Introducing Our First Column

We’re proud to launch The KC Scene’s first recurring writer’s column, Mollified in Kansas City by Mollie Talbot.
Mollie brings a personal, reflective voice to our platform, where art, community, and culture meet everyday life. Her essays highlight the people and stories reshaping Kansas City, reminding us that this city is more than headlines.

This is just the beginning. Expect more stories from Mollie soon, each one offering a window into Kansas City’s creative heartbeat.

We’re expanding The KC Scene beyond headlines. Mollified in Kansas City is our first writer’s column, bringing deeper stories and reflections from inside KC’s creative heart

Have a story you’d like to see covered? Email us at media@thekcscene.com.

Mollified in Kansas City

About Mollie Talbot

Mollie Talbot brings a personal, reflective lens to The KC Scene, where art, community, and culture meet everyday life. Her writing often blends first-hand storytelling with the bigger picture, offering readers not just coverage of Kansas City’s creative scene, but the deeper why behind it.

As a wife, mother, and longtime KC resident (with a few detours along the way), Mollie captures the tension, beauty, and resilience of life in the Midwest. She’s especially drawn to stories of artists, activists, and community-builders who are reshaping Kansas City into a place of greater joy, equity, and self-expression.

Mollie’s essays highlight the voices and visions that might otherwise go unheard. Whether she’s 30 feet up on a lift interviewing a muralist or reflecting on her own complicated love for Missouri, her words invite readers to see KC, and themselves, through a more compassionate, courageous lens.

Read Mollie’s latest features below, and discover Kansas City’s art and culture through her eyes.

Nightlife Scene

Cougar Club: Where Grown Women Go to Dance Without Apology in Kansas City

Movement is medicine. For as long as humans have existed, people have used dance as a therapeutic, communal practice. When we are pressed by the constant demands of holidays, hard family dynamics, work, raising kids in a weird world, and the endless pursuit of the...

Moonstone on the Riverfront Is Doing What No One Else in KC Is Doing

POV: you have a beer and wings palate but married someone who knows all the new places opening in Kansas City, so you get dragged to a place described as an “upscale cosmic cocktail lounge.” You hop in an Uber expecting to eat over-thought Sysco foods plated to look...

What Happens at Thundergong? Everything.

Written by Mollie Talbot for The KC Scene When I said I was going to Thundergong, I got a plethora of hilarious responses. “Thunderthong?” “Thunderdong?” “What the hell is that?” But my brother’s response won out when he said, “Sounds like American Gladiators at a gay...

Inside Crossroads Hotel: The Kansas City Gem Making National Headlines (Again)

Written by Mollie Talbot for The KC Scene This month, three Kansas City hotels were named in Condé Nast Traveler 2025 Readers’ Choice Awards for the top fifteen Midwest places to stay: The Ambassador, The Fontaine, and Crossroads Hotel. Seeing as Kyle and I...

Meet Jade Jaguar, the Bar Bringing Mexico City Energy to KC.

Written by Mollie Talbot for The KC Scene What was formerly Bar Medici at 1800 Walnut in downtown KC now sits Jade Jaguar. A Mexico City-inspired bar with bites and vibes you can’t afford to miss. While KC has plenty of pretentious cocktail spots and, adversely,...

Art Scene

Deaunte Thomas and the Power of KC Art

Written by Mollie Talbot for The KC Scene On February 1, 2024, I sent my son and husband to what should’ve been a memorable day celebrating the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory with the rest of our city.A few hours after they left, my phone pinged and dinged with friends...

Parade of Hearts: This New KC Heart Feels Like It Forgot Where It Came From

Written by Mollie Talbot for The KC Scene Mention of the “KC heart” evokes two main images for Kansas Citians:the T-shirts made famous by Charlie Hustle since 2011, and the five-and-a-half-foot artistic statues you’ve seen countless times, in countless shades and...

Chappell Roan Meets the Midwest Prince: Art, Activism, and KC Pride

Written by Mollie Talbot for The KC Scene Moving back to KC from Denver in 2020, it felt like I stepped 70 years backwards. I was angry and I’ve been a chump about it. You can imagine my surprise when much of my Missouri angst was challenged while 30 feet in the air...