Susan Marquez

Madison, United States

Culture Editor at Magnolia Tribune

Writer and Editor at Freelance

Articles

Jackson's Levure features all natural wines

1 week ago | magnoliatribune.com | Susan Marquez

Open, bright, and airy, the shop showcases Brandi Carter’s carefully curated selections. Buying wine can be an intimidating endeavor if you don’t know much about the winemaking process. There are wine-tasting classes and wine dinners, all designed to help consumers learn to better appreciate the fruit of the vine. Brandi Carter didn’t set out to be a wine expert or a wine merchant. The Meridian native went to school to study drafting.
Langdon and Maude Schuyler Clay capture the culture of Mississippi through the lens of a camera

2 weeks ago | magnoliatribune.com | Susan Marquez

The two have spent a lifetime documenting the world around them. Watching documentaries and reading memoirs and other works of creative nonfiction has become almost an obsession with me. My fascination is probably due to the fact that the stories being told are real and true. Learning how people overcome obstacles or create a life for themselves that is vastly different from the expected trajectory ignites my own imagination.
Southern food served in a roadside relic

3 weeks ago | magnoliatribune.com | Susan Marquez

Mammy’s Cupboard in Natchez serves daily specials Tuesday through Saturday. In the 1940s and ‘50s when highways were being built throughout the United States, car culture was all the rage as Americans took to their automobiles to see other parts of the country. In an effort to attract those tourists, interesting roadside architecture began popping up. Natchez businessman Harry Gaude built the iconic Mammy’s Cupboard in 1939, opening for business in 1940.
Dusti Bonge’: Modernist of the South

3 weeks ago | magnoliatribune.com | Susan Marquez

She is considered Mississippi’s first Abstract Expressionist painter and its first Modernist artist. Dusti Bongé, whose real name was Eunice Lyle Swetman, was the youngest of three children born to a prominent Biloxi, Mississippi, banking family. Always an artistic child, Bonge’ attended Blue Mountain College in northeastern Mississippi before graduating from the Lyceum Arts Conservatory in Chicago.
Balsam Banjoworks: Native Wood & American Made

3 weeks ago | thebluegrassstandard.com | Susan Marquez

When Patrick David Sawyer began making Pisgah Banjos in 2012, he focused on sustainability—a deeply rooted concept in his soul. Raised in Morganton, North Carolina, the surrounding nature of the Pisgah National Forest profoundly affected his outlook on life. However, it wasn’t until he attended college at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, that he began connecting the dots that would lead to his career. Like many kids, Patrick played in his middle and high school bands.
Fog Holler: Contemporary Stories Meet Traditional Bluegrass

3 weeks ago | thebluegrassstandard.com | Susan Marquez

As a saxophone player in high school, Casey Holmberg could not have been less interested in bluegrass music. “I never even liked to play the guitar,” he says. “As a saxophone player, the guitar just didn’t make sense to me.” After hearing Ricky Skaggs’ Bluegrass Rules album, Casey began playing a used mandolin. “I listened to the ‘Rawhide’ track on repeat. I was mesmerized.”While in college in Los Angeles, Casey began looking for a cheap banjo and found someone in his dorm who had one.
What’s Happening, Mississippi? Things to do in the Magnolia State in June 2025

4 weeks ago | magnoliatribune.com | Susan Marquez

From Elvis to blueberries, blues to tomatoes, June in Mississippi has something for everyone this summer. Summer is here and there’s plenty to enjoy about the Magnolia State during the month of June. Here are a few events worth seeing in Mississippi this month. Festival South, the largest project of the Hattiesburg Concert Association (HCA), is a multi-disciplinary arts celebration that primarily features exceptional performing and visual artists during the month of June.
Walter Anderson Museum of Art opens The Traveler, a new contemporary art experience and cafe

1 month ago | magnoliatribune.com | Susan Marquez

Guests will step into an immersive contemporary art exhibition connecting Anderson’s legacy to modern craft and the creative economy. The Walter Anderson Museum of Art (WAMA) celebrated the opening of The Traveler, the Museum’s newest campus addition, during a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony in partnership with the Ocean Springs Chamber and Jackson County Chamber, on Wednesday, May 21.
Artist and Illustrator Michael Deas

1 month ago | countryroadsmagazine.com | Susan Marquez

Michael Deas is likely one of the most famous artists you’ve never heard of. As a master realist painter and one of the nation’s premier illustrators, prints of his work are bought by thousands of people every day—for pennies. Deas works from his studio in the historic French Quarter, where he creates paintings and drawings for magazine and book covers, advertisements, and postage stamps for the United States Postal Service.
The life and music of Mississippi John Hurt

1 month ago | magnoliatribune.com | Susan Marquez

Hurt was an unsung hero of both folk and blues music, with a distinctive self-taught three-finger picking style. There was a full house at the Mississippi Arts & Entertainment Experience (also known as The MAX) in Meridian last week for the opening night of the week-long Jimmie Rodgers Music Festival. The evening of music featured a screening of a full-length documentary on bluesman Mississippi John Hurt, a Carroll County native who inspired artists around the world.