Magdalena Mozes Herzberger has been on a mission ever since a British soldier picked her up from among the dead at the Bergen-Gelsen concentration camp in northwest Germany in April 1945. The soldier cried as he carried her, and she looked over the numerous dead as they passed.

The valedictorians for Tempe's Corona del Sol are:

Student artwork will be showcased during the fourth annual Gilbert Artfest in downtown's Heritage District.

Ahmed Alsoudani says that America is a dreamland. Yet, his complex paintings of violence and warfare are very much influenced by his upbringing.

It may not be as mainstream a form of expression these days as, say, Instagram, but poetry, that old-fashioned art of arranging language to create an emotional response through meaning, sound and rhythm, is alive and well.

Dwayne Stowell was just a high school senior when his life was instantly changed.

Walter Salles' "On the Road" was made with noble intentions, finely-crafted filmmaking and handsome casting, but, alas, it does not burn, burn, burn.

Arizona State University is getting experimental.

Students at Mesa Westwood High School are getting a exposure to the art of spoken word thanks to Mesa Arts Center’s hosting of “Word Becomes Flesh,” a choreopoem performance that was held at the center last week and parts of which will be shown during spark! Mesa Festival of Creativity being held at the center March 16-17.

The Mesa Arts Center will have a new outdoor stage for performances and visual art demonstrations in the next year or two, as part of a transformation planned for the 8-year old facility.

Mesa Arts Center is one of 104 applicants in 33 states and the District of Columbia to be named finalists for grants from ArtPlace, an initiative to accelerate creative “placemaking” across the nation.

Bands, floats and children will line the downtown streets of Mesa on Monday, Jan. 21, as part of the city’s weekend-long celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Corona del Sol wrestling program has more than proved itself this season in the dual meet format.

Campo Verde students win national writing challenge

While theater patrons took their seats at the Mesa Arts Center on a recent Tuesday evening, just feet away ceramics students put the final touches on their projects, analyzing glaze colors, crafting bowls on the wheel or sanding pieces before they would go into a kiln. Just a few doors down, a pair of students worked in an outdoor studio, shaping glass glowing red from its recent placement in fire.

These are a few of Chicky Winkleman’s favorite Hanukkah things: ironic, ugly sweaters adorned with Stars of David, his roommate’s Christmas tree and making latkes, alone in the afternoon.

Not long ago, we got to judge a Poetry Out Loud competition at a Mesa school, and watching kids of all backgrounds really get into and perform the poems they chose was actually pretty cool. They definitely impressed us.

A beloved English teacher in South Jersey, Matthew Quick may have been financially stable, but he was far from happy. With the support of his wife, Quick left his job at age 30, sold his house, and began writing full-time in his in-laws’ unfinished basement for three years. As he battled mood swings and severe depression, Quick became inspired to write “The Silver Linings Playbook,” which became an instant success and earned him a PEN/Hemingway Award Honorable Mention.

Technology is making writing a book easier for many striving writers, but publishing it can still be intimidating for many.

Poet Terry Hummer reads prose and plays saxophone. Musician Billy Cioffi sings Hummer’s words and strums his guitar. Backup singers melodically chime in — all to create the soulful ambiance evident in the television episode “The AmeriCamera Project,” where Hummer and Cioffi fuse poetry with rock ‘n’ roll.

Do decency, integrity, ethics, forgiveness, respect, thoughtfulness, self-reflection, forgiveness, kindness, empathy, civility, morality, generosity, hope, and honesty mean anything to anyone today? Are these traits of weakness that separate the sheep from the wolves, the leaders from the followers, the innovators from the implementers?