Author – The Durango Herald

Toots Hibbert, beloved reggae star, dead at 77

NEW YORK – Toots Hibbert, one of reggae’s founders and most beloved stars who gave the music its name and later helped make it an international movement through such classics as “Pressure Dr...

DATE: Sep 12, 2020 | CATEGORY: Music

Floyd’s death hastens shift in police portrayals

NEW YORK – Gary Phillips, a prize-winning crime novelist from Los Angeles, grew up on TV shows that showed a world nothing like the one he lived in. “I watched them all, ‘Dragnet,...

DATE: Jun 16, 2020 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment

Curtis Sittenfeld’s ‘Rodham’ imagines a different ‘Hillary’

NEW YORK – Over the past few years, author Curtis Sittenfeld has gotten to know Hillary Clinton in a way uniquely suited for a novelist – by writing a work of fiction about her. “...

DATE: May 17, 2020 | CATEGORY: Books

New anthology collects dozens of poems about pandemic

NEW YORK – As the coronavirus spread in March, poet Ada Limon struggled at first to write, feeling “flattened and silenced” by a pandemic that had shut down much of the world she knew. ...

DATE: May 6, 2020 | CATEGORY: Books

‘Handmaid’s Tale,’ Potter on challenged books list

NEW YORK – Stories with gay and transgender themes, a spoof inspired by the family rabbit of Vice President Mike Pence, and classics by J.K. Rowling and Margaret Atwood were among the books ...

DATE: Apr 28, 2020 | CATEGORY: Books

Film adaptation of new ‘Hunger Games’ book in the works

NEW YORK – The next “Hunger Games” book is coming out next month, and a movie version is now being planned. Lionsgate is working on an adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ “The Ballad o...

DATE: Apr 21, 2020 | CATEGORY: Books

Winfrey chooses ‘Hidden Valley Road’ for book club

NEW YORK – Oprah Winfrey’s new book club pick is Robert Kolker’s “Hidden Valley Road,” an in-depth account of a 1950s family in which six of 12 children were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Wi...

DATE: Apr 7, 2020 | CATEGORY: Books

James Patterson sets up fund to help indie booksellers

NEW YORK – James Patterson has a history of helping independent bookstores. The best-selling novelist has donated millions in recent years to booksellers, while also giving millio...

DATE: Apr 3, 2020 | CATEGORY: Books

Publisher cancels plans to release Woody Allen memoir

NEW YORK – Woody Allen’s publisher has decided to cancel the planned release of his memoir “Apropos of Nothing.” The announcement Friday by Hachette Book Group came after days of ...

DATE: Mar 6, 2020 | CATEGORY: Books

Laurie Anderson among new arts academy inductees

NEW YORK – Like many incoming members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Laurie Anderson didn’t know a lot about the venerable honor society until she was asked to join it. ...

DATE: Feb 26, 2020 | CATEGORY: Performing Arts

Kirk Douglas rose from poverty to become a king of Hollywood

NEW YORK – He was born Issur Danielovitch, a ragman’s son. He died Kirk Douglas, a Hollywood king. Douglas, the muscular, tempestuous actor with the dimpled chin, lived out an epi...

DATE: Feb 6, 2020 | CATEGORY: Film, TV and Streaming

Kirk Douglas, longtime influential movie star, dies at 103

Kirk Douglas, the intense, muscular actor with the dimpled chin who starred in “Spartacus,” “Lust for Life” and dozens of other films, helped fatally weaken the blacklist against suspected c...

DATE: Feb 5, 2020 | CATEGORY: Arts and Entertainment