Kathryn Lofton grew up walking Milwaukee's East Side with her sister, each sporting a Walkman. “She had cool music like Joy Division,” Lofton says. “I had Steve Winwood's 'Higher Love.'” Now, after the publication of Lofton's lauded...

Milwaukee native Andrew Starr loves chocolate. From his early days baking Toll House cookies with his mom, to years tweaking fudge recipes, Starr has turned love into vocation. Along with business partner Jennifer Spielman, Starr created Black Star Chocolates, a Denver-based company...

Some would find a career as a competitive figure skating instructor at the Pettit National Ice Center sufficiently stimulating, but Angela Johnstad—or "Terror Lapinski," as she’s known to roller derby fans—added even more excitement to her life through roller derby. On the cusp of her fourth season...

By the time she hit college, social worker Carrie Silver-Stock knew she wanted to help teenage girls. After getting her master of social work, she started a Web site, girlswithdreams.com, hoping to foster a sense of community among young women otherwise lost in cyberspace. The site’s success proved...

It was just last year that Jeanna Salzer released her debut EP, Raindrops, a collection of jazzy, contemporary pop influenced by artists like Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon, but the singer has made a quick...

For Milwaukee-raised playwright and actor Sarah Moon, professional success is hardly the main objective. Though lauded for her work onstage and off, Moon found her true calling when cast in a little-known Tennessee Williams play about coal mining in 1930s Appalachia. After an eye-opening trip to Louisville...

When I think of Lizz Wasserman, I think of the girl with whom I attended high schoola skinny, Sarah Jessica Parker-type wearing a skirt made of sewn-together men's ties she'd designed herself. Fast-forward a decade, however, and Wasserman runs the hip, eco-friendly clothing line called Popomomo. Featured...

Like all successful entrepreneurs, Wisconsin-born Barry Bursak knows opportunity when he sees it. Unlike many in the business world, however, he chooses projects that benefit the environment as well as his bank account. With his newest and perhaps most significant venture soon coming to fruition, Bursak and I...

Milwaukee native Kathryn Lounsbery has followed a rapid upward trajectory since moving to the West Coast. She hit the ground running right out of graduate school, landing a job as pop keyboard editor for prestigious Alfred Publishing. As impressive as that may be, Lounsbery’s day job pales next to her current...