Portland five-piece Left on Tenth brings the ruckus
By Ben OlsonReader Staff Some bands just have a vibe. Whether listening to their recorded tracks in your jammies at home or out in the big, bad world, the quintet Left on Tenth is...
Category: Ben Olson
Sandpoint ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest mentioned on The Rachel Maddow Show
By Ben OlsonReader Staff Amid of nationwide protests after the shooting of 37-year-old U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, Minn. on Jan. 7, Sandpoint was mentioned in the...
Jack Smith deposition gives insight into failed effort to hold Trump accountable
By Ben OlsonReader Staff While the nation popped champagne corks and checked out for the long holiday weekend on Dec. 31, 2025, House Republicans quietly released the transcript of special counsel Jack Smith’s Dec....
Sandpoint City Hall starts new year with swearing in of incoming councilors
Aispuro returns for third term while Tate, Torrez are newcomers to the dais By Zach HagadoneReader Staff It’s a new year and a new Sandpoint City Council, with the swearing in and confirmation Jan....
208 Fiction 2026 contest results
Here we present the winners of the fifth annual Sandpoint Reader 208 Fiction contest, in which we invited writers to submit a work of fiction totaling exactly 208 words for consideration by a panel...
Afraid to turn away
By Ben OlsonReader Staff With the publication of our fifth annual 208 Fiction winners and honorable mentions in this edition (see Pages 14-16), I thought I’d share one of my own short stories. I...
2026 year in preview
What could be in the coming year By Reader Staff While it may be a fool’s errand to predict the future, we’ve been doing it at the Reader every year since 2020 — getting...
A totally radical Christmas
Gigawatt to play An ’80s Christmas at The Hive By Ben OlsonReader Staff “Great Scott!” The 1980s was a wild decade for music. The hair was big, the costumes were over the top, colors...
Don’t give up the light: An allegory
By Ben OlsonReader Staff A long time ago, the people of Sandpoint lived in darkness. When the cold winter months set in, Sandpointians were left to navigate to and from work on streets without...
A quiet, brooding masterpiece
Train Dreams is a film that captures the Gothic desperation of North Idaho By Ben OlsonReader Staff Underneath the paved streets, the brick buildings, real estate offices and fast-food joints, there exists another North Idaho. It’s...
