Critical MASS marks an exciting milestone as it celebrates its 13th year of showcasing incredible talent across visual, literary, and performing arts. This annual exhibition and Best in Show competition has become a highly anticipated event, bringing together a diverse range of artists and their innovative works. With each year, Critical MASS continues to inspire and challenge the boundaries of creativity, making it a must-see event for art lovers and enthusiasts alike. Get ready to experience a dynamic celebration of art in its most captivating form!

Irene Gallion “Crown Me”

Visual Arts 2025 Critic’s Choice

Critical MASS 13 Portfolio Reviews

The critics are offering portfolio reviews on April 10th and April 11th 2025 for anyone with a NWLA Culturalyst page that can be found by using the link in each critics’ bio. Spots are limited and first come first serve

Literary Arts Critic: Misha Rai

Misha Rai is a Shirley Jackson Award nominated writer whose work has received support from the Kenyon Review Fellowship Program, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, the Whiting Foundation, the Ucross Foundation, MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Corsicana Artist & Writer Residency, and the Dana Award in the Novel Category. Her short story, “Twenty Years Ago” is a Distinguished story in the 2021 Best American Short Story anthology. Her essay, “To Learn About Smoke One Must First Light a Fire,” winner of the Dogwood Literary Prize in Nonfiction is listed as a Notable Essay in the 2019 Best American Essays anthology. Her prose appears in a number of journals and anthologies. She was born in Sonipat, Haryana and brought up in India where she first worked as a journalist, and then, later, in human rights for the National Human Rights Commission, the International Labour Organization and on projects run by the Ministry of Women & Child, India, and the UNICEF. She sits on the Advisory Board of SWING and currently edits for the Kenyon Review. She is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Sewanee: The University of the South. Sign up

Visual Arts Critic: Caleb Bell

Caleb Bell, a graduate of The University of Texas at Tyler, is the Executive Director of the Tyler Museum of Art. Over the years, he has presented numerous exhibitions at the TMA as well as other institutions across Texas. He has served as a Curatorial Advisor for an exhibition at Women & Their Work in Austin, panelist for Texas Commission on the Arts as well as the National Endowment for the Arts, and juror for a variety of competitions and exhibitions. Additionally, Bell has given gallery talks and presented lectures at cultural institutions. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art (CASETA). His cultural writings have been published in many publications including Glasstire, Passage, Sightlines, Texas Highways, Texas Monthly, and Tyler Today. Sign up

Rebecca Macijeski “How To”

Literary Arts 2025 Critic’s Choice

Su DeNim, “Storytime with Su”

Performing Arts 2025 Critic’s Choice

Performing Arts Critic: Dóri Bosnyák

Dóri Bosnyák manages the Presidential Lecture & Performance Series at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX. She plans and presents vibrant and relevant lectures, concerts, dance performances and theatrical experiences by world class artists to the greater West Texas community. She hails from Budapest, Hungary, which Hungarians consider the “Heart of Europe.”. Growing up in such a distinctive cultural & historical hub, she gained an appreciation for the visual and performing arts early on. She made her way to the U.S. in 2011 where she received her BA degrees in Film, Theatre and Performance Studies and International Studies at Graceland University (Lamoni, IA). After entering the performing arts field in Kansas City, MO, she made her way to TTU to earn her MFA in Arts Administration in the School of Theatre & Dance. She serves as President to the Board of Directors for the Outside In Theatre Festival and co-chair to the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region VI ASPIRE/Arts Administration track. Sign up

Visual Critic/Critics’ Manager: Lauren Smart

The Published Critics from across America are selected by Critics’ Manager, Lauren Smart, an arts writer and critic based in Los Angeles. Her writing appears in the Dallas Morning News, D Magazine, American Theatre magazine, among others. She's on the journalism faculty at Loyola Marymount University. Previously, she served on the faculty at Southern Methodist University and worked as the Arts & Culture Editor at the Dallas Observer. She founded and organized a feminist literary arts festival, Women Galore, in collaboration with the Dallas bookstore The Wild Detectives. She developed and managed a Dallas Public Library high school journalism workshop Storytellers Without Borders from 2017-2020. Sign up

Literary critic: A. Kendra Greene

A. Kendra Greene began her museum career marrying text to the exhibition wall, painstakingly, character by character, each vinyl letter trembling at the point of a bonefolder, ready to break. Now she is the author, illustrator, and audiobook reader of The Museum of Whales You Will Never See, first published by Penguin and now translated into German and French. Her work has been presented at the Smithsonian, exhibited at The Reading Room, and supported by fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Harvard University's Library Innovation Lab, and the University of Texas Ralph A. Johnston Memorial Fellowship at the Dobie Paisano ranch. She became an essayist during a Fulbright grant to South Korea, then left a perfectly good museum job to get her MFA at the University of Iowa as a Jacob K. Javits fellow. She has also costumed an ice age giant ground sloth, got an independent bookstore up and running, run a chemistry class out of an office park, and spent four years as associate editor of The Southwest Review. She is a former Dallas Museum of Art writer in residence and longtime Nasher Sculpture center guest artist. In addition to workshops and community partnerships, she has also taught as visiting professor at UNC Chapel Hill, UT Dallas, and the University of Iceland. Her fine press and artist books are held in collections as far away as Qatar. Her writing has appeared in publications from Atlas Obscura to zyzyva, including The Guardian and Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News and D Magazine, Fourth Genre and Ninth Letter, The Common and The Normal School, LitHub and The Rumpus. Her writing has been anthologized in The Best Women’s Travel Writing, FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research, and twice in Freeman’s. As we speak, she is squirreled away in some collection or another, composing a bestiary and a poison cabinet, respectively. Sign up