Profiles

Naturalist Shawn Severance

Naturalist Shawn Severance

May 26, 2026 | , |

Shawn Severance's path to becoming a naturalist was winding, not strategic, but nevertheless seems meant to be because of all the skills she developed along the way. After earning a degree in animal physiology at MSU, she moved to Ann Arbor in 1994 to study developmental neurobiology at U-M. She earned a second master’s degree in landscape architecture, leading to years of work in green building, teaching, and campus planning at WCC before joining the parks commission.

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Author Camille Pagán

Author Camille Pagán

Apr 24, 2026 | , , |

Camille Pagán’s novels regularly reach bestseller lists, her work has appeared in national publications, and her career gives her a reason to travel. But she’s happiest in Ann Arbor, where her life is structured around school schedules, familiar streets, and the dependable calm of a Midwest town.

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Our Intersecting Lives

Our Intersecting Lives

Apr 24, 2026 | , , |

We present to you five strangers who all either live or work in Ann Arbor. Although they don’t know each other, they’re all connected in the little ways that make a community: frequenting the same spots, walking the same sidewalks, common heritage, similar interests and motivations.

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Endurance Athlete Brendan LaFrenier

Endurance Athlete Brendan LaFrenier

Mar 25, 2026 | , |

From March 3 to March 6, LaFrenier ran 213.6 miles across Michigan, averaging fourteen hours and fifty miles per day, with a total run time of ninety-nine hours and fifty-three minutes. An RV with a film crew, made up mostly of U-M students and staff as well as some friends from Grand Rapids, followed him along the way for an upcoming documentary.

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Comedian Jacob Barr

Comedian Jacob Barr

Feb 24, 2026 | , , |

“I put my disabilities right out in front,” says Jacob Barr, who, at twenty-eight, has become one of the city’s most distinctive standup comedians. “That was my cheat code when I started. Comedy is mostly straight white guys. Lots of guys have faces like mine, but not bodies like mine. So I use that to my advantage.”

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Trailblazer

Trailblazer

Nov 24, 2025 | , , |

Construction is underway on Fire Station 4 at 2415 S. Huron Pkwy. The name of the new station is a nod to a pioneer: Mindy Kerr, Ann Arbor’s first female firefighter.

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Fran Coy

Fran Coy

Nov 23, 2025 | , |

By the time she was eleven, Fran Coy knew two things she wanted to be: a hairstylist, and Miss Saline. At eighty-four, she’s retired from her namesake salon on Wagner Rd., but remains close to the pageant she won in 1958—and that her granddaughter won in 2017.

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Pat Deneau

Pat Deneau

Oct 24, 2025 | , |

Deneau, who works regular twenty-four hour shifts, finds comfort in his woodchuck friends. “On a day where things aren’t going our way, our station mascots are still out there doing their thing—unbothered by circumstances outside of their control.”

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Kristin Seefeldt

Kristin Seefeldt

Sep 24, 2025 | , , |

It was an experiment: give 100 citizens on the margins monthly cash payments of $528 for two years. No strings
attached—they would decide for themselves how best to spend the additional income.

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Julie Kobylarz

Julie Kobylarz

Aug 25, 2025 | , |

Kobylarz, thirty-six, has loved rodents since childhood. Chipmunks ate from her hand at her family’s cabin up north in Gaylord. At home in Westland, her parents gave her gerbils as a gift. In college at Central Michigan she bought “feeder mice,” which pet stores sell as food for reptiles, to keep as pets

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Leah Litman

Leah Litman

Jun 25, 2025 | , |

Litman brings a blend of humor and scholarship to her new book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes. Pop culture references that include Barbie, Game of Thrones, and Taylor Swift help illustrate her witty analytic history of key SCOTUS rulings.

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Kymm Clark

Kymm Clark

May 24, 2025 | , |

“I prefer to be struggling in Ann Arbor as an artist than wasting every waking hour on my planet putting money into someone else’s pocket,” says Kymm Clark, whose circuitous journey has brought her back to Tree Town to her new collaborative fabrication studio, LullCo.

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Sheila Schueller

Sheila Schueller

Apr 25, 2025 | , |

It’s a cold spring afternoon, but ecologist Sheila Schueller is determined to find signs of life in her backyard pond. She scoops a wiggling alien-looking creature into her net. “Ooh, you see how it has baby wings right there?” she asks. Come summer, she explains, this nymph with the bulging eyes will emerge as a dragonfly and “eat up” any mosquitoes.

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Sugar Shanty

Sugar Shanty

Feb 24, 2025 | , |

After dusk on a cold, starry night, guests can easily follow the enticing aromas of a wood fire and a sweet treat across patches of snow to Elsi and Bob Sly’s sugar shanty. Open the door, and a fog of evaporating sap and an array of hot dogs, baked beans, and salads promise a one-of-a-kind winter picnic.

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17 Blocks

17 Blocks

Feb 24, 2025 | , , , , |

A Community High and U-M grad, Rothbart has worked as a ticket scalper and pizza delivery driver, created a magazine, and won an Emmy. This year, a Knight-Wallace journalism fellowship brought his family—wife Margaret Box and their kids, Desi, six, and Birdie, three—to a rented house on the Old West Side. And this month, he’s reuniting with his second family—the one featured in his documentary 17 Blocks—in an event at the Michigan Theater.

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