The Overlook with Matt Peiken

Michael Hayes was serving his fifth term in prison when an epiphany struck. He had never acknowledged the trauma he grew up with, let alone worked through it. The process of doing so changed his life, and he focused on helping others do the same. Hayes founded Umoja Health, Wellness and Justice Collective , a Black-run nonprofit in Asheville devoted to disrupting generational trauma for people in...

Scores of Asheville minors get into legal trouble every year, and Buncombe Alternatives is working to keep them out of the judicial system and put them back on a positive track. Karen Peerson, the executive director; and Juan Holladay, director of program services and community development, with Buncombe Alternatives. We’ll talk about teens who come to them from inside and outside the court system...

Investigative journalist Karen Zatkulak produced a recent three-part series on North Carolina's evolving gun laws for WLOS-TV. We talk about the magnitude of the North Carolina legislature doing away with any required permits to purchase a handgun. We go through the efficacy and differing approaches to background checks, the influence of the NRA and the absolutism of those who regard the Seco...

Asheville's rising rate of violent crime inspired US Congressman Chuck Edwards, a Republican representing Western North Carolina, to convene what he billed an 'Anti-Crime Summit.' The forum happened this past Friday at Ferguson Hall, on the main campus of A-B Tech. The Overlook brings you this edited version, focusing largely on voices from Asheville. The complete, two-hour forum is...

Lorrie Pande has spent her career in the scenes and behind the scenes of the performing arts, mostly in the theater. And for reasons that, even now, aren’t entirely clear, Pande felt compelled to create a theatrical musical about the life of artist and naturalist John Jay Audubon. “The American Woodsman” premieres June 23 at the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts. Pande talks about her path fr...

Affordable housing is an increasingly rare commodity in Asheville, but city staff working in housing are turning to one weapon in the fight to develop affordable homes—land the city owns. Sasha Vrtunski, Affordable Housing Officer with Asheville's Community Development Division, breaks down the city's recent $4.3 million investment in five affordable housing projects. She also talks abou...

About 23,000 people take classes every year through A-B Tech . As tuition and student debts everywhere rise hand in hand, students across the demographic spectrum are turning to technical and community colleges. Today’s guest is Terry Brasier, who has spent 10 years as the college’s vice president for student services. We talk about how A-B Tech has evolved to meet the broadening backgrounds and g...

Hundreds of teachers, school staff and board members, parents and even students rallied at Buncombe County Commission hearings as recently as last week. They’re calling on county officials to meet living-wage standards by raising local supplements to match other North Carolina districts with high costs of living. Greg Parlier, a recent addition to the reporting staff of Mountain Xpress, breaks dow...

Nathan Ballingrud, a 1989 graduate of Asheville High School, is a venerated dark fantasy novelist with two collections of short stories and a novel adapted into a movie. His new novel, “The Strange,” is set almost a century ago but in a world—or, rather, worlds—we can only envision. Ballingrud talks about his path to writing, setting the futuristic elements of “The Strange” in our familiar past an...

The Asheville Watchdog has published a series of stories dissecting various issues plaguing downtown. One of the best in the series is from journalist Tom Fiedler, our guest today. His story probes why law enforcement, city officials and nonprofits face such a challenge with the effects of meth and fentanyl addiction. Among other elements of our conversation, Fielder gets to the crux of what he se...

In the second of our two-part conversation, Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer addresses her take and the city’s approaches to a number of big challenges. We also talk about Asheville’s formal commitment to reparations and where the city is in its assessment of the water outages Asheville experienced last December. Help "The Overlook with Matt Peiken" podcast reach its very reachable goal: Just $1,0...

By North Carolina constitutional law, mayors count as just another vote on the city council and have no singular authority to enact initiatives or manage the city. But residents and city staff expect their mayors to show leadership and vision, along with an authority that goes beyond their constitutional purview. And when things go wrong, mayors are often the first target of outrage. In the first...

Melvin AC Howell traces his obsession with hip-hop street dance as early as 9 years old. His parents couldn’t relate to it, nor could anyone in his hometown of Morganton, NC. But when he found himself living out of his car not all that long ago, Howell said he climbed his way out through dance. Now living in Asheville, Howell is about to stage new work through a residency with Trillium Arts in Mar...

The I-26 Connector carries the long promise of a clean, multimodal, locally dedicated artery. Today's guest is Jason Sandford of the AsheVegas Hot Sheet . He’s well-versed on the detours and delays, promises and politics of I-26. He’ll fill us in on the history of the Connector and where the project stands, the economic interests at play and how community feedback and pushback have shaped its...

The Asheville Airport is at high altitude these days. The airport served more than 1.8 million passengers in 2022—a record-breaking year by 29 percent—and is about to begin construction to expand its terminal from seven to 12 gates. Lew Bleiweis, in his 14th year as the airport’s president and CEO, talks with host Matt Peiken about the airport’s booming business and coming expansion. We also discu...

The trash dotting Asheville’s streets, riverbeds and freeway underpasses has seemingly grown so bad, even TV news is devoting time to it. But no local reporter has dived deeper into the proverbial dumpster than today's guest, Jessica Wakeman of the Mountain Xpress. We discuss what she found in her reporting, beneath the surface of the trash we see to root out the myriad sources, the disparate...

Two quick items in this bonus episode: A huge thank-you to our Story Parlor and founder Erin Hallagan Clare for holding down our first audio residency. Also, we're launching a quick-hit daily newsletter of local headlines called "First Look." Subscribe for free at podavl.com/newsletter . Support the show Support The Overlook by joining our Patreon campaign ! Advertise your event on...

Chelsea Labate is an incredibly gifted and giving songwriter and poet. Even before the pandemic, she began experiencing psychotic episodes that required hospitalization. They eventually compelled her to sell her Asheville home and move in with her parents in Florida. She also has made an array of music and poetry inspired and ignited by her struggles. Now back in Asheville, Labate talks with host...

Asheville For All is a new nonprofit run by volunteers, but it’s addressing a need in Asheville that goes back decades—developing more affordable housing. Andrew Paul and John DeRusso, two of the founding volunteers behind Asheville For All, talk about their political advocacy, the resistance to add more housing often coming from existing homeowners and how they’re making the case for investment f...

Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams He won’t discuss the Aston Park case directly because it’s still active. But in the second of a two-part conversation, Williams does talk in broad policy and gives an analogy about a case his department handled several years ago. We also talk about the evolution of Williams' approach to the job, including his view on seeking the death penalty, a...

It's rare when an elected official, let alone someone in the position of district attorney, initiates an interview with a journalist. But Todd Williams isn't the stereotypical prosecutor. In the first of a two-part conversation with Matt Peiken, Williams talks about his path from social justice attorney to prosecutor and discusses perhaps his most controversial case since winning office...

This week's Story Parlor residency invites local poets Sebastian Matthews and Marie Harris to share some of their work, and a bit about their collaborative and creative processes, in advance of the May 11 event, Jazz Hybrid Presents: An evening of poetry and music. Support the show Support The Overlook by joining our Patreon campaign ! Advertise your event on The Overlook . Instagram: AVLover...

Margaret Curtis’s paintings are gorgeous and lush and haunting, filled with allegory, historical references and connections to what she calls cultural collapse. In this episode, we talk about the personal and communal trauma informing her work, her subversive commentary as torches for feminism and climate change and the balancing beam she walks in her work between darkness and beauty. Curtis lives...

Keynon Lake is a third-generation Asheville native and the founding director of My Daddy Taught Me That . It’s a nonprofit born from the values Lake attributes to his father, Bennie Lake, and a mission to pass them down to Black youth. Keynon Lake talks about what he learned from his parents, his program’s evolution and growth and the challenges of instilling the bedrocks of his father’s influence...

For 30 years in United State politics, North Carolina US Senator Jesse Helms set the bar for this country’s social conservatism. Helms was unabashed in his opposition to civil rights, gay rights, disability rights, environmentalism, feminism, affirmative action and access to abortion. Today, one of his granddaughters lives in Asheville and is doing what she can to rebuke his legacy. Ellen Gaddy is...