After writing about Detroit's cultural underground for seven years, Sarah Klein has developed a "hate-hate" relationship with the city and has decided to flee it for the sunny climes of California. "People are leaving Detroit -- in droves," she says, driven away by crime, lack of city services and a bad economy. Although she loves the Motor City and its "incredible people," she has had enough: "I'm tired of struggling, and I'm exhausted -- emotionally and physically. I'm ready to go."

Continue ReadingMetro Times Culture Editor ‘Can’t Hold Out Any Longer’ in Detroit

So says Metro Times founder Ron Williams, recalling the recently deceased journalist "who made an important contribution to the newspaper in its formative years." Kaplan was the Detroit alt-weeklies' news editor from 1989 to 1991, when "she wrote about urban issues with ... gritty detail," according to the paper. The 53-year-old writer and University of Washington assistant professor died last month of an apparent heart attack.

Continue Reading‘Deb Kaplan Was One Tough Reporter’

The first president of the Czech Republic, who won Off-Broadway's highest honor for plays he wrote in 1968, 1970 and 1984, was feted this week at New York's Public Theater. "Havel was previously unable to collect his Obie Awards in person," says the Voice, "because, following the New York opening of (his 1968 prizewinner) The Memorandum, he returned to his home in Prague, where he was almost immediately placed under house arrest by the then Soviet-controlled government of Czechoslovakia." The Voice's chief theater critic and current Obie committee chairman, Michael Feingold, presented Havel with a special certificate attesting to the three awards.

Continue ReadingVaclav Havel Finally Picks Up His Village Voice Obies