Saying goodbye to longtime BSR associate editor Kyle V. Hiller

I was BSR’s first associate editor, and when I moved into the editor-in-chief’s chair in late 2018, we put out a call for a new associate. We got a flood of applications from smart, experienced people. But there was a quality about Kyle that stood out immediately. We did our final interviews at a Center City coffee shop, and even his pop-of-color sweater-and-bow tie ensemble showed a grounded person with taste and flair. He had the experience, but more than that, there was warmth and something I can only call a sense of rightness. He was right for BSR.

Trial by Covid

He started in January 2019, and a little over a year later, the Covid shutdowns started. As a publication based on covering arts events, our calendar and our mission itself seemed to collapse literally overnight. We had to find a way forward while keeping our community together.

Kyle and I share a lot of values, and one of those is that our health and human-ness always come first. For a long time, we shifted to covering outdoor and digital events only, to help our readers stay plugged into the cultural life they needed more than ever without taking unnecessary risks. And Kyle guided a major evolution in BSR coverage while our reviews were essentially paused, spotlighting notable yet under-sung voices on the Philly arts scene in profile and interview stories. That remains a key component of our coverage today.

A tough time for journalists

In late 2021 and early 2022, I faced hospitalization and a long recovery from a bout of bipolar depression. Kyle fearlessly stepped up and kept BSR running until I was able to return. Knowing that he was there, capable and un-judging and running the ship until I was ready to return, gave me the time and confidence I needed to make a proper recovery.

After the first years of the pandemic, we got to some semblance of…what? Definitely not normal. Just a constant belief or at least the hope that we’d find our way, week by week, month by month, and year by year, staying true to our mission for inclusion and access in arts journalism. The last six years have been tumultuous ones for everyone in America, but especially journalists. And especially cultural journalists.

In his own words

Kyle has written dozens of editorials and reviews over the years (all available to read and searchable by year under his author page). He has also edited more than 200 of my pieces, in addition to handling hundreds of stories by our writers.

Kyle’s essays have an unhurried, meditative quality that still manages to land you quickly in his world, or make you realize you’ve been sharing the same world all along. He wrote about seasonal affective disorder, Spike Lee, the I Have a Dream speech, the aftermath of Covid, Japanese filmmaking, and lots more.

In 2022, he wrote about the Phillies’ World Series run in a piece that braided jubilation and heartache with our pandemic grief. “We can’t thrive without contemplating our own losses, and maybe celebrating the championship while grieving the World Series loss is the same kind of heartache we all live with every day in the early 2020s,” he said then. “I hope Philadelphians will continue to remember how important it is to come together, and to relish our own victories, public and private, no matter what’s coming. We sure as hell deserve it.”

Different together

Kyle and I are sometimes wildly similar— stuff like showing up to events unintentionally color coordinated, or that time we accidentally booked our vacations in the same city at the same time and then spotted each other on the shore of Lake Champlain. But it’s our differences that really make us an effective team. That goes beyond our obvious differences: I’m a white woman who grew up outside Washington, DC and he’s a Black man born and raised in West Philly.

Our different cultural appetites made BSR better. I’m a theater kid turned theater critic. I paint and knit. He’s Dr. Chillgood on SoundCloud. He’s into sports and skateboarding and games like Zelda, and he studies Japanese. I always have a dog at my feet, while cats populate his Zooms. We both love Atlanta but my comfort shows are Outlander or Call the Midwife. He’s devoted to Sailor Moon, Cowboy Bebop, and Midnight Diner.

The power of consistency

At BSR’s 20th anniversary party last January, I gave a short speech that took me hours to prepare. But Kyle, who found a special niche moderating our discussion events, could walk up to the mic and speak meaningfully off the cuff. You can see him speak here, starting at the 5:56 mark.

He didn’t say anything fancy; just what’s true. He pointed out the consistency of our work at BSR. “I was thinking about how hard it is to maintain something for a long period of time, and to continue to grow and cultivate interests and to be relevant in a time that is telling you so much that you aren’t relevant, that you don’t matter, that we don’t want you to exist,” he said, celebrating the fact that we were all in the room together despite every force that would divide and discourage us. Speaking of consistency, including his final events column this week, Kyle has written 350 Weekly Roundups. Let that number sink in.

Choosing joy

We received more than 70 applications for Kyle’s job and as of late July, are still deep in the hiring process, with Kyle’s help. Like all transitions, this one will be hard. But our new editor will enrich BSR with their interests, perspectives, and ideas. Having worked with Kyle for so long, a time that has been both formative and historic for BSR, I don’t know what we are without him. I have to trust that the new era will be what it’s meant to be.

His moving 2021 essay (titled “After years of writing from trauma, I’m choosing joy”) deals with the double-edged sword of opportunities to “amplify” his voice in order to “capitalize on this moment and bring in diverse people” as Black Lives Matter protests flared and then slipped off the national radar. “The compliment showers dripped over complicated wounds,” he wrote. “I’m exhausted trying to finagle my way into places where I’m excluded. I’m far more interested in participating and contributing in places where I’m included.”

“Choosing joy does not mean ignoring the frightful, the harmful—the bad. Choosing joy is understanding the need for balance and pursuing self-awareness through means that include safety and inclusivity as a way to combat the bad,” he wrote. “I will find rebellious joy, because I will know in the end that I spent the time I could in the spaces that welcomed me, that loved me, that saw me for who I was: a person who simply wants to be.”

Kyle, we at BSR are proud to have spent this time with you. It is our joy to have you in our community.

Kyle is departing BSR, but our small team still needs your help! If you love our work, you can support our 2026 summer campaign here.