Arts & Entertainment
College roommates Mateo Garcia-Bryce ’26, Jackson Heller ’26 and Luca Hirsch ’26 created the Prattic, a stand-up comedy space in the attic of their off-campus house. For 16 months, they welcomed over 100 performers, from first-timers to seasoned stand-up acts, and countless students to their shows every Monday night.
Chicago-based puzzle maker Sandy Weisz ’98 turned his hobby into a career when he founded the Mystery League, a puzzle-hunt company, in 2014. He discusses what led him to start making puzzles for a living, including the online daily word game Raddle.
Though they were oceans away from Afghanistan, Iman Sediqe’s family kept their cultural heritage alive in their Midwestern home through traditional recipes and “Afghanified” American dishes. Now, Sediqe ’14 MA, ’19 PhD shares her family’s rich culinary history with thousands on her social media, which she collectively calls Imanistan.
Sara Levine ’92 weaves biting humor together with explorations of loneliness in her second novel, The Hitch, released in January. In this quirky family drama, yogurt company owner Rose Cutler is tasked to figure out how to cure her nephew when he insists he’s been possessed by a corgi.
As president of one of the nation’s top public media organizations, Duchesne Drew ’94 MS oversees MPR News and music offerings, which reach more than 800,000 radio listeners combined each week. Minnesota has regularly found itself in the national spotlight in recent years, and Drew says part of his mission at MPR is to help stitch together his beleaguered yet resilient community.
Olivia Worley ’20 began penning thrillers when she moved to New York City in 2021. She studied theater at Northwestern but found her passion in writing, publishing five books in three years.
This fall, the Northwestern Alumni Association will present its highest honor, the Alumni Medal, to three graduates whose achievements and service exemplify leadership and excellence.
Anne-Sophie Lacombe García ’25 spent eight months in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, working with Broadway Across Borders to produce the musical Be More Chill. She was selected for the Buffett Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship, established in 2025 by Northwestern’s Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs.
The 13th season of American Horror Story premieres this fall. Several alumni have featured prominently in the award-winning FX series.
An attempt to recreate a Costco cream puff led Ruiqi Chen ’20, ’20 MS down a spiral of learning how to make pastries. Little did she know that spiral would lead her to victory in The Great American Baking Show.
