In the electric and perpetually sincere terrain of Richmond’s theatre culture, there are institutions that do more than merely reside, they lead. They serve as a measure of our city's potential beyond its natural aspirations. I've witnessed Firehouse Theatre inhabit...
Editor's Note: Writer's Block is a space for Virginia writers to share personal essays, fiction, memoir, and works that fall somewhere in between. We’re standing on some corner in downtown Richmond: me, my two friends, a pair of women, and their male friend we had met earlier that night. We’re deliberating over what to do next, caught up in each...
Editor's Note: Writer's Block is a space for Virginia writers to share personal essays, fiction, memoir, and works that fall somewhere in between. In Stay Hungry, Richmond local Eric Kalata looks back on a cross-country tour and the restless optimism of being young, broke, and convinced the road might lead somewhere worth going. We were...
Writer’s Block is RVA Magazine’s series highlighting contemporary writers working in Richmond and across the Commonwealth. We feature original poems, short stories, or essays. Just real voices writing right now. “Big Flame is Gonna Break My Heart in Two” by Richmond writer Nate Waggoner drifts through the blur of early college years, where...
Editor’s Note: Max Winter is a University of Richmond alumnus reflecting on his time at UR in the late ’90s and the campus culture he experienced. You can read more of his work on his Substack HERE. Recently, while eating carnitas in East LA, I check my phone and get blasted with an absurd screenshot. A text out of nowhere from my old college...
There was a new guy that moved across the street from me, a new neighbor, and every time he saw me on the front porch puffing away, he asked to bum a smoke. It got so incessant that I had begun smoking in the backyard instead, not wishing to part with any of my precious pack of cigarettes if it wasn’t to be consumed by me. After a couple of weeks...
Writer’s Block is RVA Magazine’s series highlighting contemporary writers working in Richmond and across the Commonwealth. Each week, we feature original poems, short stories, or essays. Just real voices writing right now. This week, we’re featuring two poems by Cameron Ritter. His work leans into observation and dialogue, pulling from everyday...
A Sunday series from RVA Magazine featuring writers from Richmond and Virginia Writer’s Block is RVA Magazine’s Sunday series highlighting contemporary writers working in Richmond and across the Commonwealth. Each week, we feature original poems, short stories, or essays. Just real voices writing right now. Editor’s Note: The following poems were...
The ceilings were all collapsing. The moldering roof was seeping through to the drywall and paint inside. What was once a small emerald speck of mold above the shower had turned into a fuzzy kaleidoscope of blacks and pinks and grays and greens that coated the entire top of the room and filled it with a smell so pungent that I couldn’t spend more...
I started smoking cigarettes when I was 14 years old. Most likely because other boys my age in the neighborhood were smoking. I thought it was the next logical step on the way to losing my virginity. I wasn’t peer pressured. I did this because I wanted to. John McClane in the Die Hard movies was a cigarette smoker. Frank Sinatra was one. Pantera...
