(originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press)

Once upon a time, there was a storytelling festival held in Chattanooga’s Coolidge Park called TaleSpin. I remember this 2008 event because I was recruited by Vincent Phipps to be one of the storytellers. I hesitated, but he reassured, coached, and encouraged me until I changed my mind and attitude. TaleSpin no longer takes place here, but I was set on a storytelling path that expanded exponentially. Vincent evolved into the top 1% of the World’s Best Communication Experts. This matters because in these “interesting times”, storytelling is key to being heard and seen.

Continue reading The power and influence of storytelling – by Deborah Levine →

(originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press)

Always a fan of international projects, I eagerly attended the recent reception marking Chattanooga’s new collaboration with Ukraine’s city of Trostyanets. What a pleasure to meet its mayor, Yuriy Bova! Mayor Tim Kelly had formalized a cooperative agreement with the war-torn Ukrainian city that’s only 20 miles from the Russian border.

Speaking with Mayor Bova  and his interpreter was a real pleasure. I was delighted when he mentioned his desire to be online. I told him about my podcast and asked if he’d like to do an interview. Never imagining that he would say yes, I held my breath as his staff made the arrangements to connect my office in East Ridge with his in Ukraine. Would this actually happen?

Continue reading Ukrainian moment in Chattanooga – by Deborah Levine →

Originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press

Chattanooga is a hub for artists and aways has been. On September 25, ArtsBuild will celebrate 55 years of building our city through the Arts. There will also be a celebration of 10 years of the Ruth Holmberg Arts Leadership Awards with this year’s awardees: Cam Busch, Rita Lorraine Hubbard, Alan and Norma Mills, and Anna Baker Vancura. Several Holmberg relatives recently visited Chattanooga’s Mizpah synagogue which Ruth and her Ochs family helped create, as they’d done with The Chattanooga Times. Meeting them was a reminder that the past and present are interwoven through our city’s creative souls and their supporters. Whether it’s architecture, visual arts, dance, or music, we have a rich legacy of artists shaping our community. That legacy includes generations of writers, as demonstrated by the local Authors Fair hosted by the downtown public library this past weekend.    

Continue reading Celebrating our city’s literary artists – by Deborah Levine →

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Watching the news this weekend was another exercise in political upheaval. I was grateful for a brief intermission on CBS with its “Sunday Moment in Nature”. Seeing the beautiful mountain scenes and watching the birds up close was heart warming, and much needed. But I needed more so we hopped in the car and drove over to Fort Oglethorpe. I wanted to revisit one of my favorite places, the old log cabin that belonged to the Native American Chief John Ross. The surrounding ponds with their fountains were truly a gift and I hoped that they would have still have birds flocking to them.
Continue reading Welcoming Moments of Nature – by Deborah Levine →

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

I originally planned to write about the massive number of politics-oriented texts that I’ve been getting on my phone. They were unsolicited and annoying, regardless of which candidate they’re promoting. I know that many of you were inundated with these texts and shared my concern. When I searched online for directions on how to stop all this, I discovered that the Federal Trade commission doesn’t block political campaign texts and calls. Political campaigns are run by legitimate organizations that know how to go around the rules meant to stop robocalls and robotexts. I was going to share the advice of a blog, “How To Survive the Election Year and Political Text Spam That Comes With It”. But so much changed with the weekend assassination attempt.

Continue reading Can’t We All Stop the Political Violence – by Deborah Levine →

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

It’s always a pleasure to go to Miller Plaza, listen to the music and watch folks set up stalls for a festival. The activity this past weekend began at 5pm so I got there a bit early to watch them get ready. Everyone setting up looked happy even in the intense sunlight and a few kids even hopped, skipped and jumped around. I admire these younger folks doing their best with a temperature over 90 degrees. Us older folks are especially vulnerable to these heat waves and even standing in the shade made me sweat like mad. I’m thinking that climate change deniers and Supreme Court justices should stand with me. Maybe a little heat exhaustion would have them promote laws and projects to protect us.  

Continue reading Justices, Come Experience our Climate – by Deborah Levine →

(originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Our middle-aged kids came to visit us and we wanted to do something special with them. But with the temperature in the mid-nineties, none of us could tolerate being outside for long. Fortunately, Chattanooga has wonderful opportunities to have fun indoors with full-speed air conditioning. Given our long-time fascination with political artifacts, we were eager to check out the exhibit, Path to the Presidency, hosted by the public library’s Local History and Genealogy Department and presented by the Robert L. Golden Institute of Art and History.

Continue reading “Path to the Presidency” at the library – by Deborah Levine →

Originally published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press

It was super exciting to be invited to the annual conference of Project Voice which has taken place in Chattanooga, home to the country’s fastest internet since 2016. Project Voice looks at artificial intelligence, but not the traditional artificial intelligence (AI) that analyzes historical data and makes future numeric predictions. Rather, the focus is on conversational and generative AI, terms I hadn’t heard until sitting in the conference. Conversational AI can hold two-way interactions with humans by understanding and responding in text or speech. Generative AI can take prompts and create all kinds of stuff that never existed before but are indistinguishable from human-generated content. I started to feel overwhelmed by this new information. 

Continue reading Why get “interested” in Artificial Intelligence – by Deborah Levine →