Someone apparantly emptied a newspaper stand of its contents, which ended up strewn about J and 9th Streets early Thursday morning, creating quite the scene and mess.  A passerby stopped briefly to pick up one of the Sacramento News & Review copies, blew his nose in it, and put it back down on the street. Sacramento Police Department officers arrived, and indicated that city workers would clean up the newsprint.  A nearby businesses owner indicated that the papers had been there for at least an hour. The mess was cleaned up shortly after 9 a.m.

Local artist Raul Mejia is taking a big step in growing his business by launching his own online brand at www.raulmejia.com, featuring an online store offering original work, prints, shirts and more to a national audience. Mejia is a very well-known artist in Sacramento, having had his work exhibited in the SMUD Building, Spanglish Arte, Sol Collective, DEEDA Salon, CUFFS Urban Boutique, Centro’s, Ink, Borjon Winery, MoMo Lounge and Mixture. He has also had features in the Sacramento News & Review, Submerge Magazine, NorCal Magazine, Legend Magazine and on the TV show, Turf Wars. An online store is a logical next step in the rapidly growing career of this local Sacramento artist. Allowing

We are resuming our workshop series with a presentation on one of the core aspects of human communication, one you might practice at a bar, the dinner table or over coffee – narrative storytelling. Telling a story to a friend is one thing, but writing a nonfiction narrative is another, and Sacramento News & Review co-editor Nick Miller can help give you the tools you’ll need to pull it off with his workshop on the basic principles of feature writing and narrative storytelling. The workshop, “Introduction to Feature Writing and Narrative Storytelling,” will be held Wednesday, Sept. 5 from 6 - 8 p.m. While the workshop is booked to capacity, it will be live-streamed in this article and ava

In a world where nearly everyone has a smartphone or an iPod and news flashes are delivered in 140 characters or less, the landscape of news media is rapidly changing. Here is a quick roundup of recent changes in the local news outlets: Sacramento News & Review: Looking for a new editor The Sacramento News & Review has been a print publication since 1989, and Melinda Welsh has been the editor for most of that time. About a week ago, she decided to step down, and now the News & Review is conducting a nationwide search for her replacement. “I love the job, it’s the coolest job,” Welsh said Friday. “But it’s been long enough. Eighteen years as an editor? It’s time to do something different

October was officially declared as National Arts and Humanities Month by President Obama back in 2009. Artober is a month-long event starting Oct. 1 that highlights the talents and art resources in Sacramento and celebrates the meaning of the month. It will include local artists, businesses, art walks, festivals, workshops and other special events in Old Sacramento and the downtown area. Last year, Mayor Kevin Johnson announced that the For Arts’ Sake Coalition would be introducing a new action plan for the Sacramento area. A team of 20 artists and art enthusiasts worked to bring resources together such as getting organizations and businesses involved in the process of making the public a

“The most important part of review writing is to tell a story,” said Nick Miller, associate editor at Sacramento News & Review and panelist at Wednesday evening’s review writing workshop, hosted by The Sacramento Press. You should make your reader feel as though they were at the event by including specific details about what you saw, he added. Along with Miller, the workshop’s other two panelists, Rachel Leibrock of Sacramento News & Review and Carla Meyer of The Sacramento Bee, spoke from personal experience about how to effectively write a review of music, food or film. The panel also fielded questions from the 20-person audience in regards to writing style, etiquette and editing. The

With all the charm of some backwoods corny carnival, the 2010 Sammie Awards relocated from its familiar turf at the Crest Theatre to carve out a new niche in the R Street corridor and welcome the whole neighborhood to an evening of merriment. Perfect weather and the faint sound of disco beats started the party outdoors while spots like Venue and R15 began shuffling out on-lookers from pre-party refreshments. The crowd was patch-worked around the stage with nominated musicians and announcers, as stilt-walkers and street performers entertained families and 20-something hipsters bobbing their heads in the street. Photo booths stationed by the stage and editorial shoots popping at Muse Salon

Adjusting to new realities, This 'n' That Thrift & Gift is trading East Sacramento's Folsom Boulevard for a Curtis Park location next month. Owner Lynda Tyler has operated the charitable thrift store at 3257 Folsom Blvd. for 10 years: first on behalf of California Hospice Foundation, then as the owner partnering with the community-based nonprofit People Reaching Out. Tyler knows she's giving up a busy commercial section of Folsom Boulevard by choosing to move. Café Capricho opened next door in April, Krazy Mary's boutique moved in across the street in June and a cafe, wine bar and market called Good Eats held a soft opening down the street this week. Fear can hold many small business ow

Sacramento's PRIDE 2010 kicked off with Dyke Night, an evening of music and entertainment on the west Capitol steps to lead into the new location of this year's festivities on Sacramento’s Capitol Mall near between the Tower Bridge and the Capitol building. Here are some moments: Two women in the audience respond to the performers on stage. Allyn Pharo and her dog Sterling. The crowd filled the lawn in front of the west Capitol steps. Aurora (top and bottom) played to the crowd. Emcee and Organizer Hilary Hodge keep the pace going throughout the evening. Tina Reynolds, Equality Action Now, gave folks an update on Prop.8. Dancers from Hot Pot Studios (above) moved their bodi

With an iconic new location--Sacramento's scenic Capitol Mall, expanded marketing efforts and a growing roster of prestigious corporate sponsors and exhibitors, the 26-year-old Sacramento Pride Festival is expected to break attendance records on Saturday. The June 19 Festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., attracting an estimated 10,000 visitors and bringing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of economic benefit to Sacramento’s downtown area. Festival admission is $10. After a number of years at South Side Park, the Festival will move to Capitol Mall in 2010, where a street-festival layout sandwiched between the Tower Bridge and the State Capitol dome is expected to add novelty

This is not your daddy’s Sacramento Pride! Sacramento Pride is making big changes in 2010, all aimed at transforming the annual regional celebration of LGBT culture and accomplishments into an event worthy of its new tagline, California’s Capital Pride. The list of changes begins with the day-long Pride Festival’s move this year to Sacramento’s Capitol Mall. The Festival will be held Saturday, June 19, from 10 am to 5 pm. Sandwiched between the State Capitol dome on the east and the golden spans of the Tower Bridge on the west, the Festival’s move to the scenic city gateway is intended to raise visibility and emphasize the important role of the LGBT community in Sacramento and statewide.

Business owners, members of various organizations and political representatives attended the seventh Sacramento Sustainability Forum on Thursday at the Sacramento News & Review offices at 1124 Del Paso Blvd. Since August 2009 the SSF has been holding these meetings to discuss local solutions to environmental, economic and political problems. The discussion focused on Senate Bill 375, which calls for lowering greenhouse gas emissions by curbing urban sprawl. The bill would have city and transportation planners achieve this by placing housing, industry, schools and retail in close proximity to each other. The bill is complex and would pertain to many segments of population and organization

What do Cake, Deftones, Oleander, and Jackie Greene have in common? Besides that they are all from Sacramento, they are also all SAMMIES (Sacramento Area Music Awards) Hall of Fame members. Sacramento's music lovers, geeks, and fanatics rejoice -- Sacramento News & Review recently released this year's SAMMIES nominees, and eight shows between Thursday, May 21st and June 27th's awards ceremony and concert in Cesar Chavez Park will showcase the best of Sacramento's music scene. Thursday's 9 p.m. concert at Old Ironsides will showcase SAMMIES nominees The Generals, with Autumn Sky, Christopher Fairman and The Inversions opening the show. "I would totally recommend June 6, all singer-songwr

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love homeless people. Vagrants, bums, hobos, bag people, call them what you will, I love them. Lunch time rolls around and ol' faithful (aka my stomach) begins to announce that he's feeling parched and wants to digest something. So I say 'I'm ok with that' and stomach and I head out for a bite. I decided on a Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl's Jr, so I head to the Plaza for lunch. As I enter the Carl's Jr, I see a hobo woman (40's, black, DIRTY, messed up teeth, 2pac scarf on her head) sitting at a table with crap scattered everywhere with her little house/ cart parked next to her. In front of her she has what appears to be every sin