The Morgan Library & Museum in New York will open its much anticipated exhibition “She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia” on October 14. In a series of sculptures, cylinder seals, and translated clay tablets, “She Who Wrote” will celebrate the Mesopotamian High Priestess Enheduanna, the first-ever named author in all of humanity’s history.

“The Morgan has done exhibitions on Emily Dickinson, Mary Shelley, the Brontés, so I thought we should do an exhibition on the first-known author ever, who happens to be a woman,” Sidney Babcock, the Jeannette and Jonathan Rosen curator and department head of Ancient Western Asian Seals and Tablets at the Morgan, told ARTnews. “Most people don’t know that. It’s not celebrated. Why? School children know about Sappho, and she’s 1,000 years later for Pete’s sake!”

Daughter of Sargon of Akkad, the first ruler of the Akkadian empire of Northern Mesopotamia, Enheduanna was born more than 4,000 years ago. She was appointed to lead the cult of Nanna, a moon goddess worshipped in Sumer, a territory in the South of Mesopotamia that Sargon had conquered, and in her position as priestess wrote many hymns dedicated to goddesses.

“Her writings were copied for hundreds of years in the scribal schools,” said Babcock. In Mesopotamia, scribes were taught to write by copying hymns and myths that previous generations had written onto clay tablets.

The hymns of Enheduanna not only represent the first authored writing but the first example of the first person singular. In a hymn, Enheduanna describes a trial in which a usurper comes, throws her out of her complex, abuses her, and offers a dagger with which to kill herself. Thankfully, the goddess Inanna saves her, and she dedicates the song to her. Another hymn is the first-known example of the creative process being likened to birth. In the hymn, Enheduanna describes the birthing process, which starts with a lit fire in the nuptial chamber. She goes on to write:

“It’s not like any other city,” Mera Rubell told ARTnews, referring to Washington, DC. “To be bringing a collection that [my husband] Don and I built over the last 58 years to our nation’s capital is emotional. I have a lot of history with Washington. I was there for Martin Luther King Jr.’s march in 1963.”

Over a decade in the works, the Rubell Museum DC, which opens to the public October 29, is Mera and Don Rubell’s second private museum, after one in Miami. Housed in a building more than 115 years old, it will span 32,000 square feet. The architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle is renovating the building, which was the home, until 1978, of the Randall School, a segregated junior high school for African American children in DC’s Southwest neighborhood. (Alumni include singer-songwriter Marvin Gaye.) The building joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

“We tried to preserve as much of the character and spirit of the school as we possibly could, because there’s something very special about saving a building of that age and in that neighborhood and [with] that history,” Mera said.

Unlike the Miami museum, which has 20-foot-tall ceilings and loading bays, physical limitations may affect what kind of art DC can showcase. Mera sees it as an opportunity to highlight works in the collection that may not shine as brightly in the Miami branch’s more expansive environs. “Many of the spaces—classrooms, teachers’ offices—lend themselves to very intimate work. You can feel that history,” she said.

The building was at one point considered as a new home for the now defunct Corcoran Gallery of Art, which had purchased it from the District in 2006 for $6.2 million, and then sold it to the Rubells in 2010 for $6.5 million. The Rubells also own the Capitol Skyline Hotel, down the street, which provided shelter for unhoused people amid the pandemic. (As part of the acquisition, the Rubells are also developing a residential building with close to 500 units that will share a courtyard with the museum; one-fifth of those apartments have been set aside for affordable housing.)

Beyond buying pieces by Rashid Johnson, McArthur Binion, Deborah Roberts, Carmen Herrera, and Barbara Kruger, Philadelphia-based collectors Michael C. Forman and Jennifer Rice have spent much of the past year seeking to help the local arts scene, still ailing from the pandemic. In 2021, knowing that the city’s larger organizations would likely find a way out of economic distress, Forman and Rice focused their attention more directly on artists and on small and midsize arts institutions. They launched the Forman Arts Initiative, an organization that will oversee a grant program called Art Works, and another project to bring Theaster Gates’s Monument in Waiting (2020) to the Drexel University campus; the sculpture, a response to the removal of Confederate and colonial monuments, will remain there through July 2023. Other initiatives currently in the works include an artist residency program and public art commissions.

“We’re committed Philadelphians,” Forman told ARTnews. “This is not just an opportunity; we feel it is an obligation to give back. If Philadelphia is to recover post-pandemic, one of the real value propositions is arts and culture, and small and midsize institutions are so important to the fabric of the city and their neighborhoods.”

Administered in partnership with the Philadelphia Foundation, Art Works is a five-year, $3 million grant program that will give two-year grants to four local artists and four nonprofits, with a focus on BIPOC and other underserved communities. Organization grants (for those with budgets between $250,000 and $5 million) will range from $50,000 to $150,000, while artists will receive unrestricted grants of $50,000 over two years.

“We felt that the best way to support the community in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods would be to support BIPOC cultural organizations and artists,” Forman said. “We focused on what we saw as shortcomings in the city’s funding for arts and culture, and how we could best leverage our resources.”

Even before the onset of the pandemic, the Forman Arts Initiative brought together various stakeholders in Philadelphia’s arts community to “listen and learn about the challenges they face and the opportunities they saw for how our organization could be most impactful with our support,” he said. “We’ve always been of the view that the art is a shared resource.”

Marcus, Luke, Vish and Jim settle in for another blockbuster Barclays weekend off the back of more midweek madness.

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So why do book banners insist that they don’t ban books? Because the level of doubling down as book banning increases is, on one hand, impressive and on the other hand, is concerning about several key components of literacy.

Click through to see the Moms For Liberty member who cites BookLooks as a Moms For Liberty joint in order to get on a review team of a school library.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year — spooky season! I’m not usually one for seasonal decorating, but Halloween is the special holiday that gets me excited to pull out my skeletons and witch hats to spread the spine-chilling cheer. If you love books and the haunting magic of October 31, then these bookish Halloween decorations are just what you need to ring in the holiday spirit(s). We’ve got adorable, creepy, and downright jump-scare worthy home goods sure to fright and delight. And some of them may be so wonderful they make their way into your year-round decor!

The first section of these decorations are made of upcycled books reimagined as Halloween magic. From books carved into 3D art to gorgeous prints on old book pages, they’re a beautiful way of bringing new life to books that might have otherwise ended up in the trash.

If the idea of cutting up books or painting over their words makes you squeamish, scroll on by to see decorations inspired by the love of books and specific horror titles that have become Halloween classics. Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, and Stephen King’s works serve as some of the inspiration for these scarily wonderful decorations.

These book pumpkins can seamlessly make the jump from Halloween to Thanksgiving. $46+.

This book of spells comes with the witch built in! $36.

Creepy season is in full swing, and it’s time to get those horror novel TBR piles ready. Of course, there are plenty of kinds of horror novels you could pick up to celebrate the best time of the year. You could go for vampires, zombies, monsters… but you know what kind of horror stories really give off fall vibes? Ghost stories. Specifically, haunted house books. Yeah, there’s something about stepping foot into a haunted house that really gives off Halloween season.

If you’re a fan of haunted house stories, you’ve probably read some of the classics, like The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, and/or The Shining by Stephen King. But where do you go from there? If you’re feeling haunted house-y this season and you’re looking for what to read next, here’s an idea. Why don’t you build your own ideal haunted house, and based on that, you can read the haunted house novel that best suits your style.

Looking to know what other results you could have gotten? Here they are!

The Library of Congress has named 23 U.S. Poet Laureates since the position was renamed in 1985, and they have named their 24th: Ada Limón, author of six poetry collections, five of which have either won or been nominated for a multitude of awards. Limón is only one of eight female poets laureate, and the seventh poet of color to hold the position. She is preceded by Joy Harjo, who served three terms.

Limón began her term in late 2022, and has not yet declared what project she will work on while she holds the position (part of what a Poet Laureate does). In the meantime, she has an impressive and gorgeous body of work to pour over, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. If you’ve never ready any of Adam Limón’s poems, this is the primer to start with.

Who is Ada Limón?

Before we dive in, a little background on one of the greatest contemporary poets of our time.

Ada Limón grew up in Sonoma, California, and now lives in rural Kentucky with her husband, their pug Lily Bean, and their cat Olive. She holds an MFA from the creative writing program at New York University, worked at various magazines during her time in NYC, and teaches poetry remotely at Queens University of Charlotte. She also happens to write lusciously beautiful and arresting poetry.

The recurring themes that Limón infuses her work with center around nature, our relationship with it and our observation of it; relationships, especially with her parents; identity; and chronic illness. She grounds her poetry in places: in the California of her childhood, the years she spent in New York, her life now in rural horse country. Her knowledge of growing things is so vast that she, at times, feels like a patient teacher showing us what flourishes in her garden and what flora and fauna live and thrive around her. She reminds us that we are part of a greater world that existed before us and will exist after us. Her work is heavily autobiographical, and she excels at plucking out a mundane aspect of life and polishing it to a shine, calling attention to that moment’s beauty.

We’ve made it to the home stretch of 2022, and while there’s still a ton of 2022 year fun to be had (hello, spooky season and the holidays!), we are winding down to the end of big release season with a lighter slate of offerings in our new YA comics and graphic novels releases. But don’t worry — there are still some excellent YA graphic novels and comics hitting shelves between now and January that you won’t want to miss! Think of it as a little breather between now and the first quarter of 2023 (spoiler alert: it’s gonna be a great one if you’re a comics fan!). PLUS, it gives you some time to get caught up on anything you might have missed from earlier this year!

Although the quarter is a little on the lighter side, it’s packed full of quality! Look for a great, new queer paranormal graphic novel co-written by Lumberjanes co-creator Shannon Watters, a fantastic memoir from The New Yorker cartoonist Liz Montague, a hard-hitting memoir from a survivor of a mass shooting, and a new addition to the Heartstopper world for those of you still watching the Netflix show on repeat!

Reading this quote, I immediately warmed up to Machado: I, too, skip prologues if I can help it, and I was glad to find a like-minded author in the book I had just picked up.

Then, I turned the page, just to find out Machado had had the audacity to start her book claiming not to read prologues but included one in her book anyway.

I haven’t read it.