“Inter|Act” gets participants up in front of an audience to read their poetry every other Tuesday outdoors at Abbott Square. The next session is Valentine’s Day, and the theme, its host says, is “going to be whatever love means to you.”
Coast Life
Santa Cruz County Fair board to meet Tuesday amid ongoing Dave Kegebein firing controversy
Dave Kegebein, fired abruptly in October as CEO of the Santa Cruz County Fair, says he hopes to “provide entertainment” at Tuesday’s meeting, at which he and his supporters aim to confront the fair’s board about the upheaval that also included the replacement of two board members.
Farnaz Fatemi county’s new poet laureate
Iranian American writer and poet Farnaz Fatemi, a member of the popular The Hive Poetry Collective at KSQD-FM and who most recently published a collection of her poems titled “Sister Tongue” in September 2022, takes over as Santa Cruz County’s poet laureate from David Sullivan.
Santa Cruzan gets ‘Jeopardy!’ spotlight
“Originally relating to a story of suffering, this word now commonly refers to strong emotion of any kind”: That’s the clue that tripped up Sam Meehan of Santa Cruz on popular game show “Jeopardy!”
Tim Jackson stepping down at Monterey Jazz
After three decades at the influential Monterey Jazz Festival, Tim Jackson is calling it quits, though he says he’ll remain with the venue he co-founded in his hometown of Santa Cruz, the Kuumbwa Jazz Center.
Add to your Pizza My Heart T-shirt collection for a good cause
Are you really from Santa Cruz County if you don’t have at least one Pizza My Heart tee? The chain’s latest is part of the effort to raise funds to help rebuild Capitola Village businesses battered amid January’s storms.
Community reads program gives novel ‘Mary Coin’ the full 360 treatment
Each February, Friends of the Aptos Library puts a single book under the microscope, centering a series of events around that title. This year’s “Our Community Reads” novel imagines the backstory to Dorothea Lange’s famous Depression-era “Migrant Mother” photo.
‘I like to think I’ve bottled that feeling’: Windser set for Santa Cruz return with Catalyst gig
Jordan Topf returns to his hometown Friday under his stage name, Windser, and on the strength of his EP “Where the Redwoods Meet the Sea,” inspired by his childhood in Seabright.
Rosemary Chalmers’ next act looks primed for February launch
Former KSCO-AM morning host Rosemary Chalmers hinted recently that her livestreaming/podcasting venture, Santa Cruz Voice, is just about ready for our ears, and it promises to bring along some other familiar names.
What we (and Joe Biden) should know about the disappearing Cement Ship
Almost a football field and a half long, the Cement Ship marked a place and time of high enjoyment, until zapped by the twin forces of Depression and the Pacific. Come back with us 90 years and you can imagine what nature is slowly claiming.

