The Overlook with Matt Peiken

If you’re not earning at least $22.10 an hour, you can’t afford to live in Asheville. That’s according to Just Economics of WNC, which last month updated its living wage rate for Buncombe County. It …

The exodus of doctors and nurses, the mountains of complaints from patients, the lawsuit from North Carolina’s Attorney General. Those are just the broad areas of fallout in the five years since HCA …

What Can We Do to Restore Better Healthcare in WNC? The nonprofit investigative news outlet the Asheville Watchdog posed that question in a Jan. 23 public forum at A-B Tech. 

In this episode, Watchdog…

Carly Kotula is an Asheville singer-songwriter who has gone through two name changes in the time I’ve known her. First to her married name—she first made her way in music as Carly Taich—and now to he…

There’s a childcare crisis in the United States. First, the cost is enormous. Second, parents of infants are meeting waitlists of many months, even up to a year, just to land openings. In Buncombe Co…

There are far more young people in need of foster homes than there are homes to take them in. This is true all over the country, but it’s particularly acute in Buncombe County.

More than 100 local you…

Jared Wheatley will tell anyone who asks, he is Cherokee. But it took him decades to begin the deep exploration of what it means to be Cherokee—the history of his people, his family, and how to live …

Before there was a South Slope or River Arts District, those neighborhoods were wrapped into a swath of Asheville called Southside. Southside still exists, but its formal boundaries are tighter, sepa…

The Asheville Police Department hasn’t had a homegrown chief in 20 years. Local native Mike Lamb hopes that soon changes. Lamb grew up in Asheville and has been on the force since 1997. In December, …

Joe Carroll is a one-of-a-kind comic talent in Asheville: Part Charlie Chaplin, part Robin Williams, part Don Knotts. He's on the eve of his first solo theatrical production, called “Quality Service.…

Mike Lamb grew up in Asheville and joined the city’s police department in 1998. Over the years, he worked under six different chiefs until last month, when he was named the interim chief with the sud…

From one perspective, Caleb Rudow is relatively new to public office. Only two years ago was he first appointed to his current seat and, later in the year, won his first state house election, represe…

Since launching The Overlook with Matt Peiken this past February, I produced 118 episodes enlightening you about the news, arts, issues and trends of Asheville, NC. I’d like to think I give to my com…

This is the second half of my conversation with four leaders in Asheville's Jewish community: Rabbis Batsheva Meiri of Congregation Beth HaTephila and Mitchell Levine of Congregation Beth Israel, alo…

In the days after Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, some of the fiercest criticisms in this country were directed at Israel, from self-identified liberals and progressives. At the same time, I hear…

Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Islamophobia and antisemitism are on the rise across the United States. That inspired me to reach out to leaders of the Islamic Center of Asheville and two of A…

Asheville singer-songwriter Hannah Kaminer has established a pattern of processing and naming the heaviness in life through her music. On the heels of her previous album, “Heavy Magnolias,” comes “He…

Tourism officials want people to think of Asheville as Beer City, USA. Never mind that breweries now dot the downtowns of even the smallest of cities. Still, there are only a handful of schools in th…

One of Asheville’s iconic concert venues will vanish in the coming years—not because of poor business, but because of eminent domain. Salvage Station on Riverside Drive is on the map of businesses th…

Nabil El Jaouhari grew up in a village outside of Beirut, Lebanon. Even amid post-war cycles of sectarian violence, Nabil followed a path of artistic expression. His fine art studies eventually led h…