CoastLine

Iliana Regan is owner and chef of The Milkweed Inn – a rustic, woodsy, and hard-to-reach getaway in the Hiawatha National Forest on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She’s also a Michelin starred chef and the author of two books. On this episode, how she thinks about gender – especially her own, how she deals with fear and why people are scary, and what she found on a foraging trip through the saltwater...

Both Cliff Cash and Nancy Witter are professional comedians, have played to sold-out houses across these United States, and call the Cape Fear region home. On this episode they explore the craft of comedy and how it's evolved for them.

In each episode of In The Wild Coastal Plain, we meet a plant or an animal endemic to the southeastern North Carolina biodiversity hotspot – so we can better understand our coastal plain ecosystem and who lives here with us. Today, we’re exploring Holly Shelter, a nature preserve and game land in Pender County that boasts tens of thousands of acres -- one of the last great pieces of connected natu...

Environmental justice can be complicated. The way studies are set up, the way the researchers communicate with the subjects of the study, and what the scientists do with the results – all those protocols are part of what Dr. Britt Moore calls “culturally-responsive science”.

Environmental justice can be complicated. The way studies are set up, the way the researchers communicate with the subjects of the study, and what the scientists do with the results – all those protocols are part of what Dr. Britt Moore calls “culturally-responsive science”.

“A fundamental question that each of us must answer is: Who are the victims of racism? Upon careful investigation, it seems quite clear that the answer is ‘everyone’.” Dr. Catherine Meeks, Exec. Director, Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing

Black Barbie, the documentary film by Lagueria Davis, explores the way the doll shapes culture, and ultimately the way people think about themselves. It’s a close look at representation, starting with the filmmaker's aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell, who was on the original Barbie manufacturing line with Mattel and played a key role in bringing Black Barbie to life.

Kevin Maurer, an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author has written extensively about and inside war zones. When he heard of the mysterious disappearance of retired Marine and Wilmington resident Grady Kurpasi during a Russian ambush in Ukraine, he started investigating. That led to an article about the extraordinary life and death of Grady Kurpasi in Rolling Stone Magazine...

Down Here We Come Up, which took more than fifteen years to write, started as an exploration of the jarring class differences between the northern and southern United States. But the novel Sara Johnson Allen actually completed, set just outside of Wilmington, NC, raises even deeper questions about what defines family and a home place, and whether ancestral ties are enough.

As natural areas disappear, we’re taking a closer look at what we’re losing, species by species, in a new series called In The Wild Coastal Plain. In this second episode, we explore the intertwined fates of the red-cockaded woodpecker and longleaf pine.

As natural areas disappear, we’re taking a closer look at what we’re losing, species by species, in a new CoastLine series called In The Wild Coastal Plain. On this edition of CoastLine, we explore why the intertwined fates of the red-cockaded woodpecker and longleaf pine are important harbingers of the area's fate.

Alice Brooks says when she learned that her son, Darien, had profound autism spectrum disorder, she cried on the front porch all night. Today, she says Darien and his diagnosis are the greatest blessings of her life.

Summer is a busy time in southeastern North Carolina for wildlife rehabilitators. It is against the law to take a wild animal into captivity unless you have a license from the state. But well-meaning people do this, often without understanding how they're probably doing more harm than good.

Andy Wood: "Beavers are an ally for maintaining water quality, air quality, biodiversity, and flood protection. One beaver pond can retain millions of gallons of stormwater, slowly releasing it into the stream so that downstream homes aren't suddenly flooded with a rush of water."There's so much to learn about this animal that many developers consider a pest.

As natural areas disappear in southeastern North Carolina, we’re taking a closer look at what we’re losing, species by species, in a new series called In The Wild Coastal Plain. Andy Wood is our guide, and in this edition of CoastLine, we explore how it came to be and why the American Beaver is a keystone species (not a pest).

When most Americans see a large alligator, they see a menace. When filmmaker Montana Cypress sees one, he respects the potential danger. But he grew up seeing his fellow Miccosukee Tribe members work with alligators in front of audiences in the Florida Everglades. Tourists call it wrestling, but Montana sees a profound connection between human and animal.

When birds started dying from known and mysterious diseases, biologists told us backyard bird feeders pose risks to birds that include disease, collision, and predation. Jill Peleuses of Wild Bird & Garden and Cape Fear Bird Observatory explains how to mitigate those risks and actually help our local and visiting birds.

What does it mean to get sucked into the school-to-prison pipeline? Jamir Jumoke describes traumatic early years and what it took to break the cycle.

NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg visited Wilmington, NC in late May 2023. Two interviews, one in front of several hundred people, one in WHQR's CoastLine studio, reveal the origins of the NPR sound, a fiercely rigorous journalist, and a voraciously curious woman who injects humor into almost anything.

One photojournalist from North Carolina influenced the civil rights struggle in the United States, enjoyed a friendship with President Richard Nixon, was a member of the first African American press delegation on an official U.S. diplomatic trip overseas, and descended from one of the victims of the Wilmington 1898 coup d’etat. Alexander Rivera, Jr. also lit a fire in the imagination of UNCW Histo...

So many who brave dangerous treks across unfriendly terrain and tumultuous oceans to escape war, violence, and poverty find themselves stuck in camps that do not satisfy the most basic human needs: sanitation, enough food, dry clothes. Author Dana Sachs explains how a grassroots volunteer effort has sprung up where governments and NGOs have failed.

Blues musician Robert Lighthouse may have grown up in Sweden, but as soon as he turned 18 he came to the United States to live with a native American family on a Hopi reservation and learn about his beloved Mississippi Delta Blues. He had no idea that decades later, he'd travel to a war zone to make music for people living with daily terror. He also had no idea how profoundly that trip would affec...

He calls them the Seven Natural Wonders of southeastern North Carolina. Can you guess what they are? We live in a biodiversity hotspot – for now, anyway — and environmental scientist Roger Shew is hoping that the more people learn about these natural wonders, the more they’ll care about saving them.

Iliana Regan is owner and chef of The Milkweed Inn – a rustic, woodsy, and hard-to-reach getaway in the Hiawatha National Forest on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She’s also a Michelin starred chef and the author of two books. On this episode, how she thinks about gender – especially her own, how she deals with fear and why people are scary, and what she found on a foraging trip through the saltwater...