HEY LOCAL WRITERS!  QuadCities.com is starting up the QuadCities.com Virtual Writers Gallery, featuring local authors and their works! If you’re interested in being a part of it, email Sean@QuadCities.com with up to three .jpgs of your book covers and 1-2 paragraph descriptions of the books, a picture of you, a short 3-4 sentence bio of yourself and your website, facebook page or patreon link ASAP! Also, if you’re interested in doing a podcast reading of up to five minutes of your work, let us know, because we’re going to include those as well in a NEW podcast called As Read... Read More

Fontana is in southern California, over 1,800 miles from the Quad-Cities, but that didn’t stop Yuji Baba, a graphic designer and illustrator there, from using The Force (and his amazing talent) to win the Quad City Arts Chalk Art Fest. The 30-year-old California native, who was raised in Osaka, Japan, won the first place of $500 with his gorgeous rendition of a book cover featuring Natalie Portman as Padme from the “Star Wars” prequels. “I’m so honored,” Baba said Monday. “If I had other graphic design work, I would not have been able to enter this festival.” For the fourth-annual... Read More

Welcome to the QuadCities.com Virtual Art Gallery! In this feature, we’re spotlighting area artists and their work. Every Tuesday we’ll feature a new local artist. It’s free and our way of showcasing awesome area artists and allowing them to include a link to their own online gallery or patreon! If you’d like to be included in the gallery, just send your bio, a headshot pic of yourself and up to a half-dozen .jpgs of your art to Sean@QuadCities.com. We look forward to featuring you and your artworks in our gallery! This week’s artist is Shy Brewer, whose abstracts and portraits... Read More

Got a perfect pupper? A great good boi? A darn awesome doggo? QuadCities.com wants to feature your dog in our new Pupper Of The Week feature! Just send a picture of your pet with their name, your name, and a sentence or two about them and we’ll post their pic and story on QuadCities.com. Message your doggo pics and info to Sean@QuadCities.com. And get ready to check out some cool doggos on your site for fun, free, local entertainment and features, QuadCities.com! Today’s doggo is the buddy of Kate Price. She writes, “My Baya…..a few sentences just isn’t enough room to describe... Read More

More than 170 fans of independent film converged on the Midway Drive-In Theatre in Sterling, Ill., for the first-annual Northwest Illinois Film Festival on Aug. 26. Most came from the Northwest Illinois region, some from Chicagoland, and one flew in from Los Angeles, according to the festival organizer, the Northwest Illinois Film Office (NIFO). The event was a celebration of Illinois indie filmmakers, featuring 11 short films — the night’s theme was “Shorts-A-Palooza.” “The feedback from both the audience and the filmmakers was very positive,” NIFO executive director Gary Camarano... Read More

Library2Go, the Rock Island Public Library’s traveling outreach vehicle, brings a new Park ‘n Craft activity to its August 31 stop at Black Hawk State Park. Registered participants for the Park’n Craft kit may meet Library2Go at the 11:30 to 12:30 pm stop on Monday, August 31 at the Black Hawk State Park Singing Bird Nature Center lot on 46th Avenue. Attendees can pick up a Sea Creature Magnet kit and spread out on nearby picnic tables for some fresh-air crafting. To sign up for the no-charge craft kit, visit the Park ‘n Craft entry on the library calendar at www.RockIslandLibrary.org,... Read More

A prestigious national arts award is back under the baton of a Quad-Cities conductor. Nicolas Propes of LeClaire, who leads the Big River Brass Band, was announced this week as winner of the American Prize in conducting band/wind ensemble, community/schools division for 2019-20. “I was very honored to be selected,” Propes, a 40-year-old native of Ames, Iowa, said Friday. He applied last summer with a resume and videos of him leading the band. A whole host of judges from across the country review the applications and narrow them down to semi-finalists and finalists, he said. “It’s actually... Read More

Ragged Records (311 ½ 21st Street Rock Island) presents: A Socially Distant Record Store Day in the Courtyard this Saturday Aug 29 from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Things will be done a little bit different this year by moving the sale outdoors in an attempt to keep everyone as safe as possible but as always we will be trying to get as many titles and as many copies as we can. For more information go to https://recordstoreday.com/ Starting at 9 a.m., Ragged Records will be serving a line of customers one by one in their record purchasing process to help them try to score their desired Record Store Day titles... Read More

Katy Perry didn’t just kiss a girl and liked it, she faked her own death apparently and liked that too. And why the hell not? Everyone needs a hobby. As we thankfully roll into the last quarter of this craptastic year, the conspiracy theories just keep getting weirder and weirder. Some of them are pretty harmless and dumb, like people questioning whether Netflix conspired with China to create the Coronavirus (It was that bitch Carole Baskin, idiots! Geez!), and others are more along the dangerous and irresponsible side, like, ya know, certain print publications running cover stories telling... Read More

In this time of paralyzing pandemic, unreal unemployment, furious racial unrest and bitter political division, we could all use some simple peace and beauty. The eloquent, inspiring artist Cecile Houel provides it – displaying 20 deeply penetrating portraits of Nobel Peace Prize winners throughout the Quad-Cities, in a cooperative exhibit starting Friday. Convinced that art can contribute to world peace, the 56-year-old French woman started the “Nobel Peace Prize Collection: Peace Starts Within” in 2014, to celebrate all of the Nobel Peace laureates of the prestigious Nobel Foundation since... Read More