Neda Ulaby
Neda Ulaby reports on arts, entertainment, and cultural trends for NPR's Arts Desk.
Scouring the various and often overlapping worlds of art, music, television, film, new media and literature, Ulaby's stories reflect political and economic realities, cultural issues, obsessions and transitions.
A twenty-year veteran of NPR, Ulaby started as a temporary production assistant on the cultural desk, opening mail, booking interviews and cutting tape with razor blades. Over the years, she's also worked as a producer and editor and won a Gracie award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for hosting a podcast of NPR's best arts stories.
Ulaby also hosted the Emmy-award winning public television series Arab American Stories in 2012 and earned a 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. She's also been chosen for fellowships at the Getty Arts Journalism Program at USC Annenberg and the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism.
Before coming to NPR, Ulaby worked as managing editor of Chicago's Windy City Times and co-hosted a local radio program, What's Coming Out at the Movies. A former doctoral student in English literature, Ulaby has contributed to academic journals and taught classes in the humanities at the University of Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University and at high schools serving at-risk students.
Ulaby worked as an intern for the features desk of the Topeka Capital-Journal after graduating from Bryn Mawr College. But her first appearance in print was when she was only four days old. She was pictured on the front page of the New York Times, as a refugee, when she and her parents were evacuated from Amman, Jordan, during the conflict known as Black September.
-
The Associated Press won two awards for its Ukraine coverage, including the prestigious Public Service award. The prize for fiction went to two books: Demon Copperhead and Trust. -
The Canadian singer-songwriter wrote classics like "If You Could Read My Mind," "Early Morning Rain" and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
-
Toni Morrison remains the sole Black female recipient of a Nobel Prize in Literature. Princeton University, where Morrison was a professor, is commemorating the 30th anniversary of her win.
-
Before addiction consumed Tim Sizemore's career, he was a go-to character actor known for portraying tough guys in movies such as "Heat" and "Saving Private Ryan."
-
At a time when mass shootings are regularly rocking the country, Stephanie Mercedes is takes guns and bullet casings and turns them into instruments of mourning. Some look like primitive relics.
-
Dreamed up by Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales more than 600 years ago, the Wife of Bath was known for her lusty appetites, gossipy asides and fondness for wine.
-
The stars of the 1968 film Romeo and Juliet have accused Paramount Pictures of child sexual abuse — just days before California's three-year grace period for reviving past lawsuits expired.
-
Great works of art that have been attacked by climate protesters are innocent victims. But is there some art that deserves to be vandalized?
-
The historically Black Penumbra Theatre has received millions in grants to remake itself into a center for racial healing. What will its choices reveal about regional theater's future?
-
Ernaux often addresses issues of gender, language, class and shame in her work. Her writing blurs the line between memoir and fiction such as A Woman's Story, I Remain in Darkness and Cleaned Out.
