Jewish Voice for Peace is a nonprofit with chapters in Asheville and around the U.S. and beyond. Except for the name of the organization, you won’t find much about Judaism on their website or in their talking points. They're focused on peace in the Middle East and, to JVP, that means the liberation of Palestinians.

My guests are Anne Craig, Rebecca Croog and Said Abdallah from the Asheville chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. You’ll learn about their varied backgrounds and what led them to this cause.

We dig into JVP’s mission and how my guests reacted to Hamas’ attack on Israel last Oct. 7, along with how they frame their Judaism through a lens of Palestinian advocacy. We also get into why they believe local activism is important on an issue taking place on the other side of the world and what their hopes are around what is seemingly an intractable stalemate.

Wake Up, Asheville! and ¡Despierta Asheville! (in Spanish) are new morning newscast podcasts that give you all the local news you need to know in under five minutes. Both are free to subscribe/follow wherever you get your podcasts!

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

Jefferson Ellison is the first to say he grew up with privilege. His father was Asheville’s vice mayor and ran his own law firm for 40 years, and his mother holds two master’s degrees.

Still at 31, Jefferson isn’t taking shortcuts with his own career or place in the city. He sits on the boards of the Asheville Downtown Association and the Downtown Commission, and he’s a voice of influence on The Block Collaborative, which is working with city leaders on the revisioning of Pack Square.

Today, I talk with Jefferson about his upbringing, his perspective on supporting his community, the complexities of gentrification and his thoughts on reparations. Underscoring it all is how he leverages his self-described privilege to help elevate Black Asheville.

Wake Up, Asheville! and ¡Despierta Asheville! (in Spanish) are new morning newscast podcasts that give you all the local news you need to know in under five minutes. Both are free to subscribe/follow wherever you get your podcasts!

Support the Show.

Support The Overlook by joining our Patreon campaign!

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The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

Like most leaders in the arts, Heather Maloy spends far more time raising money, hunting for rehearsal spaces and recruiting dancers than she does immersed in the work she’s so committed to—cultivating the ideas and creating the dances that are the signature of her Asheville-based company, Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance.

For 21 summers, Terpsicorps has fielded troupes of young professionals from all over the U.S. and beyond, who put their feet to the fire of Maloy’s imagination. I met with Maloy just before her company started rehearsals for their new production, inspired by Edvard Munch’s singular painting, “The Scream.” Performances are July 25 through 27 at Diana Wortham Theatre.

We’ll talk with the company’s founding director about keeping her dream live and evolving her company through two decades of challenges, how she parses through scores of auditioners to select her company and how she defines growth when her company is only on stage for two weekends each year.

Wake Up, Asheville! and ¡Despierta Asheville! (in Spanish) are new morning newscast podcasts that give you all the local news you need to know in under five minutes. Both are free to subscribe/follow wherever you get your podcasts!

Support the Show.

Support The Overlook by joining our Patreon campaign!

Advertise your event on The Overlook.

Instagram: AVLoverlook | Facebook: AVLoverlook | Twitter: AVLoverlook

Listen and Subscribe: All episodes of The Overlook

The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

Carolina Quiroga moved to Asheville only about a year ago, but she’s already a distinctive storyteller here, blending folk tales and her own experiences from her native Colombia with newer stories born from observations of her newly adopted home.

On July 11, she begins a residency of three weekly performances at Story Parlor in West Asheville. Today, we talk about straddling the line between her father’s expectations and her own desires, her self-appointed mission to educate certain people in the Southeast about Latin Americans and the kinds of stories she’s motivated to write and tell today.

Wake Up, Asheville! and ¡Despierta Asheville! (in Spanish) are new morning newscast podcasts that give you all the local news you need to know in under five minutes. Both are free to subscribe/follow wherever you get your podcasts!

Support the Show.

Support The Overlook by joining our Patreon campaign!

Advertise your event on The Overlook.

Instagram: AVLoverlook | Facebook: AVLoverlook | Twitter: AVLoverlook

Listen and Subscribe: All episodes of The Overlook

The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

Michael Cayse has only been Asheville’s Fire Chief since the start of the year, but he came here with more than three decades of experience in Cincinnati and, as part of that, working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Asheville firefighters received a pay raise in the new fiscal year budget of nearly 9 percent, but that still puts them behind where they’d like to be. My guest today, Chief Cayse, tells us about the other ways Asheville works to be a department that attracts and keeps talent. We also talk about how today’s fire departments little resemble those of yesteryear, the demands and skills of the job that go well beyond traditional firefighting and Cayse’s thoughts about what his department needs to become a state-of-the-art unit.

Wake Up, Asheville! and ¡Despierta Asheville! (in Spanish) are new morning newscast podcasts that give you all the local news you need to know in under five minutes. Both are free to subscribe/follow wherever you get your podcasts!

Support the Show.

Support The Overlook by joining our Patreon campaign!

Advertise your event on The Overlook.

Instagram: AVLoverlook | Facebook: AVLoverlook | Twitter: AVLoverlook

Listen and Subscribe: All episodes of The Overlook

The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

Who says rock music is dying out? A trio of sisters from Asheville are doing their part to bring rock to a new generation.

Detective Blind takes the spotlight in the second episode of The Overlook drawn from our May 28 evening of Hear Here, a performance and podcasting series co-presented with Citizen Vinyl. The series is designed to elevate conversation around local rock and indie music.

The sisters in Detective Blind are ages 17, 14 and 12, but they already show off a confident musicianship and songwriting that belie their years. So let's step back to May 28 and Citizen Vinyl to hear music and an interview with Detective Blind.

Dial back a couple clicks in your podcasting app to hear the other band that performed at Hear Here that night, O•VAD•YA.

Wake Up, Asheville! and ¡Despierta Asheville! (in Spanish) are new morning newscast podcasts that give you all the local news you need to know in under five minutes. Both are free to subscribe/follow wherever you get your podcasts!

Support the Show.

Support The Overlook by joining our Patreon campaign!

Advertise your event on The Overlook.

Instagram: AVLoverlook | Facebook: AVLoverlook | Twitter: AVLoverlook

Listen and Subscribe: All episodes of The Overlook

The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

This is the second half of my conversation with Hedy Fischer and Gail McCarthy, who along with their artist husbands bought buildings in the River Arts District early on and are committed to keeping those buildings open and affordable for other artists. They’re joined here by Stephanie Monson Dahl, the city’s manager of Urban Design, Place Strategies, and Long Range Planning.

If you missed Part One, dial back in your podcasting app to listen to that first before tuning in here. In today's episode, we talk through concerns of losing artists in the RAD and strategies for keeping them there. We talk about conversations city leaders are having around land equity with the Southside neighborhood and how artists could potentially migrate there. We also get into the stakes for the RAD and all of Asheville if the state takes away the city’s ability to regulate short-term rentals.

Wake Up, Asheville! and ¡Despierta Asheville! (in Spanish) are new morning newscast podcasts that give you all the local news you need to know in under five minutes. Both are free to subscribe/follow wherever you get your podcasts!

Support the Show.

Support The Overlook by joining our Patreon campaign!

Advertise your event on The Overlook.

Instagram: AVLoverlook | Facebook: AVLoverlook | Twitter: AVLoverlook

Listen and Subscribe: All episodes of The Overlook

The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023

Hedy Fischer and Gail McCarthy have been in Asheville since the late 1970s and, along with their artist husbands, played critical roles in the evolution of the River Arts District from a neglected, polluted wasteland of warehouses into the thriving arts and commerce destination it is today. They also have thoughts on whether the scales of progress for the neighborhood have tipped too far.

Today is the first in a two-part conversation with Fischer and McCarthy, along with Stephanie Monson Dahl, the city’s manager of Urban Design, Place Strategies, and Long Range Planning.

We talk about how 2010 marked a key turning point for the district and how vision and investments from the city and key developers turned the tide. We talk about the differing impacts of hotel vs. residential development there, managing traffic in the RAD and whether building owners beyond McCarthy and Fischer are as committed to offering artists affordable workspaces.

The second half of this conversation posts Thursday, June 20.

Wake Up, Asheville! and ¡Despierta Asheville! (in Spanish) are new morning newscast podcasts that give you all the local news you need to know in under five minutes. Both are free to subscribe/follow wherever you get your podcasts!

Support the Show.

Support The Overlook by joining our Patreon campaign!

Advertise your event on The Overlook.

Instagram: AVLoverlook | Facebook: AVLoverlook | Twitter: AVLoverlook

Listen and Subscribe: All episodes of The Overlook

The Overlook theme song, "Maker's Song," comes courtesy of the Asheville band The Resonant Rogues.

Podcast Asheville © 2023