Balloons and streamers fill the interior of Jeff Allen's Ormond Beach home as he prepares to celebrate the 60th birthday of his partner, Jim Geary. Birthdays have special meaning to the two men who are HIV positive. Nearly two decades ago that diagnosis may have been a death sentence, but, with early detection and drug improvements, HIV/AIDS patients are able to live a full life and manage the disease.

For a time in the 1980s, Alice Johnson became a black artist.

Writer and puppeteer Mary Robinette Kowal has a challenge for you: Write a letter every day of February, because why not.

For photographer, filmmaker and cinematographer Curtis Wehrfritz, ritual is not something practiced only by indigenous or tribal cultures, or something conjured only in religious settings.

By Tim Dorsey's 15th book about lovable, homicidal Serge Storms, do you even need to know the plot to buy it?

For 36 years, IMAGES: A Festival of the Arts has brought hundreds of local, national and international artists to New Smyrna Beach for the juried art show and competition. Hosted by the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the festival runs Saturday and Sunday at Riverside Park, with vendors extending to Canal Street along the Intracoastal Waterway.

Photographer Joni Sternbach is used to seeing her images of surfers instantly, once she has taken them on shorelines around the country. No thanks to modern digital technology, however.

For Daytona Beach poet David Axelrod, the beauty of nature -- a common haiku theme -- wasn't the inspiration for his latest collection of poems. Axelrod found his latest poetic muse amid the roaring pistons and exhaust fumes of NASCAR, auto racing and fast cars.

Images of "rolling sculptures" will be on display at Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens.

Members and friends of the Palm Coast Arts Foundation enjoyed a Taste of the Symphony event Sunday at the Palm Coast Yacht Club, featuring a performance by the Brass Quintet from the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra.