Sam Stephenson

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  • Smith Exhibition in Japan 2026

    Smith Exhibition in Japan 2026

    March to June, 2026, the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum displayed a wonderful exhibition of Smith materials. To say I co-curated the show would be saying too much. The museum’s curator, Momo Muroi, absorbed everything I have ever done on Smith, and then she added her own vision and insight and creativity. We were in touch…

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  • First Three Years in Texas

    First Three Years in Texas

    Earlier this year I wrote an essay for Texas Highways magazine about my family’s first three years living in Texas. The piece includes some biographical and personal material that I’ve not written about before, including a recipe for a classic fish stew from my stomping grounds in coastal North Carolina, a place where we will…

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  • The Documentary Writing of Whitney Balliett

    The Documentary Writing of Whitney Balliett

      In the fall of 2010 I wrote the following piece for the blog on The Jazz Loft Project website, which went offline a few years later during transition at the hosting institution, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke, where I was based for fifteen years.  This morning I had occasion to revisit this…

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  • Ghost Writing for Lucinda Williams

    Ghost Writing for Lucinda Williams

    My copies of Lucinda Williams‘ new memoir arrived at our house in College Station, TX two days ago.  I was the ghost writer for her book.  I’m pleased with how it turned out, and grateful to have been involved.  Lucinda’s acknowledgments, clipped below, describe well how we originally met and our book process.  Almost four…

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  • Taming the Tiger: A Conversation with Nicole Rudick

    Taming the Tiger: A Conversation with Nicole Rudick

    I’ve written here before about my invaluabe, longterm collaborative work with writer and editor, Nicole Rudick.  Today I’m honored and thrilled and grateful to have an interview I conducted with Nicole about her brilliant, unusual new book on the life and work of artist Niki de Saint Phalle published by Air/Light magazine out of the…

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