Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.
I’ve got some sad news. Arts & Culture Editor Carli Cutchin has left the building. She’s going to spend a month in Europe, come back to Reno for a month and then head on to graduate school in Berkeley, where she is going to pursue a master’s degree in religious studies (I jokingly call it divinity school, but Carli doesn’t seem to mind). Miranda Jesch will assume Carli’s duties as arts editor, and former RN&R staffer Kelley Lang has returned to handle the calendar and music grid duties. I’m looking forward to the changes that each will bring to the newspaper.
It’s a bittersweet parting. Carli is a person unique in the world, or at least in my experience. Our paper won’t be the same newspaper without her, and I’ll miss the distinctive perspective she brought to her job.
Carli is a deeply spiritual person, but she doesn’t seem to focus her energies on one belief system. It’s hard to explain, but Carli goes beyond a simple tolerance of others’ religious philosophies to a curiosity and acceptance of them. This informs her writing and the way she selected stories for publication in the paper. In other words, she walked the walk. I’m not going to get all maudlin, but I’m going to miss her. In fact, I already do. Still, she left me a couple of stories “in the can,” so even though she’s gone, she’s still here, and she’ll be back as a freelance writer.
Anyway, the reason her exit is bittersweet, as opposed to just sad, is because she is heading on a voyage of discovery. In some ways, it’s similar to the one Michael Burgwin is on. From the moment I met her, she was talking about where she wanted to go, the things she wanted to do. These are momentous times, and now that Carli’s started her quest, truth be told, I’m a little envious.