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.
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A teacher at a public school near Houston has a secret classroom bookshelf largely made up of challenged titles. Many of the books deal with race, sex and gender. -
Fans were quick to point out: A pair of charismatic, smart, girl-power entertainment figures are up for the biggest prize in the industry. And one of the biggest nominations goes to ... Ken? -
For Dry January, a former pop critic for The New Yorker suggests great songs about not drinking. Many are by musicians who have been sober for decades.
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Plenty of songs celebrate drinking. But what about music that finds joy in — well, not drinking? Music critic Sasha Frere-Jones reflects upon a few songs that have been meaningful to his sobriety.
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A 1928 movie featuring the first appearance of Mickey Mouse enters public domain on Jan. 1. But creative and commercial access to the character is complicated by both copyright and trademark law. -
Not all libraries track checkouts, and there isn't one definitive national list. But this year lots of people checked out Lessons in Chemistry, Prince Harry's memoir Spare, and Colleen Hoover's books. -
Giants of the arts world left us this year: We look back on the legacies of Harry Belafonte, Tina Turner, Sinéad O'Connor, Paul Reubens (aka Pee-wee Herman), Richard Roundtree, Norman Lear and more. -
Comedian and folksinger Tom Smothers has died at the age of 86. He was the elder half of the Smothers Brothers. The duo was hugely popular in the late 1960s and known for subversive political humor.
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On the first TubaChristmas, around 300 musicians showed up at the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, bearing their giant brass instruments. (Story aired on ATC on Dec. 22, 2023.)
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Every year, musicians across the country gather for what has become known as TubaChristmas — concerts range from just a few tubas to hundreds of them. (The record is 835.)
