Lion Dance and Parasol Dance at TCPL to Celebrate Lunar New Year
2025-02-01 14:30 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E. Green Street, Ithaca, NY, 14850
Tompkins County Public Library, in partnership with the Cornell Lion Dance Club and the Cornell Illumination Chinese Cultural Dance Troupe, invites you to a spectacular and thrilling dance performance for children and families!
Help celebrate the Lunar Year by ushering in the Year of the Snake! The performance will be on the Avenue of Friends at TCPL.
Each performance will feature a lively 10-15 minute dance, followed by engaging interactions with the children.
This year, the Cornell Lion Dance is back with two ferocious lions! Don’t miss this exciting celebration!

Scuba Bowl 3
2025-02-03 19:00 - 22:00 | Liquid State Brewery, 620 W. Green St., Ithaca
For the third annual Super Bowl weekend running comes – Scuba Bowl! A live musical performance from Ithaca’s voted “best bar band” Scuba Jerry, playing the music from the great Jerry Garcia Band.
Friday, February 7th, is 7-10pm
21+

State of the Art Gallery Members Show "THREADS"
2025-02-06 12:00 - 2025-03-02 17:00 | State of the Art Gallery, 120 W State St #2, Ithaca, 14850, United Kingdom
The State of the Art Gallery presents THREADS, February 6-March 2, 2025. Twelve artist members thread their diverse images together to reflect the colors of the new year. Works will include sculpture, photography, painting, digital art and mixed media by Christine Chin, Jane Dennis, Frances Fawcett, Annemiek Haralson, Daniel McPheeters, Keith Millman, Catharine O’Neill, Diana Ozolins, Nancy Ridenour, Carol Spence, David Watkins, and Hsiao-Pei Yang.
The show will run from February 6th through March 2nd, 2025. Opening reception Friday, February 7th, 5–8pm.
Regular hours Thursday-Sunday 12-5 pm. 120 W State St. Curbside parking and ADA accessibility. 607-277-1626. Made possible in part with funds from the NYS Council on the Arts, administered by the Community Arts Partnership.

MIX Art Gallery presents "Interact with Abstract" art opening on Ithaca's Gallery Night, Friday, Feb. 8th 5-8PM
2025-02-07 17:00 - 20:00 | MIX Art Gallery, 156 E. State Street, Ithaca, 14850
February’s exhibition at MIX Art Gallery showcases a new face in the local art scene. Peter “Rafe” Harpending, originally from Elmira, NY, now resides in Ithaca. With a naturally inquisitive spirit, he describes his personality as a gradient of colors from yellow and orange to red. It’s no surprise that his drawings reflect his degree in Biology, as his artistic interests focus on “living things” from various clades. While there are many detailed drawings of insects, birds, fish, and more that will be available, the highlighted works on our gallery walls will primarily be his mesmerizing abstracts.
“I must have had an innate urge to create a visual world, starting at a very young age—perhaps as early as I could talk. Additionally, my mother appreciated modern art, and that early exposure motivated me to create.” Harpending draws inspiration primarily from modern abstract art, and his biggest influences include Mondrian, Klimt, Dali, Klee, John McLaughlin, Pollock, and Georgia O’Keeffe, among others. “I’m fascinated by the fact that humans are both ordered and biological beings! The order represented in many of my geometric pieces is juxtaposed with disruptive visual elements. This expresses an obsession with the tension between order and chaos, the notion that humans can create a thin veneer of spatial and temporal structure, but underneath lies the inevitable turbulent and maddening realm of nature.”
Almost reminiscent of Native American art, these abstract pieces are both compelling and captivating, and whether on paper or simple board, they are attractively priced. A must-see this February showing through March 1st, 2025.

Passing Through: Portraits of Gender Rebellion - Ithaca's First Friday Gallery Night
2025-02-07 17:00 - 20:00 | CAP ArtSpace, 110 N Tioga st, Ithaca, NY, 14850, United States
This exhibit features a collection of paintings by Dominican-American artist, Isa Goico (they/elle). Their practice focuses on the intersection of self-mythology and gender liberation. Goico utilizes photographic queer archive, community members, and local drag artists as inspiration.
Passing Through is a compilation of paintings that reflect the unique individual experience of gender. “In painting queer individuals in everyday settings, I am celebrating the impact trans lives have on the Ithaca community at large. The portraits aim to honor and thank the Ithacans that are bravely themselves in an increasingly anti-trans political climate.”
The exhibition features a series of small gouache paintings on scrap board salvaged in Ithaca. In addition to the serial work, the exhibition features 3 large scale oil portraits completed during Goico’s time as an undergraduate at Cornell. Ithaca First Fridays Gallery Night – Passing Through: Portraits of Gender Rebellion is going to be the title of the event as we go forward to create social media and other content to promote the event.

CSMA Presents "Our Seats for the Table"
2025-02-07 17:00 - 20:00 | Community School of Music and Arts, 330 East State Street, Ithaca
CSMA is proud to present “Our Seats for the Table” in our gallery! This powerful art exhibit by Village at Ithaca Youth, Sarah Wolff, and Grace Azaula honors Black agents of freedom through reimagined found chairs.
Join us on Ithaca Gallery Night, Feb 7, for a live performance by the Breaking Ground Steppers, an impactful film, and the chance to add your artistic flair to a community chair.
Admission is free and the event runs from 5pm-8pm in our gallery. We hope to see you there!

2025 Opening Reception
2025-02-07 18:00 - 19:30 | History Center of Tompkins County, 110 N Tioga Street, Ithaca, New York
Please join us for the grand opening of our exhibit, “Trains, Planes, and Automobiles: Buses, Boats, and Bikes.”
Grand Opening Schedule – February 7, 2025:
10:00 AM – Exhibit opens to the public.
5:00-8:00 PM – Gallery Night in Downtown Ithaca.
6:15 PM – Public Reception with Musical Living History Performance
Opening Reception
To celebrate the creation of a new exhibit exploring the storied past of how-we-get-places we invite you to a preview performance of the “THE AWFUL WRACK of the FRONTENAC and the COWARDICE of MEN.” This living history musical performance tells the story of a 1907 maritime disaster that took place on Cayuga Lake, featuring singer/songwriter Ted Walsh with unexpected appearance of the Lost Survivor/Orphan News Boy. Lifejackets optional.

Scuba Bowl 3
2025-02-07 19:00 - 22:00 | Liquid State Brewery, 620 W. Green St., Ithaca
For the third annual Super Bowl weekend running comes – Scuba Bowl! A live musical performance from Ithaca’s voted “best bar band” Scuba Jerry, playing the music from the great Jerry Garcia Band.

Nice Racks! Vintage and Locally Made Market
2025-02-08 13:00 - 17:00 | Liquid State Brewery, 620 W. Green St., Ithaca
Shop the tastefully curated racks of 10 vintage and locally made vendors. Chicken, Beer and unique fashion gems for everyone!

NYC Meets NRE: Ithaca Comedy Night
2025-02-08 19:00 - 21:00 | NRE Space, 402 W. State St, Ithaca, 14850
NYC Meets NRE: Ithaca Comedy Night
Looking for a night of unstoppable laughter? Join us on February 8th at 7 PM at NRE in Ithaca for NYC Meets NRE: Ithaca Comedy Night, a comedy showcase bringing the best NYC stand-up comedians to the Finger Lakes!
Featuring a stellar lineup of rising stars in the comedy world:
Skyler Holzman: Founder of Cornell’s first stand-up comedy club, Pun Intended, and producer of NYC’s “Leg Day Comedy.”
Anna Koppelman: Co-producer of Pucker Comedy and a professor of creative writing at NYU.
Grace Lobo: NYC-based comic, co-producer of Pucker Comedy, and a New York Comedy Festival featured performer.
Max Kaczor: Finalist in Buffalo’s Funniest and Maine’s Wicked Funny Laugh Off, and producer of Cat Mouth Comedy.
This one-night-only event promises sharp wit, hilarious observations, and side-splitting performances from comedians taking the NYC comedy scene by storm. Whether you’re a long-time comedy fan or just looking for a fun night out, NYC Meets NRE is your perfect dose of laughter.
Tickets: Available now!
Location: NRE 402 W. State St
Date & Time: February 8th, 7 PM
Grab your friends and join us for an unforgettable night of laughs at NYC Meets NRE: Ithaca Comedy Night!
Follow us on @ComedyHOF and @ComedyOnTheCommons for updates!

TCPL to welcome Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Jonathan Eig
2025-02-10 18:00 - 20:00 | Tompkins Coutny Public Library, 101 East Green Street, Ithaca, 14850
Tompkins County Public Library is excited to welcome author Jonathan Eig for a speaking event.
He will be speaking about “King: A Life,” his biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that was awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.
The program is free to the public and will include a Q&A session as well as a book signing in conjunction with Odyssey Books.
The event is made possible by support from the Tompkins County Public Library Foundation.
See our announcement and learn more about Eig and his work here: https://www.tcpl.org/TCPL-welcomes-Jonathan-Eig

Adam Gellings & Nathan Lipps - Poetry Reading and Conversation
2025-02-13 16:00 - 18:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Poets Adam Gellings and Nathan Lipps will be at Buffalo Street Books for a reading, followed by a conversation with Suzanne Richardson.

Adam Gellings & Nathan Lipps - Poetry Reading & Conversation
2025-02-13 16:00 - 18:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Poets Adam Gellings and Nathan Lipps will join us for a reading, followed by a conversation with Suzanne Richardson.
Adam J. Gellings is a poet & instructor from Columbus, Ohio. He received his MFA from Ashland University & his PhD from the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he was the recipient of a fellowship from the Marion Clayton Link Endowment. His poems have appeared in numerous journals & magazines including the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Copper Nickel, Salamander, Southern Humanities Review, Willow Springs & elsewhere. His debut poetry collection Little Palace was released in fall 2022 by Stephen F. Austin State University Press.
In his debut poetry collection Little Palace, Adam Gellings gives readers a perfect example of that often-repeated but rarely achieved instruction: “show, don’t tell.” These sophisticated poems wander through the busy streets of Paris, past quiet courtyards full of flowers, into a kitchen that smells of fresh-baked bread. This metropolitan yet nostalgic collection brings the reader into new places and experiences while reminding them of familiar truths about human connection, the fugitive feeling of travel, and the universality of art.
Nathan Lipps is the author of Built Around the Fire and the chapbook the body as passage. Born and raised along the rural coast of western Michigan, he currently lives in Ohio and works as an Assistant Professor at Central State University. His work has been published in the Best New Poets, Colorado Review, Cleaver, EcoTheo Review, North American Review, TYPO, and elsewhere. Nathan is the recipient of a Peter Taylor Fellowship, an Excellence award in Research (Binghamton University), and a Poetry Fellowship (WSU) and was a Suzzanne Wilson Artist-in-Resident (GAAC).
His book Built Around the Fire delves into notions of place, the enveloping wonder and plight of our environment, and the complexities of rural culture: an examination of hierarchies, conservatism, generational religion, and the perpetuation of patriarchal norms. Such concepts are juxtaposed with a personal narrative: the rise and failure of a relationship, the deafening silence that arrives within any new vacancy, and the eventual need to learn to adapt in order to grow. These two themes—the notion of a midwestern place and its ideologies, and the notion of a failed relationship— work in tandem to speak for a shared struggle. The small family farm is dying out and the personal relationship dies right alongside it. What remains is a chance at rebirth, change, a looking outward, finally, as much as a looking inward. Though there is brokenness, and pain, there is also hope.

Figure Drawing Fridays at CSMA
2025-02-14 18:00 - 20:30 | Community School of Music and Arts, 330 East State Street, Ithaca
Drop in for figure drawing sessions at CSMA, generally held on the 2nd and 4th Friday evenings of each month. If you’re an intermediate or advanced-level artist interested in drawing from the nude model, come join our non-instructed, open sketch sessions. Just grab your own supplies and enjoy an evening of creativity in the company of other artists.

Valentine's Day Karaoke With Lil'b
2025-02-14 20:00 - 22:00 | Liquid State Brewery, 620 W. Green St., Ithaca
Come Celebrate love with a night of Karaoke- hosted by Lil’b (formerly known as Brandon Fortenberry) and a participating partner of “Ithaca Loves Teachers”. The stage performance of your dreams is waiting and what a fun way to celebrate the season of love!

Asempe Kitchen Valentine's Day Cooking Class
2025-02-15 11:00 - 13:00 | Asempe Kitchen, 114. West Green Street, Ithaca, 14850
Join us for a cooking class with Chef Kuukua on Saturday, Feb 15th from 11-1pm! We’ll cook together, eat together & share stories. It’s a celebration of love of all kinds!
Imagine stepping into an experience filled with vibrant tales and tantalizing flavors. Upon arrival, a refreshing soft drink will be your companion as you settle in to hear my personal journey, a nostalgic recounting of life in the lively heart of Accra, Ghana during the vibrant ’80s. But this is not just a listening experience; it’s hands-on, it’s immersive.
Together, we’ll explore a world of local and imported ingredients, their aromas and textures, their stories. We’ll be prepping and cooking an appetizer and a main dish – each a flavorful reflection of my homeland. But the journey doesn’t end at the stove.
Once our labor of love has been transformed into a delightful meal, we’ll sit down to enjoy it, and the storytelling will shift to you. I can’t wait to hear your tales of growing up, of places far and wide, of cultures and cuisines.
Are you ready for an afternoon of flavorful food and fascinating stories? If so, I hope you join us!
Please note:
-Aprons will be provided
-Please let us know if you have any dietary restrictions
-Spices, hot sauce, aprons & Better Brittle coconut & peanut brittle are available for purchase

MW&TBS Tour Homecoming Show wsg SingTrece!
2025-02-15 17:30 - 21:30
Maddy Walsh & The Blind Spots will be returning from tour for a homecoming show at the beautiful Foundation of Light in Ithaca with very special guest, the incomparable SingTrece!
Available for purchase: Amazing southern fare from Simply Red Kitchen, wine from award-winning Osmote Wines, and beer!
Tickets sold via Venmo exclusively: @TheBlindSpots
$15 ADV / $25 DOS

Destiny La Vibe Presents: Circus of Love- Valentine’s Extravaganza 2
2025-02-15 18:00 - 20:30 | Hangar Theatre, 801 Taughannock Blvd., Ithaca, 14850
Get ready for an electrifying Valentine’s concert that promises to be a night to remember! Destiny La Vibe and Vibe Nation will take the stage, bringing together an incredible blend of soul, R&B, pop, rock ‘n’ roll, and stunning circus arts. VIP tickets get access to a special preshow with RnB sensation M’busi and more!
As the venue fills with anticipation, the lights dim, and the crowd gets excited. Destiny La Vibe kicks off the night with her signature soulful sounds, her powerful voice captivating everyone in attendance. The energy in the room is palpable as she seamlessly transitions into smooth R&B tracks that invite the audience to sway and groove along. The concert will features special guests such as two-time Grammy award winning artist Clayton Bryant and the very sensational Dave Tony.
Destiny La Vibe’s band, Vibe Nation band, will feature a stellar rhythm and horn section, delivering an electrifying performance that gets hearts racing and feet moving. Their infectious rhythms and catchy hooks create an atmosphere of love and joy, making it impossible not to sing along. The visuals are equally stunning, with vibrant light displays that enhance every note and lyric.
But the night doesn’t stop there! Interspersed throughout the concert, talented circus performers from CirqOvation dazzle the audience with breathtaking aerial acts and gravity-defying stunts. Imagine a trapeze artist soaring above while dancers twirl and spin, adding a whimsical touch to the vibrant musical experience. The night leads to a sexy segment from Destiny La Vibe, Goddess, and Dominique’s Dance Creations that will set a fire deep within.
What’s a night out without a surprise grand finale? The show will culminate in an unforgettable surprise. This Valentine’s Extravaganza with Destiny La Vibe is not just a musical event; it’s an immersive experience that will leave everyone buzzing with joy, laughter, and a little magic in the air. Don’t miss out on this love, music, and art celebration!

Ithaca Loves Teachers Drag Brunch
2025-02-16 11:00 - 14:00 | Ithaca Downtown Conference Center, 116 E. Green St., Ithaca, 14850
The Ithaca Loves Teachers Drag Brunch is almost here, and it’s going to be FABULOUS! 💃🍳
🎤 Show-Stopping Performances
🍹 Mouthwatering Brunch Delights
🌟 A Celebration of Our Amazing Educators
OPEN TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC AS WELL!

Denice Peter Karamardian - ODAR Trilogy Reading
2025-02-16 14:00 - 16:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Join BSB for a reading and conversation with local author, Denice Peter Karamardian on her compelling three part series!
About the Books: ODAR (meaning “other” in Armenian) is a three part trilogy that “offers a searing portrait of the immigrant experience, examines the sense of belonging, identity, and heritage that is inherent in every human being…is a thought-provoking work with sharp insights that historical fiction fans will love.” says Lily Andrews for Reader Views. Based on the true story of a local family’s journey to and life in Ithaca, New York that spans decades and generations.
About the Author: Denice Peter Karamardian owns and operates a regional publication called Finger Lakes Libations for visitors and is at work on several more books. She is retired from a rich tapestry of overlapping careers spanning forty plus years that included instructing voice, the host/producer of a radio concert broadcast series (called Crossing Borders Live), fifty years of music and theater performance, and freelance columnist and reviewer. She also operated a bed and breakfast for two decades and still lives here, in her hometown of Ithaca, New York.

Red Ear Marketing Open Hours @ BSB
2025-02-18 15:00 - 17:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Come speak with Lincoln Weinstock of Red Ear Marketing – Tuesdays at 3 PM at Buffalo Street Books.

Game Night at BSB!
2025-02-19 17:00 - 19:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Join us for our February game night! Escape the cold, warm up with us, and test out some of the games we sell in store. Let us know if you’re coming and register here 🙂

Let's Read & Discuss Climate @ BSB
2025-02-20 15:00 - 17:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Talk with others in our community about climate change, seen through contemporary fiction and non-fiction books.
About the Books:
The Water Knife, a futuristic thriller by Paolo Bacigalupi about criminality in water distribution in a hot and dry Southwest meets A Thirsty Land by Seamus Mc- Graw, a true account of conflicts over water rights in Texas that pit communities against each other.
In Water Wars, Shiva uses her remarkable knowledge of science and society to outline the emergence of corporate culture and the historical erosion of communal water rights. Using the international water trade and industrial activities such as damming, mining, and aquafarming as her lens, Shiva exposes the destruction of the earth and the disenfranchisement of the world’s poor as they are stripped of rights to a precious common good.

Images, Intuition and Insight: A weekend of SoulCollage® and Depth Journaling
2025-02-22 10:00 - 16:00 | Community Corners, 409 E Upland Road, Suite 203B, Ithaca, 14850
A weekend of creativity, soulful connection and tapping into the deeper layers of your psyche.
You’ll leave with your own personal and symbolic deck of SoulCollage® cards – completely unique to you. Using techniques of Jungian/Depth Psychology, Internal Family Systems, journaling, and art making we give voice to the different parts within us. By delineating these parts we see better our motivations and hesitations. This is a great way to rein in the parts that hold us back and empower the strength within us.

Micro Producers in the Finger Lakes: Need to Know Hidden Gems of the Region
2025-02-22 15:00 - 17:00
Join certified sommelier Laura Winter Falk as she introduces three Finger Lakes micro-wineries. Learn the stories behind these ultra-craft winemakers who are making stunning small-batch wines.
Discover:
Little Clover Wines by Erin McMurrough, Entelencheia Wine Cellars by Matt Denci, and Vagabond Wine by Alexandra Bond.
Laura will share two wines from each producer. While quantities of these wines are limited, their flavor intensity is abundant!
Wines will be paired with select Finger Lakes cheeses to showcase their food pairing magic.

Soap Making Class
2025-02-23 14:00 - 16:00 | 15 STEPS, 171 E. State Street, Ithaca, NY, 14850
In this class students will explore the cold process soap making technique incorporating a blend of oils, lye, fragrance, and other natural seasonal ingredients. All materials are provided for the class. Students will select the fragrance, color and add-ins of their choice and mix their own batch of soap. Each student will take home a wood and silicone soap mold filled with their own soap (approximately 10 bars) to be sliced, wrapped, and cured at home.
NOTE: Students will be working with powdered lye during the soap making process. Respirators will be provided.

So You Want To Write A...
2025-02-23 14:00 - 16:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Join Buffalo Street Books for a writing workshop with incredible local author, Elisabeth Nonas!
No matter where you are with your project—whether it’s a novel, short story, screenplay, or poetry collection—this practical workshop will help you map the path to completion of the ideas that keep you up at night.
We will discuss craft, theme, process, deadlines, then complete exercises designed to help you determine next steps toward your writing goals.
General registration is $35, workbook included.
Teachers – registration is $25 for Ithaca Loves Teachers week.

D&D 101: Ithaca Loves Teachers (Lesson, Q&A, and Play Session)
2025-02-23 14:00 - 17:00 | Riverwood, 116 E State St, ITHACA, N, 14850, United States
Calling all teachers and support staff to come join us on an adventure! 📣✨ Riverwood is hosting a lecture and Q&A session on all things Dungeons & Dragons for teachers! This event is free, but spots are limited. In addition, you will have the option to play a quick “one-shot” session of Dungeons & Dragons (Only 5 player slots)! Sign up for one or the other or both!
This awesome event will take place at Riverwood (116 E State St in the Ithaca Commons, right across from Autumn Leaves).

Benjamin Garcia & Matthew Morris – A Reading and Conversation
2025-02-28 16:30 - 19:00 | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca
Buffalo Street Books is excited to host Benjamin Garcia and Matthew Morris for a reading from their books Thrown in the Throat and The Tilling.
About the Books:
With language that arrives equal parts regal and raucous, Thrown in the Throat shines brilliant with sweat and an iridescent voice. “Sometimes even a diamond was once alive” writes Garcia in a collection that National Poetry Series judge Kazim Ali says “has deadly superpowers.” And indeed these poems arrive to our hands through touch-me-nots and the slight cruelty of mothers, through closets both real and metaphorical. These are poems complex, unabashed, and needed as survival. Garcia’s debut is nothing less than exactly the ode our history and present and our future call for: brash and unmistakably alive.
“The tragic mulatto,” wrote the African American poet Sterling Allen Brown in a 1933 meditation on stereotype, “is a victim of a divided inheritance”: pulled this way and that, belonging nowhere. In 10 lyric essays shifting keys from Virginia, where he grew up, to Tucson, his first home as a young man, Matthew Morris sounds the depths of that embodied cliché: its fracturing simplifications, its (partial, mixed) truths. The light-skinned son of an African American father and a white mother, he asks after the skin-housed present by way of the rooted past, considering his late grandmother, a painter whose grandparents left Due West, South Carolina for Evanston, Illinois in the decades before her birth; the twice-made film Imitation of Life, which in its first iteration starred the light-skinned actor Fredi Washington; and the quiet gradations of color in an untitled Rothko print. Ever-searching, The Tilling is an excavation of identity and a reflection on the beginnings of life and love—a (sometimes soft, others chippy) biracial coming of age. The Tilling was chosen for the Seneca Review Books’ 2024 Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book Prize.
About the Authors:
Benjamin Garcia’s first collection of poems, Thrown in the Throat, was selected for the 2019 National Poetry Series by Kazim Ali. He is a 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow, was the 2017 Latinx Scholar at the Frost Place, and was a 2018 CantoMundo Fellow at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2018, Crazyhorse, Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, and New England Review. Garcia received his MFA from Cornell University and currently works as a sexual health and harm reduction educator in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
Son of an African American father and a white mother, Matthew Morris writes through questions of race, identity, family history, and love. His nonfiction has been published in Seneca Review, Fourth Genre via the Steinberg Memorial Essay Prize, and Mid-American Review through the AWP Intro Journals Project, and he has received a scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His essay “Tidal Wave,” published in apt, was cited as “notable” in Best American Essays 2020. He is a graduate of the University of Arizona MFA program and is pursuing a PhD in English at the University of Missouri –Columbia.

27th Annual Downtown Ithaca Chili Cook-Off
2025-03-01 12:00 - 16:00 | Downtown Ithaca, United States
Warm up your winter with the 27th Annual Downtown Ithaca Chili Cook-Off, a signature event in the heart of the Commons! Join us for a day filled with delicious chili creations, live entertainment, and community fun as chefs and restaurants from across the region compete for top honors.
Taste your way through a diverse selection of chili offerings, including savory meat options, bold vegan and vegetarian recipes, and unique chili-inspired dishes. Sample beverages from local craft breweries, cideries, and wineries that perfectly complement the flavors of the day. With options for every palate, this family-friendly event promises a fun and tasty experience for everyone.
Chefs will compete in several categories, including Best Meat Chili, Best Vegetarian/Vegan Chili, Best Chili-Inspired Dish, and the highly coveted People’s Choice Award, where you get to vote for your favorite creation! Entertainment will be provided throughout the event, featuring live music and performances that capture the energy and excitement of Ithaca’s winter season.
The Chili Cook-Off is a perfect way to celebrate the community, support local businesses, and enjoy the best comfort food Ithaca has to offer. Bring your friends, family, and appetite to this one-of-a-kind festival!
