Tag Archives: Big Talk

Ross Gay is an award-winning poet, author of the bestselling, “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude.” Kacie Swierk is a multi-talented musician who has released her first album, “This Is Water,” this past summer. The two met this year in one of Ross Gay’s Creative Writing courses at Indiana University. Teacher and pupil find their respective arts have been enhanced by the …

Troy Maynard is raising viking children. His kids say the wildest, craziest, cutest, and meanest things. So does he. And he takes notes. He’s compiled many of the most humorous and touching exchanges between him, his wife, and his three kids in a new book, “How to Raise Viking Children: And Other Tales of Woe.” A man of many interests, …

As our cities and summers grow hotter due to climate change, our most vulnerable residents become even more at risk. Dana Habeeb is a trained architect and urban designer who’s delving into the effects of heat and certain illnesses together, and how this mixture may become more deadly as the 21st Century goes on. Habeeb says cities are growing hotter, …

Theresa Ochoa considers herself lucky — she gets to work with imprisoned kids, some of whom are well on their way to becoming hardened criminals. She’s an Associate Professor of Special Education at Indiana University and has founded HOPE, a program matching undergraduate college students as mentors, with kids serving time in the state’s three juvenile correctional facilities. Ochoa leads …

John Armstrong and Zachary Spicer were friends when they were students at Indiana University. Years later they reconnected in New York and decided to start their own film production company. Their first movie, “The Good Catholic,” is now out on DVD and BluRay and will be available on Netflix in January. The two have committed to shooting six more films …

Mike Trotzke is the co-founder of Sprout Box, the CEO of Cheddar, and an organizer of The Combine, an annual innovators and entrepreneurs conference here in Bloomington. A young, ambitious business person who’s doing his part to spur the transformation of the Bloomington area, from a high-tech investors’ desert to a lush landscape where startups and investors can thrive. Trotzke …

Brandon Hood is a house painter and a lifelong resident of Central Indiana. He’s decided to join the three other Democratic challengers for Republican Trey Hollingsworth’s 9th District seat in the US House of Representatives. Hood leans on his down-home, working class roots as a major selling point for his candidacy. He was inspired to get into the political fray …

Amanda Barge is a first-term Monroe County Commissioner. After winning the 2016 Democratic primary, she went on to win in last November’s general election despite the Republican Party’s statewide sweep. A licensed, practicing social worker and therapist, she’s already made news in her leadership roles in Rise to Run, a national effort to get more women on the ballot, and …

Veterans’ issues advocate John Tilford served as a Marine in Vietnam and then, a few years later, joined the Army Reserve. He eventually became a key intelligence figure on Afghanistan just before the United States went to war there in 2001. Tilford’s intelligence work has included analyzing the actions of the North Korean leadership as well as the relationship between …

Maria Eliza Hamilton Abegunde can trace her roots partly to the Yoruba culture of West Africa. Born in the Caribbean to a mother who was a nurse, and a father who is an artist, she has combined both callings in her own life as she works as a healer, a poet, and a black studies practitioner. Abegunde is a co-director …