Alice Wong, who passed away in November of 2025, was a writer, an editor, an organizer, a fan of nerd culture, a foodie, and a self-described disabled oracle. She founded the Disability Visibility Project with StoryCorps to collect oral histories of disabled people and share them through tweets and podcasts and images and more. She was an advocate for disabled people throughout her life. President Obama appointed her to the National Council on Disability and, in 2024, she was awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant. She was also from Indianapolis, where she grew up as a close friend Ellen Wu, who is an associate professor of history at IU Bloomington, and the associate director of the College Arts and Humanities Institute – CAHI. CAHI will be hosting a celebration of life for Alice Wong at Wednesday, March 25, starting at 1pm. Alex Chambers invited Ellen Wu into the studio to talk about Alice and their friendship. The Monroe County History Center Remembers In a town with a disproportionate number of museums, be it art, history, textiles, rare books, etc. it can be easy to overlook a place like the Monroe County History Center – don't do that! The History Center is housed in a regal limestone building on 5th street just west of the public library. The building and the building site are worthy of historical note. It was the location of one of the earlier schools in Monroe County, before becoming home to the first “Colored School” in Bloomington in the late 19th century. That was all before the current building was erected as one of more 1600 Carnegie Libraries that opened across the United States just over 100 years ago. The Monroe County History Center has several galleries on the top floor, a space of mostly permanent pieces that detail Monroe County’s history through the objects and artifacts, as well as galleries that rotate regularly telling stories about the people, movements, and institutions from both the past and present. The Genealogy and Research Library is a glimpse into documents from county’s past; court records, marriage records, family histories, and a lot more from the history of Monroe County. IU Theatre's Queer Midsummer Even if you’re not a Shakespeare fan, the comedy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is hard to knock. Samwell Rose, an MFA directing student, directed IU Theatre’s latest take on the play, and when he heard that it focused on queer liberation - and had a circus theme, too? - Alex Chambers decided he had to go. He wrote a review of the production, for Nice Work. First Friday Fiber Fest Gallery Walk on the first Friday of each month is now a Bloomington tradition. It’s a great way to see what artists in Bloomington are making and get out and meet the folks in this community. Nice Work host Tyler Lake went out on the first Friday on March to see a bit of what was on offer. He found a lot of fiber work, some at Backspace Gallery, John Waldron Arts Center, and The I Fell Gallery and Studios. He spoke with the Curator of the exhibit there this month, David Sloma. The show is called Layered Conversations: Dialogues Between Cloth and Hand. The show is worth a look and will stay up through the end of March.
