Episodes

Ep 130: Day 13 Explaining Investing Through a TJ Maxx Run with Nadia C. Vanderhall of Brands + Bands Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 She lost her job in the Great Recession and drained her 401(k) before she knew the first thing about money. Nadia C. Vanderhall learned it the hard way, then learned it the real way working in product marketing at a bank, where she kept noticing the products weren't built for the people who needed them most. She started posting what she w...

Episode # 129 Dark Fantasy, Black Authors, and a Toxic Hottie or Two with Cheryl Hodges of The Obsidian Archive Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 She decided to write a book. Then figured she should probably start reading again. Then opened a bookstore. Cheryl Hodges kept watching the girlies on Instagram open romance-only bookshops and realized nobody had built one for dark fantasy and speculative worlds. So she did, in January of this year, while writing her own novel,...

Ep 128: Neurodiversity in Black Families with Rosemary Sanders-Price of Rose in Bloom Therapy Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 She spent twenty years in retail management. Then a friend asked her one question in church. Rosemary Sanders-Price went back to school to become a therapist because when her son was diagnosed with autism, she couldn't find anyone in her corner with the information she needed. She figured other mothers were in the same place. Now she runs Rose i...

EP # 127- Empowering Women Through Firearm Safety with Javondlynn Dunagan of JMD Defense Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 She cried and left her first firearms training early. Now she's taught hundreds of women to shoot. Javondlynn Dunagan spent 25 years as a US probation officer, retired at 49, and built JMD Defense around a thing she used to be terrified of. Her Ladies of Steel Gun Club® has grown from seven members to 760, ages 20 to 80, and a documentary about them ...

Ep 126: From CFO to Venue Owner with Nadia S. Anderson of Lavender Hill Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 What do you do when you buy the building, follow every rule they gave you, and then they change the rules? Nadia S. Anderson left her CFO job at lunch one day and never went back. Ten years later she runs Virginia Grace Event Management and owns Lavender Hill, a 1934 brick colonial in Richmond she turned into an event venue with garden grounds and a coworking space. ...

Ep #124 — Closing the Health Literacy Gap with Dr. Madalyn McKnight of Project Healthvocate Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 Did you know 9 out of 10 people don't understand basic health information, and that the fix might just be talking like real people talk? Dr. Madalyn McKnight built Project Healthvocate to close the gap between complex medical language and the way people actually speak, born out of her time in the Southern Poverty Law Center's Advocacy Institute. What st...

Ep #123 — From Camera Gift to Creative Empire with Rhonda Nunn of Just Keep Smiling Productions Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 What happens when you refuse to pick just one lane — camera, director's chair, mic, or sewing pattern? Rhonda Nunn got her first camera from her dad in sixth grade, walked onto Chicago State's campus determined to be known as "the photographer," and built that into Just Keep Smiling Productions — an apparel line, photography and videography business...

Ep #122 — Building Community for Autism Moms with Sabrina Bonaparte of Monochromatic Mommies Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 What do you do when you love your child fiercely, but no one around you understands what your life actually looks like now? Sabrina Bonaparte built Monochromatic Mommies — a nonprofit supporting mothers of children with autism and special needs — after her son Aiden was diagnosed at age two and she realized there were plenty of resources for him, but a...

Ep #121 — From Coloring Books to Culture Trips with Tiffany Heard of Hues of Africa Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 What if the way we learn about Africa has been broken this whole time — and the fix is a coloring book? Tiffany Heard built Hues of Africa, coloring and activity books plus culture immersion trips after a six-week study abroad trip to Ghana left her crying because she didn't want to leave. What started as one book has grown into three, with group trips to Ghana...

Ep #120 — Building a Green Space for Youth with Ted Gloster of The Forgin Initiative Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 What happens when you come home during a pandemic and realize the community that raised you is stuck in survival mode? Ted Gloster left Detroit's District 2 in 2018 and came back during the pandemic — and instead of leaving again, he built The Forgin Initiative, a green space and after-school program teaching young people economic literacy, civic engagement, a...

Ep #119 — From Loss to Home Care Business with Que Maxwell of Two Caring Hearts Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 What do you do with your grief when you couldn't save the people you loved most? Que Maxwell built 2Caring Hearts — a home care and wellness business serving elderly, disabled, and post-hospital clients — after losing her father and her husband suddenly, within years of each other, and feeling the weight of not being able to do anything for them. Now she and her si...

Ep #118 — "Start With What You Have" Denzel Turner on Building Black Fridays Podcast Part of noseyAF's 31 Days of Black Business series 🖤 What if the podcast you started on Zoom during 2020 became the reason you're now running black-owned business bus tours through Detroit? Denzel Turner built Black Fridays — a podcast with 200+ conversations with Black entrepreneurs — out of a need to get civically engaged after George Floyd's murder, and it's since grown into brand deals, a coaching busi...

This episode was recorded live at Lumpen Radio on Saturday, July 11, 2026 Ep 117: More Than a Movie: Building Community Through Black Film What happens when a love of movies turns into a movement? This week, Stephanie sits down with Troy and Chi of Black Film Club Collective, a Chicago-based platform creating spaces for people to gather, watch films, and have the conversations that happen after the credits roll. From apartment screenings to citywide events, they share how film became a cataly...

Thank you for listening to noseyAF! So happy to have your ears! Join the noseyAF Dispatch 📬 At the end of the month, your inbox gets a little happier all the month's noseyAF episodes sent straight to you. Ep. 116: Detroit WiFi Energy: Building 31 Days of Black Business Summary I'm checking in from Detroit with a little voice note from the middle of things. In this episode, I share an update on 31 Days of Black Business, the audio series I'm producing for Black Business Month featuring Black e...

Introducing: The Art Biz with Alison Stanfield Today's feed drop comes from a podcast that has had a meaningful impact on how I think about building a sustainable art practice: The Art Biz with Alison Stanfield. If you've ever struggled to title your artwork—or wondered whether titles matter at all—this conversation is for you. In this episode, Alison Stanfield sits down with artist, writer, and educator Fran Gardner to explore why titling artwork is much more than an administrative task. Tog...

Ep #114: Sheri Rush — a life in art, big paintings, and staying creatively alive (noseyAF Classic) Summary This one's for every artist who's ever wondered how to keep the fire going — through decades, through doubt, through life just getting in the way. Chicago-based painter Sheri Rush has been making art since childhood, and she brings a rare honesty to this conversation. We get into what it actually looks like to sustain a creative practice long-term, the residencies that changed her, how natu...

Thank you for listening to noseyAF! So happy to have your ears! Join the noseyAF Dispatch 📬 At the end of the month, your inbox gets a little happier — all the month's noseyAF episodes sent straight to you. → Subscribe to the noseyAF Dispatch This conversation was recorded Live at Lumpen Radio on Saturday May 9th, 2026 Ep #113: Doing Both: Art, Film, and Building Worlds with Aaliyah Shae Summary This episode is for everyone who's ever looked at a film set and wondered who put that there, and ...

Thank you for listening to noseyAF! So happy to have your ears! Join the noseyAF Dispatch 📬 At the end of the month, your inbox gets a little happier — all the month's noseyAF episodes sent straight to you. → Subscribe to the noseyAF Dispatch Ep #112: Mutual Aid Isn't Charity with Eric Von Haynes (noseyAF Classic) This is a noseyAF classic — a conversation originally recorded in 2024 with Eric Von Haynes that was edited and reshaped to air live on Lumpen Radio (WLPN Chicago 105.5 FM). Eric is a ...

This episode is a quick update about what’s coming next for noseyAF. In August, I’m launching a new series called 31 Days of Black Business — 31 conversations with Black business owners throughout Black Business Month. The idea came after hearing about the month from Denzell Turner of the Black Fridays podcast and getting inspired to try an everyday podcast challenge. Throughout August, I’ll be talking with Black business owners about how their businesses got started, what they do, and how we ...

Ep 110: What We Owe Each Other: Season 7 Reflections (22 Conversations Later) Summary Season 7 of noseyAF is officially wrapped — and what a season it’s been. In this reflection episode, host Stephanie Graham looks back on 22 conversations with artists, activists, filmmakers, educators, and community builders and the themes that kept showing up again and again. From redefining success and practicing care as infrastructure, to documenting the people and stories that matter, this season became so...

Ep #109 : Neighbors, Strangers, and the Stories Between Us with Ann Rosen Summary: It's our season finale, y'all! 🎉 We made it to the end of Season 7 of noseyAF — AND we crossed 100 episodes! I still can't believe it. None of this happens without you, so thank you for being nosey right along with me all season long. I am so grateful. In this episode, I sit down with Ann Rosen, a Brooklyn-based portrait photographer and activist whose decades-long practice sits at the intersection of art, social ...

Ep # 108: Your Calm Calendar: Rest, Burnout Recovery, and Resisting Hustle Culture with Nicole Havelka Welcome back to another episode of noseyAF on Lumpen Radio!! We have Nicole Havelka joing us, a burnout recovery coach, mindfulness teacher, former pastor, and host of the podcast Just Rest: Burnout Tips for Everyday Radicals — to talk about what it actually takes to stop running on empty. Nicole gets into how she went from a self-described "recovering grind culture addict" to building a whole...

Ep #:107 The Introvert’s Guide to Speaking Up with Mahlena-Rae Johnson Summary of the episode Public speaking can be intimidating—especially for introverts. In this episode of nosey AF: conversations about art, activism, and social change, Stephanie talks with speaker, comedian, and author Mahlena-Rae Johnson, who calls herself the Professor X for introverted edtech CEOs with stage fright. For more than two decades, Mahlena has helped leaders learn how to communicate clearly and confidently, ...

Ep # 106: Consistency Over Perfection: Briana Clearly on Making 12 Films in a Year This episode was recorded live on Saturday February 28th, 2026 at Lumpen Radio. Summary of the episode In this live, unedited episode recorded at Lumpen Radio 105.5 FM in Chicago, I sit down with Chicago filmmaker Briana Clearly to talk about what it really means to choose consistency over perfection. Briana took on the ambitious challenge of making 12 films in 12 months — and then turned that experiment into ...