How former Hamilton dancer Lexi Toye fought perfectionism and found her voice. Anyone who knew Lexi Garcia of DeBary, Florida would have probably described her as practically perfect in every way. But Lexi had a secret, and no one knew. No one. Her happiness cast out like a film projector on a blank wall, larger than life, seeming almost real, until it got blocked by a shadow.

This is a film I created as part of my MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. During the Fall semester in 2022 I took a film concentration and worked under the brilliant filmmaker Nina Davenport.

The Art and Craft of Profile Writing: An Interview with Susan Orlean It begins in a Florida swamp. It was 2015, and I was struggling to figure out how to structure a book I’d been working on for over a year; I’d interviewed 120 people about a dream come true in their life, but now I had no idea how to turn those interviews into a book. The structure I’d imagined when I started (something more like a how-to book, with anecdotes and quotes scattered throughout) no longer felt right. The book I’d set out to write wasn’t the book I was going to write. It needed to be something else, but I still had no idea what that was.

Molly, Alan, and Max had been friends for years before the August night in 2022 when they launched their new media company. That night their lives changed forever, and to date their videos total over 13.6M views. But this is not an overnight success story. The countdown began on July 30, 2022, when Twitch streamer Max La Due left a blue, orange, and pink number 7 on the end screen after he ended one of his biweekly Twitch streams That same day, YouTuber Molly McCormack posted an Instagram photo wearing a fanny pack that displayed the number 7. Three days later, on August 2, 2022, Alan McCormack, Molly’s husband,  posted an Instagram reel of him singing a song by the “imaginary band” 4-Town, emphasis on the 4.

Professional stunt performer and driver Richard Marrero has been in Marvel films and award-winning TV shows, but sometimes a creative life also means life of uncertainty. This is a story about how he (and his wife Carly) deal with the ups and downs of a life in the entertainment industry, and what kept Richard going towards his dream even when it felt like it was going nowhere. It starts with a breakfast burrito. Years ago, my longtime writer-friend Carly Miller-Marrero mentioned a film project her husband, Richard Marrero, was hoping to be working on soon. She didn’t use any proper nouns, but shared that Richard might be stunt doubling an actor that he would be excited to work with. But of course, she said, you never know with these things.

“A mob is coming,” said a Disney Springs security team member to Steve Lewis. It was December 2020, and the second Gideon’s Bakehouse location was about to open at Disney Springs in Orlando, Florida. Traffic was backed up for miles, and those who did park ran into Disney Springs before it was open. By the time it opened at 9:00AM, the line stretched through the entirety of Disney Springs property. By 10:30AM, there was an eight-hour wait. By 11:30AM, the wait was 12 hours. For a cookie. But not just any cookie. A half-pound chocolate chip cookie that Steve, the founder of Gideon’s Bakehouse, spent 15 years creating.