Steven Libowitz

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G race Fisher 's story has been shared frequently in Santa Barbara and beyond, but it bears repeating as it relates to her remarkable accomplishments and perseverance. The locally-raised Fisher was just about to graduate from high school and very active in a number of areas, including as a classically-trained multi-instrumentalist and dancer. But her goal of creating a career in music performance never even had a chance to materialize as she was suddenly struck with Acute Flaccid Myelitis, a rare, polio-like condition that affects the spinal cord, and in her case caused paralysis from the neck down at the age of 17.

UCSB Theatre's long-standing new play development program Launch Pad moves off campus to downtown Santa Barbara for the first time for a special one-day only staged reading of two works-in-progress at the Ensemble Theatre Company's New Vic Theatre on August 27. It's the result of both a new one-year-old collaboration between ETC and Launch Pad and Director

Santa Barbara City College's School of Extended Learning – the latest name for the ever-changing but still beloved programming once known as Adult Ed – continues to offer literally hundreds of classes across a wide spectrum of fields, almost all of them at the ridiculously low price of absolutely free. But don't be fooled into thinking this is a case of you get what you pay for: SEL's instructors are nearly uniformly accomplished in their areas, often fully professional or otherwise experts, perhaps retired, or simply enamored with working with members of the community.

ory Pesaturo remains the youngest person to win the National Accordion Championships almost 25 years after he achieved the feat in 2002.

Santa Barbara Polo's high goal season comes to its conclusion with the final weekend of the U.S. Polo Association's Pacific Coast Open, the most prestigious tournament of the summer and one of the oldest as it got started a few years after the turn of the last century.

The old adage “write what you know” pretty much has not applied to John Romano . The East Coast scribe holds a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Yale and spent the first years of his career teaching English at Columbia University, authoring a book on Charles Dickens Dickens and Reality and reviewing lit for The New York Times before heading west in his mid-30s. His first job in La La Land was member of the post-Steven Bochco staff of Hill Street Blues , hired by David Milch through their Yale connection.

Paintings, photography, sculpture and assemblage populate most of the workspaces for the 2026 Santa Barbara Studio Artists tour that takes place every Labor Day weekend. But it's a fairly good bet that if you join the 25th anniversary of the self-guided visit to artist studios around town, you won't see much that resembles what paper artist

UCSB professor Dr. Leah Stokes , a rising climate advocate named to the Time100 Next list, has penned the just-published The Carbon Wave: A Story

Brian Kuhlmann has been a professional photographer for more than 40 years, working in a wide array of fields. His photography has been featured in many advertising campaigns for big-name brands – Coca-Cola, Coors and Corona, just under the letter ‘C' – splashed across the pages of innumerable publications and hung on the walls of exhibitions all around the country. His portfolio includes action shots, portraits, nature scenes and even still lifes, plus a workplace series capturing people on the job or pausing to pose.