More than 25 years after starting the Ghostly International record label from his University of Michigan dorm room, Sam Valenti IV still feels the inspiration Ann Arbor provides the label, now based in Brooklyn, New York.

That includes one of its most famous small businesses, Zingerman’s Delicatessen, which Valenti describes as a good role model for young companies and one Ghostly looked to for inspiration in executing its vision as a trailblazing record label, famous for its diverse roster of electronic and experimental music and its wide range of branded merchandise.

“I think we were looking for inspiration, so to speak,” Valenti said. “[Zingerman’s is] independent, it's entrepreneurial, it's creative, it's quality-oriented, it's local. I brought the whole [Ghostly] team once to the class seminars they had and read the books.

“I love it as a framework, because it's not a lot of waste. So, we organized the company early on, kind of as these units. I'm not sure we were as successful, obviously, executing them, but it gives you something to sort of look at as like, ‘OK, most companies are just this hierarchical thing, but what if you create space, and you create safe space to do different things that self-serve the rest of the community?’”

Steeped in Ann Arbor and Southeast Michigan independent music lore, Ghostly International are commemorating the label’s story and the people who helped it grow with the release of its first hardcover book. The 488-page We'll Never Stop Living This Way: A Ghostly International Catalogue includes a visual history of the label's archives, exclusive essays by critics Michaelangelo Matos and Philip Sherburne, as well as unseen photos, original interviews, and oral histories with both musical and visual artists from across the roster.

Across from Pierce Lake in Chelsea, tucked down a short road off Old U.S. Highway 12, is an art gallery that's known primarily to the people who live right next to it.

But the high-quality exhibitions it stages six times a year deserve the same sort of audiences that attend more forward-facing public galleries and museums in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti.

Gallery 100, located inside the Silver Maples of Chelsea retirement community, just opened its final exhibition of the year: Colorful Explorations, which runs from November 5 to January 5, and "invites visitors to experience the power of color, form, and imagination, offering a chance to engage with art that inspires reflection, emotion, and connection." It features works by artists Gwyn McKay, Chris Huang, Susan Clinthorne, Ashley Menth, Bill Knudstrup, Keto Green, and Lulu Fall.

Led by Silver Maples resident Lois DeLeon and Winn Nichols, the retirement community's director of life enrichment, Gallery 100 highlights Michigan artists. It started as a simple idea in 2009 by Glen Paulsen, former president of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, who lived at Silver Maples until his passing in 2012. DeLeon took the idea and ran with it, bringing on Nichols in 2021.

Since then, the dynamic duo has built up Gallery 100's social media presence and marketing, acquired small grants to improve the unassuming space—a long hallway—and continued to book forward-looking exhibits, including hosting the Prison Creative Arts Project twice.

With Colorful Explorations now open, we caught up with Nichols to discuss Gallery 100, one of the more uniquely located third-space galleries in Washtenaw County.

The Ann Arbor District Library’s Fifth Avenue Press imprint is launching five new publications by local authors across several genres during a Sunday, November 9, book-release reception at the Downtown location as part of A2 Community Bookfest.

The Fifth Avenue Press reception, which is at 1 pm, will include author readings and meet-and-greets along with opportunities to purchase books and get them signed by the authors.

Started in 2017, Fifth Avenue Press assists local authors with creating print-ready books at no cost and ensures they retain all of their rights.

As part of that partnership, the library distributes ebooks of the authors’ works to patrons without paying royalties. The authors can also sell their books in various formats and keep all of the proceeds.

We recently sent a questionnaire to the authors to learn more about their books and creative processes ahead of the November 9 reception. You can click the book titles below to take you to the author interviews:

Jaye Schlesinger is the newest member of the artist-owned and operated WSG Gallery, but the Ann Arbor painter has long been a mainstay in the local creative community.

She holds two degrees from the University of Michigan—an MFA in painting (1976) and one in medical illustration (1988)—and has had numerous appearances in group exhibitions as well as 14 solo shows of her work.

Schlesinger's new spotlight show at WSG Gallery, Points of View, continues her trend of identifying a theme and exploring it from numerous angles—for instance, Possession, her 2017 exhibit at U-M's Institute for the Humanities gallery, focused on paintings of household objects.

Windows are the primary theme for the gouache paintings in Points of View, which Schlesinger explains in her artist statement:

Ann Arbor painter Hava Gurevich loves the water, but she's surrounded by terra firma.

“My work is very aquatic and botanical, but it’s been more botanical in the last few years because I’m not close to any body of water that has life in it,” Gurevich told Pulp in 2022 in a profile about her exhibition Inspired by Nature: 20 Years of Art at the University of Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens.

There are plenty of botanical works in Gurevich's Organic Fiction: Nature Inspired Abstract Paintings, her new exhibition at the Ann Arbor Art Center (A2AC), but her aquatic-inspired paintings are present, too. Not just in the main exhibit but also in A2AC's Aquarium Gallery, the large window that faces Ashley Street, just around the corner from the art space's main entrance on East Liberty Road.

While the events and people who inspired Andy Kirshner’s latest film, Sex Radical, might date back more than 125 years, the University of Michigan professor and filmmaker said its subjects of freedom of expression and women’s rights feel as relevant now as they did then.

Exploring turn-of-the-20th-century American history through the words of little-known feminist, spiritualist, and sex educator Ida Craddock, Kirshner said the documentary-style drama illuminates a message that feels appropriate for current times amid a backdrop of lawmakers seeking to ban books and mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in school.

“Even though it's a film that's set in the past, I feel like it's very much resonant with the present,” said Kirshner, who is a joint professor emeritus with the School of Music, Theatre & Dance and the Stamps School of Art and Design. “It was a different time, but some of the same cultural conflicts about separation between church and state and about gender roles are kind of the same struggles in a lot of ways.”

It’s that time again when howling wolves, moaning ghosts, mad scientists, and bloodthirsty vampires all gather for the annual Halloween festivities.

When Ethan Gibney was looking for a play to direct for the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre, he found the perfect one for the season in Gordon Greenberg and Steven Rosen’s Dracula: A Comedy of Terror.

Irish playwright Bram Stoker’s seriously scary book has been the inspiration for numerous plays and film adaptations, and it has also opened the door for this topsy-turvy comedy. Gibney saw a chance to have fun while giving a tip of the hat to Stoker and his brilliant classic.

“A couple reasons I like this play. First, that it’s funny, which seems like an obvious answer, but we all need to laugh,” Gibney said. “I think the play does a good job of having fun with the source material while respecting it. It doesn’t just throw away the book and make fun of Dracula, the concept. It enjoys the book and revels in it. It is a comedy, but it keeps the emotional core of the book.”

Fans of the spooky season have an annual event they look forward to—and we're not (just) talking about Halloween.

The Holy Bones Festival in Ypsilanti is a shivering mix of art, performance, and vibes, with the focus being on the ghoulish and gothic with a PG-13 bent. There are also related seasonal artisan markets throughout the year, all with a similar macabre spirit: Pushing Up Daisies in the spring, Krampus in July, etc.

Ypsi visual artist Holly Bones started The Holy Bones Festival in 2019, but she had to switch things up for the 2025 edition and other seasonal markets, as stated on the fest's Facebook events page:

This year has been one of immense change for our team, marked by both life changes and the loss of loved ones. We're taking a step back from our big festival to host a series of artisan markets for the rest of 2025. It’s our way of focusing on the artists and community that started it all, and it's also a chance to spend more intentional time with all of you before we dive into 2026!

The Holy Bones Artisan Market was always the centerpiece of the Holy Bones Festival, but now it has the full spotlight, with more than 70 creators displaying their wares at the Ypsilanti Freighthouse on Sunday, October 19, 1-9 pm.

Scaling back gave Bones and her self-described "skeleton crew" a chance to reset and plan for a big 2026, all while continuing to celebrate the local artistic community, especially those creators who might not fit in with typical seasonal markets.

"My hope is that attendees for this market, and any local market, continue to support real human creativity in our communities," Bones said via email. "By supporting local artists instead of corporations, you are bringing someone's dream to life in real time."

We conversed with Bones about the 2025 Holy Bones Festival and what she has planned for 2026.

Attempting to describe the setting for her Neighborhood Theatre Group’s annual Black Cat show, group co-founder Kristin Anne Danko said audience members can expect similar vibes to a ‘90s TV classic anthology series that aired on Nickelodeon.

“They should expect horror stories—it's going to be a little scary, a little silly, and it should get everyone in the mood for Halloween,” Danko said of the upcoming production of Black Cat: Folklore. “A good thing to think about is something like Are You Afraid of the Dark?”

Regardless of whether you’re a fan of scary campfire stories or nostalgia television programming, the Ypsilanti nonprofit theater company’s annual fall production aims to provide an immersive experience, Danko said, with “campfire seating” available for audience members who want to sit close to the stage.

The Neighborhood Theatre Group has been producing “theatre from scratch” since 2015, Danko said, performing plays, musicals, sketch comedy, and even short films in recent years. Black Cat: Folklore is the ensemble theater group’s latest devised production, written entirely by its eight-person cast, along with Danko, Director Marisa Dluge and ensemble members A.M. Dean, Kim Gray, and Aeron C. Wade. Shows are scheduled for October 17-19 and 23-25 at The Back Office Studio in Ypsilanti.

The Kerrytown Concert House’s annual Edgefest has long prided itself on scouring the globe to bring some of the foremost artists making avant-garde music to Ann Arbor.

But the 29th edition of the four-day festival will have a decidedly more localized bent, with several artists hailing from Detroit and Chicago gracing the lineup.

This year’s festival, entitled Edgefest 29: Speaking OUT, takes place October 8-11 at Ann Arbor's Kerrytown Concert House, featuring several artists from the two Midwest cities, including Kenny Green and his Cosmic Music Collective, which is composed of members from both Detroit and Chicago.