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Central Arkansas tattoo artist returns to reality TV contest
By YOUSSEF RDDAD Arkansas Demo- crat-Gazette
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An Arkan- sas tattoo artist headed back to New York recently to coach contestants around the country for the upcoming reality TV compe- tition Ink Master, with this season’s contest setting up a battle of the sexes.
Katie McGowan, a Little Rock-area artist, said in a recent interview she’ll be guiding contestants during the show’s 12th season, offering them advice on their work with the goal of pushing her team to the final stages.
The upcoming episodes set to air June
11 will pit male and female artists against each other. Judges critique their work while whittling down contenders until one person remains and is dubbed the “Ink Master.”
“It’s a young, hungry crowd with lots of talented tattooers,” McGowan told the Ar- kansas Democrat-Gazette.
The grand prize includes $100,000 and a feature spread in Inked magazine.
But unlike past seasons, the gender breakdown this year is equal parts male and female, a sign of a broader shift within the tattoo industry that’s seen more women enter the profession, McGowan said.
Since she started working in tattoo shops in 2005, McGowan said she’s observed the number of female professionals “exponen- tially grow,” as well as their clientele.
“There’s more opportunity to open their own businesses and be taken seriously and have a voice that’s a little bit different,” she said.
McGowan, 33, competed in the show’s sixth and ninth seasons. Her most recent appearance in 2017 saw her and partner Matt O’Baugh ink their ways to the final stages, falling just short of top honors.
Since then, she’s continued working in the Little Rock area and announced plans recently to open “Love Spell Tattoo,” a new shop in Stifft Station along with local artist Jesse Perez.
McGowan said she expects to start tattoo- ing in new space sometime in June.
They’re planning a larger grand opening in July.
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Information from: Arkansas Demo- crat-Gazette, http://www.arkansasonline.com
 Review: Danger, beauty, suspense in ‘The River’s’ wilderness
By JULIA RUBIN Associated Press
“The River,” by Peter Heller (Alfred A. Knopf )
This novel about two Dartmouth College students on a canoe trip gone badly awry is partly an ode to the Northern wilderness, partly a survival how-to, and mostly a thriller — suspenseful and gut-wrenching.
Best friends Wynn and Jack take a late-summer trip to Canada, paddling down a river that winds through lakes and over rapids on its way to Hudson Bay. Like the river, author Peter Heller’s plot often takes its time, digressing to describe how the boys fillet a fish or make camp, or what the Northern Lights look like. But don’t get lulled: There’s action around the bend.
The two friends, both country boys, are experts in the woods and on the water, where they are self-proclaimed “mini-
malists” — no phones, no frills. They also share “a literary way of looking at the world,” and frequently see it through the lenses of Edgar Allan Poe, Virgil, James Dickey and more.
Their leisurely trip turns into a harrow- ing dash toward safety when both nature and other people turn violent. Nature dish- es up a massive forest fire that bears down on them. The boys smell and hear the blaze long before they see it — the fleeing animals, the drifting smoke, the popping and hissing of trees.
Meanwhile, human mysteries lurk: Wynn and Jack hear a man and woman arguing on the bank as their canoe glides by in the fog; when they return to warn the couple about the fire, they find nobody there. Later, a man turns up at their camp downriver, alone. Where is the woman?
Heller, author of previous novels includ- ing “The Dog Stars” and “Celine,” dives deep into the details of wilderness camping — so deep that sometimes you just want
to jump ahead and find out what hap- pens. Likewise with his acute and poetic observations of nature. But he is setting the scene and establishing two likable and memorable characters in Wynn and Jack. Each brings a different perspective to the violence and tragedy they encounter.
River travel has often been a metaphor for writers. At one point early on, as the boys approach some rapids, Heller writes that “every river story they had ever read was just beneath the surface of their imaginations and must have fired them with extra energy and braced them, too, because at least half of those stories did not have happy endings.”
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