The Sacramento Artists Council will hold its Speakeasy Fundraiser, May 18 at the Antiquite Maison Privee in Midtown. It’ll be flapper dresses and fedoras galore at this Prohibition-themed fundraiser for the S.A.C. Snacks, Monte Carlo gaming, and a complimentary cocktail are all included in the price of the ticket. Local swing band the Twilight Drifters will be performing live from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. The Sacramento Artists Council is a nonprofit organization that supports local artists of all mediums. It also generates scholarships for high school seniors, and works to keep art alive in public education through its Adopt-A-School Art/Music Program.   Tickets are $52, but The Sacramento Pre

  The West Sacramento Education Foundation has teamed with Beutler Air Conditioning and Plumbing to get West Sac students thinking about what they can do better for their planet. Kids attending schools in Washington Unified School District were prompted to describe their energy-saving idea in an essay, drawing or model, and turn it into Beutler by Friday, Feb. 15 for the chance to win money for their class. Beutler plans to match the prize earnings with a donation of 1,000 dollars to the West Sacramento Education Foundation. The entries were picked up on Thursday, Feb. 14, according to Sara Drewry with Washington Unified. The winners of the contest will be announced in March.  

Are you ready to party with The Sacramento Press? The Journalism Open 2013 closed on Jan. 31, so don’t forget to check out the written and photography submissions that our contributors worked so hard on. The top finalists have been selected, and now our panel of guest judges are working hard to select this year’s winners. We also need your help in selecting who will win $400 for our People’s Choice Award. Soon all the work will be over though, and it will be time to kick back with good snacks and even better friends to announce the winners and honor this year’s writers. Please join The Sac Press staff, Journalism Open guest judges and contributors at Chops Steakhouse downtown on Tuesday

Welcome to February, when the Journalism Open contest really gets good. This is the time when our contributing writers get to stop toiling and start celebrating all of their hard work. While editor Jared Goyette and myself will forward on the top ten finalist entries to our panel of guest judges to score, we’re also asking you, our readers, to get in on the action. Below you’ll find, in no particular order, the People's Choice contenders, which were selected based on a combination of article views and thumbs ups received. We’ll count votes received up until 5 p.m. on Feb. 11. The winner will be selected soley based on approval rating. Vote for your favorite articles by giving them the co

The Journalism Open 2013 submissions are in. Editor Jared Goyette and I have started sorting, and soon we'll pass the finalists' submissions off to our panel of local guest judges. Choosing our winners will undoubtedly be a difficult task for them, but luckily for The Sac Press, our top entries are in good hands.  Don't forget to get your ticket to our Journalism Open 2013 Awards Ceremony here. The event will be held at Chops Steakhouse, where we will announce the winners as well as hold a raffle giving away giftcards to some of your favorite local restaurants. Now, onto the judges:  Carina Lampkin is the owner and head chef at Blackbird Kitchen and Bar, housed in what was formerly two

Adam Pechal has dreamt of landing a gig on the small screen for years. Not for his stage prowess though, but for his culinary artisanship. Chef Pechal – the head chef and owner of The Tuli Restaurant Group – is in it to win. He’ll make his debut on ABC’s new reality cooking show, “The Taste,” on Tuesday, Jan. 22. “I’ve been trying to get on a show for a few years with not much success,” said Pechal. “I have a casting director who’s always been in my corner and liked what I did. She gave me a call and told me there was a new show. I went and tried out and it stuck this time.” Pechal has been whipping up culinary delights in Sacramento since he started cooking at the age of 17. A graduate

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The new year starts in less than 24 hours, and you know what that means – tomorrow we will start accepting submissions to our Journalism Open 2013.  We’ve shared some details with you, including the fact that we’ll be giving away over $1,500 worth of prizes. What we haven’t told you, however, is who exactly you are trying to impress. Our panel of judges includes one of our favorite reporters at The Sacramento Bee, a local historian, a poet (not just any poet, but the poet laureate of Sacramento), two of the city’s best independent bloggers, and to add some spice, a local chef and business owner. Submissions will first be filtered by Community Manager Allison Joy and Editor Jared Goyette.

For those of you who may not know about the Sol Collective, it is a cultural hub in Sacramento. Functioning as an art gallery, community space, and music venue by night, Sol Collective is also a non-profit youth center during the day offering Sacramento's next generation workshops in music production/recording, writing/blogging, urban gardening/sustainability, and art of all kinds. The Sol Collective was started by Director Estella Sanchez over seven years ago out of a necessity. An educator by trade, Estella met some young children (not even teenagers) in the Del Paso Heights area who were selling crack. Heartbroken by the painful realities facing youth in low income neighborhoods, Estell

The holidays are almost here, which means it’s almost time to start taking submissions for the Journalism Open 2013. Below you’ll find how to post, what to post and how to monitor submissions. We will also hold a workshop on Jan. 3 at our office where we’ll talk about the criteria, what you need to do to win, and you can ask further questions. This will be held at The Sacramento Press office at 431 I Street, Suite 107. Please RSVP here. We will hold a second write-in on Jan. 16, also at the office, during which you can work on your submission and ask Jared or myself for feedback. RSVP here. Writers can submit their entries simply by tagging their articles “open2013.” You can confirm your