Before I become consumed by Halloween in Bellingham and all of the various and plentiful happenings that come with it, I must first turn my attention southward, to Skagit County.

Generally speaking, when I journey south across the county line during this time of the year, I am seeking a corn maze or pumpkin patch or some variation of a haunted house. Fun outings, certainly, but hardly enriching cultural pursuits.

For those times when culture is what I crave, I need not search hither…

Tabetha Clark is much more than a dancer. The Bellingham-based performer and founder of ABC Dance is a force of nature who inspires others not only when it comes to onstage action, but also behind the scenes and beyond.

Tabetha is also a mother, wife, sister and—after recently being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer—a fighter.

At “A Show of Love” fundraiser taking place throughout the day and into the night Sat., Oct. 13 at the Firehouse Arts and Event Center, many of those…

If you’re looking for a great new place for a meal, make a beeline for Evolve Chocolate + Cafe, upstairs at Village Books.

The space formerly occupied by Bookfare Cafe has been renovated and improved by Chef Christy Fox and her wife, Shannon Fox, and the talented pair are delivering fabulous food at super-reasonable prices.

Christy was previously the chef at the helm of Northwater, the restaurant inside the Holiday Inn at Bellingham Airport, but she had Shannon had long dreamed of…

To hear Beth Jusino tell it, if she can walk 1,000 miles, almost anybody can.

In fact, when she comes to Village Books on Wed., Oct. 17 to share tales from her travel tome, Walking to the End of the World: A Thousand Miles of the Camino de Santiago, those in attendance can find out more about how someone who never identified as an athlete learned to swallow their fear and put one foot in front of the other—and another, and another, and another—to find the strength to walk from Le…

After the forest fires that raged across California recently, it’s hard to imagine the scenery of the high desert as brown and grassy but not charred and smoldering. However, in her new novel The Golden State, author Lydia Kiesling skillfully evokes a scorching summer in fictional Altavista, California, that will have readers fully engrossed.

Daphne, a 30-year-old first-time mother, has retreated with Honey, her toddler, to her grandparents’ abandoned mobile home on a whim, unable…

Anyone watching a writer practicing their craft would likely become bored after the first few minutes.

Watching artists in action is a whole other animal.

When you’re planning your route for the second weekend of the 24th annual Whatcom Artist Studio Tour, be sure to look on the map in the detail-filled catalogue for the creative spaces marked “Demo: Daily.” They’ll guide visitors to artists such as woodworkers Karen and Vernon Leibrant, sculptors Don Anderson and Suzanne Averre,…

In examining Damien Chazelle’s filmography, the young director has never made the same film twice. He seesawed from jazz conservatory drama Whiplash, essentially a monster movie, to La La Land, which chronicled the fraught journey of Hollywood dreamers in the form of a classical Hollywood musical. So what comes next? A space flick naturally—First Man, a biopic of Neil Armstrong, starring Ryan Gosling.

There’s a famous line in First Man that unlocks the through-line of Chazelle’s…