About
Takes on Tucson

What is Takes on Tucson?

Tucson has always had more going on than most people realize. Takes on Tucson exists to change that — one firsthand account at a time.

My name is Kevin Cassell. I started this site several years ago as a community-based project for my students at the University of Arizona where I taught writing courses. At the time, students went out and experienced people, places, venues, and communities — and wrote about them honestly. Now I teach in the Eller College of Management and my courses no longer lend themselves to this project. So I’m opening it up to the greater Tucson community. Same idea, bigger table.

What’s a “Take”?

A Take is a short showcase about someone or something worth knowing in Tucson. It lives on its own page on this site, permanently, with your name on it. You can include photos, embed video, link to music, whatever tells the story best. It’s one scrollable page that brings everything together in one place.

If you want to write about something or someone other than yourself, a Take is a chance to be published and build a digital portfolio. If you want a page about yourself or your own project, a Take becomes your home base on the open web — something you can point people to, update whenever you want, and actually own.

Who am I  looking for?

Anyone who knows Tucson and has something to say about it — especially about the parts of this city that rarely get written about.

Takes on Tucson has already covered BMX riders, knitting culture, tattoo artists, and local musicians. We want more of that. The Tucson that doesn’t make the evening news. The scenes, subcultures, and people that exist almost entirely on social media — with no Google footprint, no press coverage, and no permanent web presence to show for it.

Think lowrider culture. Skateboarders. Street vendors. Drag performers. Swap meet regulars. Youth coaches. Graffiti and mural artists. Lucha libre. Urban farmers. Barbers with a loyal following. People running a nonprofit out of their garage. The quinceañera DJ who’s been working Tucson for twenty years.

If it’s real, it’s Tucson, and it doesn’t have a website — it belongs here.

That said, we’re not turning away a great take on a restaurant, a trail, or a neighborhood institution. If you experienced something worth writing about, let’s feature it.

Why a real website matters

Instagram can shadowban you. TikTok can disappear overnight. Algorithms decide who sees your work and when — and they can change the rules at any moment.

A page on Takes on Tucson is different. It lives on a real, independently hosted website that isn’t going anywhere. More importantly, it gets indexed by Google. That means when someone searches your name, your band, your venue, or your project, this page can show up in the results — not buried inside a platform, not dependent on followers, just a real web presence that anyone can find.

I make sure every page on this site is set up correctly for search engines — the right titles, descriptions, and structure that help Google understand what the page is about and rank it accordingly. I can’t guarantee you’ll come up first in every search, but I can create the conditions that give you a fighting chance. If you know basic SEO yourself, you’ll have direct access to those settings from within your own page.

We don’t run ads. We don’t have sponsors. There’s no agenda here except making Tucson more visible to itself.

How do I get involved?

Send an email to takesontucson@gmail.com and tell me a little about yourself and what you’d like to write about. You can also reach me on Instagram at kev.cassell.

If it’s a good fit, I’ll set you up with your own contributor account — you’ll be able to draft, add photos, embed media, and publish directly on the site under your own name. No contract, no commitment, no deadline pressure. Write one piece or write ten.

— Kevin Cassell, site administrator