Twenty years ago, when Parker Pfister moved to Asheville, he made his living shooting photographs at the weddings of celebrities. Over the ensuing years, Pfister has explored his own curiosities, both through his viewfinder and in the darkroom. His manipulated images resonate with dualities that convey multiple meanings and emotions. He’s a prolifi…

While Hurricane Helene disrupted virtually every life and way of life in this region, at least one thing is happening as scheduled—the 2024 election. Today, I talk with Amanda Edwards, a member of the Buncombe County Commission who is running to succeed the departing Brownie Newman as chair. Here, in a conversation that took place weeks before Hele…

Amid thousands of people in Western North Carolina who’ve lost so much, scores of artists with studios in the River Arts District, in Swannanoa, and in downtown Marshall saw their livelihoods and life’s work washed away. I begin my coverage of Hurricane Helene's impact and aftermath with a conversation with ceramic artist, jewelry maker and my frie…

Sage Turner first came to a seat on Asheville City Council through her fight for more affordable housing in the city. She has since become well-versed and conversant on a spectrum of issues that come before council, but she’s never dropped the torch to help develop more affordable living in Asheville. Today is the last in a six-part series of conve…

Pick an issue, and voters are likely to view it as yes/no, black-and-white question. They want to know whether their elected officials are for or against something. But Kim Roney has served on the Asheville City Council long enough to learn that behind every yes or no vote, there’s subtext and context. My series of episodes spotlighting every candi…

Tod Leaven doesn’t dwell on the details when he speaks of his twin sister, who he says was battling addiction and chronic homelessness in the early 2000s when she was killed. But it isn’t a reach to see the connection with his sister, in part, fueling Leaven’s career as an attorney, his community service and his current run for a seat on Asheville’…

CJ Domingo has a particular insider’s vantage of the challenges facing Asheville—until relatively recently, he worked for the parking division of the city’s transportation department. He cites low morale among some city staff as a symptom of a larger void within city leadership. Today, in our continuing series looking at every candidate for city co…

Kevan Frazier can probably put his knowledge of Asheville history up against anyone’s. But the city native and tour guide, entrepreneur and educator hopes his encyclopedic recall of Asheville’s yesteryear can shape his approach to the city’s tomorrow. He’s one of six running for two seats on City Council. Today, in our continuing series talking wit…

This episode begins our six-part series of interviews with each candidate for Asheville City Council. Most candidates for state and federal offices started in politics at a local level. Bo Hess took a different approach. In 2020, he says, he ran for a U.S. Congressional seat as a training ground for what he wants now—a seat on Asheville’s City Coun…

No matter how attuned you believe you are to the upcoming election, there’s a strong chance you have no idea who’s running for the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Today’s episode should help solve that problem. Martin Moore moved to Asheville in 2015 when he took his first job as an attorney, working as a public defender in Buncombe County. He has…

Caleb Rudow is attempting to do something no Democrat has done in more than a decade—represent North Carolina’s 11th District in the US House of Representatives. A gerrymandered map has seemingly kept this district comfortably in Republican hands, but Rudow sees a lot in his favor as he campaigns against the incumbent, Chuck Edwards. Rudow currentl…

In the second half of this two-part conversation, founders of the coalition Reclaim Healthcare WNC talk about their pressure campaign with HCA Healthcare to dramatically and demonstrably improve conditions for patients and staff at Mission Hospital. My guests are State Senator Julie Mayfield, retired physician Bruce Kelly and Missy Harris, who rece…

So much has been written and said in the five years since the corporation HCA Healthcare purchased Asheville’s nonprofit Mission Hospital. Doctors, nurses and other staff have fled amid what many see as the company’s push for profits over people. North Carolina’s attorney general has filed lawsuits. Nobody involved in the original deal has spoken c…

Esther Manheimer is serving her third term as Asheville’s mayor. The challenges this city faces today—and the strategies deployed to tackle them—have evolved a lot during her time in office. Today, we check in with Mayor Manheimer around a variety of issues—homelessness, affordable housing, enforcing the city’s policy on short-term rentals and prop…

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, Rebec…

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 …

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 h…

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. Toda…

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 …

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 conver…

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 Strategi…

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 …

Hear Here is a performance and podcast series designed to elevate conversation around local rock and indie music. I invited two all-female bands to the May 28 evening of Hear Here at Citizen Vinyl. The bands Detective Blind and O•VAD•YA come from different generations. Detective Blind are three sisters—the eldest is only 17—while most of the member…

There are about 400 Bee City USA programs across 47 states, all with a mission to sustain pollinators by increasing native plants and nest sites while reducing the use of pesticides. The entire Bee City movement started in Asheville 12 years ago with the efforts of Phyllis Stiles. During the thick of a month of pollination celebration here, I talk …

Pete Candler wears many creative hats. He’s a photographer and maker of short films—all of it self-taught—and he’s also an author and recovering academic. His new book, titled “A Deeper South," is both an internal and external travelogue over 25 years of road trips through the American South. We’ll also talk about leaving a tenured professorship at…

Madison Brightwell and Don Silver are local novelists who don’t know each other but have similar creative trajectories. Both spent early years behind the scenes—Brightwell in film production, Silver working for music mogul Clive Davis—before turning to more conventional careers. It wasn’t until their 40s that both leaned into writing fiction. Silve…

Most people reading or listening to this likely take their literacy for granted. But for thousands of youth and adults throughout Buncombe County, literacy is a hurdle impacting nearly every element of life. My guests are executive director Amanda Wrubleski and program directors Rebecca Massey and Erin Sebelius with Literacy Together. It’s an Ashev…

April 27 marked the debut of "Hear Here," a series presented in tandem with Citizen Vinyl to elevate conversation around local rock and indie music. The premiere featured talk and performances with the bands Pink Beds and Caged Affair. This episode is all about Caged Affair, a vocalist-guitarist son and his drumming father from Waynesville, whose m…

We all know the impact of Asheville’s skyrocketing housing costs. What we don’t hear nearly as much about is how artists and arts organizations are finding it more challenging to do their work in Asheville. Affordable workspaces was the topic of the latest ArtsAVL Creative Space Town Hall. Matt Peiken moderated a May 10 panel at Asheville Community…

We hear a lot about pervasive social issues in our community—homelessness, addiction, racial inequities, affordable housing, liveable wages. All of those play roles in one particular need we rarely hear about—diapers. My guests today are Alicia Heacock and Meagan Lyon Leimena, co-executive directors of Babies Need Bottoms, an Asheville nonprofit di…

It’s a female-powered, multi-generational, one-of-a-kind lineup for the next Hear Here—Tuesday, May 28, featuring the Asheville-area bands Detective Blind and O•VAD•YA. Listen here for clips of their music. Advance tickets are just $12. Help "The Overlook with Matt Peiken" podcast reach its very reachable goal: Just $1,000 in monthly contributions …

April 27 marked the debut of "Hear Here," a series presented in tandem with Citizen Vinyl to elevate conversation around local rock and indie music. The premiere featured talk and performances with the bands Pink Beds and Caged Affair. This episode is all about Pink Beds, a quartet shaped by disco, old-school pop and contemporary rock. You’ll hear …

Asheville artists Heather Hietala and Nava Lubelski have already tasted success commercial success. Now, their new work in separate exhibitions marks new ground in their personal and artistic evolutions. In the first half, I talk with Hietala, whose response to her mother's death takes shape in the two- and three-dimensional canoes and boats that a…

Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen have spent many years building lives for themselves in contemporary dance. Not long ago, they believed they largely had to perform and teach around the country to make it sustainable. Now, fueled by artistic residencies in Western North Carolina and the embrace of the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, the couple…

David Brendan Hopes has written more novels, poems and plays than he can count. The river of writing hasn’t slowed at all since his retirement from UNC-Asheville, where Hopes taught English and creative writing for more than three decades. Hopes’ newest play is titled “A God in the Waters.” The Sublime Theater in Asheville is premiering it May 9-18…

Talks of establishing a business improvement district in downtown Asheville stretch back to the 1980s. But over the past year, those talks have gained a lot of momentum, and some civic leaders are lobbying city council to approve it before the start of the next fiscal year. A chorus of critics are also reaching a crescendo with their opposition, pu…

There’s seemingly a full-court press from certain civic leaders to push Asheville City Council to approve a business improvement district for downtown. This BID would tax property owners, and by extension downtown commercial and residential tenants, to pay for a supplemental workforce to help the city’s efforts to clean up downtown and make it safe…

Choral groups were among the hardest-hit and slowest to rebound from the pandemic. Two of the region’s enduring choirs are still finding their footing both artistically and in the wider public. Today, we hear from the choirs’ two artistic directors—Kyle Ritter of Asheville Symphony Chorus and Emily Floyd of Asheville Youth Choirs. They’re performin…

Just as Asheville’s arts community has evolved, so too has ArtsAVL. It changed its name just a year and a half ago from the Asheville Area Arts Council and, even before the pandemic, refocused its mission from service to advocacy. My guest today is Katie Cornell, executive director now in her fifth year with ArtsAVL. We talk about that mission shif…

Want to know what’s happening with McCormick Field, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium and the Western North Carolina Nature Center? My guest has the answers. Chris Corl is General Manager and Director of Community & Regional Entertainment Facilities for the City of Asheville. We go into detail about the upcoming trip around the bases for McCormick Field’s re…

Asheville is very much a music town—not just for musicians, but also for fans, as evidenced by the six record stores dotting the city. As we approach the annual Record Store Day, April 20, we talk with Mark Capon of Harvest Records, Jesse McSwain of Static-Age Records and Morgan Markowitz of Earth River Records. We talk about the evolution of their…

Downtown business owners, workers and residents spent a lot of 2023 imploring Asheville officials to get a handle on crime, trash and vagrancy. All along, many were pressing to take matters into their own hands by working with city leaders to form what’s called a business improvement district. A business improvement district—or BID—is a tax assessm…

D. Tyrell McGirt says his career path was blazed as a 10-year-old in Greensboro, when his mother signed him up for a lifeguarding class. He ran parks and recreation departments in Alabama, Arizona and Alaska before moving two years ago to lead the department in Asheville. In this conversation, McGirt talks through his department's recent decision t…

Seventy years ago, Black Mountain College was a petri dish for experimental art, sound and performance. It was also the birthplace of so-called “happenings”—events where practitioners strived to transcend the bounds of existence and expression. Today, the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center throws an annual “(Re)Happening.” The 12th (Re)H…

Middle housing is all the rage in planning and urban development circles—that is, duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, clusters of homes with no garages but maybe a shared park, in walkable neighborhoods close to transit. Basically, it's housing with many of the functions of traditional single-family homes but developed with equity, the environment and…

The Buncombe County District Attorney’s office prosecutes dozens of cases every week, from capital murder to trivial infractions. But DA Todd Williams seems at least a bit frustrated by the public’s lingering interest in what, on paper, resulted in guilty verdicts for misdemeanor trespassing. Some are holding up the charges as veiled attacks on fre…

Barbie Angell is a poet and storyteller, children’s book author and emcee. Threading all of it, she’s a survivor. She’s candid about the range of abuse she experienced throughout her youth, and a quarter-century of ongoing psychological abuse she alleges from a domestic partner. The last few years have been particularly difficult for my guest today…

If the nonprofit world awarded medals for bravery on the battlefront, the counselors and volunteers for the SPARC Foundation could be the most decorated in Asheville. SPARC works with people who’ve committed child abuse, domestic abuse and street violence to find other paths of behavior. My guest today is Jackie Latek, the founding executive direct…

Just last week, Asheville City Schools voted to merge Montford North Star Academy into Asheville Middle School. The move will reduce the district’s $4.5 million budget shortfall by as much as half, but it also raised a lot of anger, sadness and questions from affected parents. My guest today is Greg Parlier, a reporter who covers education for the …

Chris Jehly says he used to mock artists who painted the natural landscape. At the time, he was a graffiti artist inspired by BMX and metal music. Since his move to Asheville, he’s become one of the artists he used to dismiss. The plein-air paintings documenting his local hikes and other sojourns into the woods are on through the end of March at Ty…