join us for an unforgettable experience, culminating in a special performance at the Community Arts Festival!

Lace up your running shoes for a good cause: The University of Alabama at Birmingham National Alumni Society's 19th annual Scholarship Run, presented by VIVA Health, provides financial support to students.

The UAB Scholarship Run includes 5K and 10K races and a 1-mile Fun Run now open to adults as well as kids. The 8 a.m. race will return to Crestline Village in Mountain Brook, near Crestline Elementary School. The race is hosted on a certified course and will be chipped and timed.

Those who may not be able to participate in person can support the Scholarship Run virtually. All participants will receive a packet with a T-shirt and finisher medal.

Registration is $30 through March 15, $35 from March 16-April 11 and $40 through race day. Registration for the Fun Run is $20 for kids and $25 for adults through race day. Race-day registration and check-in will start at 7 a.m. Register for the 2025 Scholarship Run.

To secure a race T-shirt in a desired size, register by April 4. Participants who register after April 4 may not be guaranteed a shirt in their size. Packet pickup will be from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. April 10-11, at the UAB Alumni House, 1301 10th Ave. South, Birmingham.

The National Alumni Society serves UAB alumni and students through engaging events and resources and provides student scholarships each year through fundraising events. This much-needed assistance is awarded to a wide range of students from across campus, including first-year, legacy and graduate students.

All proceeds from the Scholarship Run will go toward scholarships for UAB students, helping them overcome financial barriers and achieve their educational dreams. Participation and support from the community are crucial in making this event a success. Since the first Scholarship Run in 2007, this event has allowed the UAB National Alumni Society to raise more than $1 million to help support student scholarships.

Join TAYA this Spring for the Come Into The Light Tour, a transformative worship experience featuring legacy favorites like \\\"Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)\\\" and \\\"Touch The Sky\\\", as well as new anthems from her upcoming record such as \\\"Come Into The Light\\\", \\\"Worship!\\\" and \\\"Gonna Be Good\\\".

“This tour is something I felt God drop in my heart over 2 years ago to do here in the United States, but for different reasons, it never eventuated…until now. I believe God’s timing and His alignment is perfect — and without either, I wouldn’t be walking into these nights with the stories and songs I now am.\\\"

Each night will be an invitation to pause and lay your life before God — every good, messy, broken, and sweet piece — and allow Him to have it all. You won’t want to miss these powerful nights of surrender in the Presence of Jesus, where we can Come Into The Light together and rediscover that He truly is everything He promised to be.