Neda Ulaby
Neda Ulaby reports on arts, entertainment, and cultural trends for NPR's Arts Desk.
Scouring the various and often overlapping worlds of art, music, television, film, new media and literature, Ulaby's stories reflect political and economic realities, cultural issues, obsessions and transitions.
A twenty-year veteran of NPR, Ulaby started as a temporary production assistant on the cultural desk, opening mail, booking interviews and cutting tape with razor blades. Over the years, she's also worked as a producer and editor and won a Gracie award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for hosting a podcast of NPR's best arts stories.
Ulaby also hosted the Emmy-award winning public television series Arab American Stories in 2012 and earned a 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. She's also been chosen for fellowships at the Getty Arts Journalism Program at USC Annenberg and the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism.
Before coming to NPR, Ulaby worked as managing editor of Chicago's Windy City Times and co-hosted a local radio program, What's Coming Out at the Movies. A former doctoral student in English literature, Ulaby has contributed to academic journals and taught classes in the humanities at the University of Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University and at high schools serving at-risk students.
Ulaby worked as an intern for the features desk of the Topeka Capital-Journal after graduating from Bryn Mawr College. But her first appearance in print was when she was only four days old. She was pictured on the front page of the New York Times, as a refugee, when she and her parents were evacuated from Amman, Jordan, during the conflict known as Black September.
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Some airlines largely idled by the coronavirus crisis are beginning to retrain some of their flight crews to assist in hospitals and nursing homes.
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An NPR arts correspondent answers listener questions about entertainment options for people who can't leave the house because of the coronavirus. What's streaming? What's hot? How can you find it?
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It's the 90th anniversary of Haegele's Bakery in Philadelphia, famous in part for the traditional Pennsylvania Dutch pastries — fastnacht doughnuts — it makes only for Shrove Tuesday.
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Contestants on the new social-media-based reality show,The Circle, never meet in person. Their online profiles may not be what they seem — reminding us of a certain kind of literary drama.
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Filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton previously had a job working with foster children at a group home. He believes that work — listening, understanding, communicating — helped prepare him for directing.
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2019 saw kinder, gentler reality TV in both the U.S. and the U.K. Some say it's a response to nasty politics and nasty old reality TV.
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Order a drink, but hold the bartender? As it becomes relatively more expensive to run restaurants and bars, some are saving money by replacing human servers with pour-your-own electronic taps. -
Horror is enjoying a rise from the dead right now — particularly on TV. And as streaming TV services multiply, AMC's Shudder has found success with a menu of classic horror and original programming. -
The Swedish Academy announced the winners of the 2018 and 2019 Nobel Prizes in Literature. Because scandal postponed last year's winner announcement, two prizes are being announced this year.
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Fifty years ago Thursday, a perfect television family introduced themselves to American audiences. The TV classic The Brady Bunch was not a hit, but it endures.
