Before going viral, Tara DeFrancisco already had a list of talents she’s known for. She is a comedian, performer, actor as well as an educator and adjunct professor.
Now, she’s best known for her social media accounts where she posts humorous and inspirational content.
A Columbus-based poet planned a visit to Iceland, but she wasn’t expecting it to turn into one of her most successful exhibitions: A Journey of Iceland — From Darkness to Light.
The piece includes poetry of her time in Iceland, as well as music and visual elements by an Icelandic artist she met on her trip.
The CEO and co-founder of the Women of Color Retail Alliance was just recognized as a member of Columbus Monthly’s 2026 class of Inspiring Women.
The organization is working to diversify retail jobs and elevate women of color within those roles through training and support networks.
We're talking to all three on this week's edition of Fascinating Ohio.
Guests:
- Tara DeFrancisco, comedy performer and social media influence
- Erin Boggs, poet, Journey of Iceland: From Darkness to Light
- Kimberly Lee Minor, CEO/co-founder, Women of Color Retail Alliance
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. This is Fascinating Ohio, a show from all sides in WOSU where we introduce you to people from the Buckeye state with an interesting story to tell. Tara DeFrancisco is a person of many talents. She's a comedic performer, a professional improviser, a sketch performer. She's also an educator and an adjunct professor. And she's the co-founder of The Nest Theater in the city's old North Columbus neighborhood. But perhaps she's best known for going viral. Here's an example of the videos she posts.
Tara DeFrancisco: Something to try the next time someone says something dismissive or offensive or unloving about something you care about Instead of debating them try this tactic instead. Oh, yuck. Oh Surprisingly effective
Juravich: Tara has more than 280,000 followers on Instagram and more than 100,000 on TikTok and she joins us today. Tara DeFrancisco, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to be here.
DeFrancisco: Thanks for having me. What inspired you to start putting up funny little videos?
Juravich: On social media.
DeFrancisco: This is a great question. People ask me this and I never know the right answer for it because the answer is I think I just put myself up as I already had been putting myself up. And for some reason, that magical algorithm finds who it finds when it finds it, I think. Yeah, this is like truly the way I speak, I think, and the way that I relate to people and talk to my actual friends this way. And I would just do these kind of tiny motivational or like sardonic pep talk videos and then they just caught fire. For no reason I really understand. At some specific time.
Juravich: Yeah, did one in particular catch fire or was it like a gradual over time?
DeFrancisco: One of the, the one you just played was one of the first ones to go viral. I think a couple around that same time, this was probably like 2023, 2024, is when it first started picking up and I was like, what's happening? Which I think more creators should probably talk, artists should talk about how it's so strange all of a sudden to be like, why now? Why this? That something hits or changes. But there were some jokier ones that happened about me. Kind of rejecting the girl boss mantra and wanting to be girl moss and just lay around that one went viral Yes, it was it was like this fall. I'm gonna be girl That one really hit people in a specific place where they're like, please let me rest I think so all these things that I normally think and I'm a comedian by trade And a creator of a theater as well and tour a comedy show So like being funny is in the you know, it's in the belly of the beast here But but it's also maybe just the the earnestness I think that's been really fun for me for people that need a little boost.
Juravich: You have more than 25 years of professional experience in the comedy arts, right? I know, but was comedy something you always wanted?
DeFrancisco: Pursue? For a long time. I when I was a child, I was a lot shyer, I'd say and I was more like academically aligned and a little bit more reserved, but I was always goofy. And then I sort of caught the fever of realizing that I could kind of control the temperature of a room or at least change it. When you could make people laugh around middle school, I would guess or like early high school. And at that time, I really caught the Fever of all those things I had watched that I thought were funny. I thought, well, Maybe I can be. The one that is funny and start to kind of look for spaces for that. And it was tough when I was a kid because the only really well-known thing was standup and certainly is its own valid, wonderful art form. But I was looking for something in addition to that, that made me collaborate with other people. And so I started hearing about improvisation and sketch comedy and obviously watched those things on television in some doses, but it wasn't like known how to get to them at that time. It was sort of like a whispered network of people being like. You should go to Chicago or study from this person. All the improvs in Chicago, that's where my place it is. Especially then. At that time, you had to move to do improvisation. And I had a professor at OU that was like, there's lots of people like you in Chicago. They kind of just go there. It was like very field of dreams. Go to Chicago. Find it. Yeah, yeah. It felt like that.
Juravich: When you were in school though, middle school, high school, did you do plays or musicals? Like did you want to be up on a stage?
DeFrancisco: Yeah, I had like a nice blend of friends and friendships that were dunked in the arts of many kinds. I did musicals and plays and we also like had lots of sporty humans in my group of folks too. So it felt very diverse in that way. Like everyone really celebrated each other's stuff, which also as a comedy person makes you more expansive. It was nice to be a theater kid and not only be a theater kid so that I had sort of these alleyways to other points of view. Yeah
Juravich: Yeah, you have now performed as a headliner in 25 countries, 200 plus cities. This is in your bio. Tell us more about that journey. I mean, how did you reach the place you are today where you're a touring comedian?
DeFrancisco: Yeah. When I moved to Chicago, I started doing school. There's school, they're treated almost as a grad school sort of programs at like IO Chicago, Second City Chicago, comedy sports, all these like illustrious theaters that offer a one to two year program of how to get good at improvisation or sketch comedy if you're a writer. And at that time when I moved to Chicago there were 10,000 active improvisers. And only 1% of them probably got paid for it. It was like a very hobbyist thing. And you know, you'd hear that like 30 people worked at Second City or like 50 people got paid at I.O. So once you kind of got into that space, I was very fortunate to be cast in those places, then you can make your own shows. And if your shows do well, they sometimes get a following. And so the show that I performed at IO Chicago called Hear the Improvised Musical got a lot of like really quick. Yeah, attention on it with my partner Rance Rizzuto and we started touring almost immediately. We sold out houses right away in Chicago and then once that happened, it sort of went viral in like the improv community and then we started to touring all over the world. So people were calling us in to do like workshops on the road and then having us headline a couple of days in Estonia or in Latvia or in Italy or whatever and then you come back and do your United States Chicago shows or Columbus shows and then you'd go away again. So that's how we shifted to Columbus after that too.
Juravich: So you're also a comedy instructor. What does that entail? How do you teach people to be funny? Cause I don't know.
DeFrancisco: Yeah, what a question, right? Really, especially with improvisation, we teach all sorts of things at the Ness Theater here. That's a place that we founded. But it teaches sketch and standup, certainly storytelling. But improvisation's our main line thing that we teach. And improv, believe it or not, is more about presence and connection and active listening. And the result is often comedy, because you've paid such close attention to someone else or that you've actually invested enough in a team sport of amplifying one another. That everything now feels more organically funny. So, you know, we all know those people that like try to be funny and it doesn't work. So it's more about like noticing what's funny about being a human and being a representative for the human spirit and then sort of amplifying that to make it funny or characters that kind of exacerbate that.
Juravich: This is Fascinating Ohio From All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking with social media influencer, comedic performer, and NEST theater co-founder, Tara DeFrancisco. So your social media is definitely more casual than like a performance up on stage. Do you prepare scripts or topics for those videos or do you just say what comes to your mind?
DeFrancisco: No, that's a good question. I've never really thought to categorize this. I definitely sort of get a light bulb moment of something that's been on my mind, or something I've talked about with my actual friends or community in real life, and then kind of try to truncate it as quickly as I can to make a little dose of what we had talked about in a postable thing. Although now the algorithm, I don't really pay attention to the algorithm. I don't think that that's helpful for a lot of creators. But sometimes now it's honoring more long-form content. So talking longer was something that we were told not to do before, and mine just sort of hit because they were short and digestible. And now if I do a long one, that hits equally. So it's a strange thing of like people want to hear more authentic, earnest voices. And maybe that's why creators like me are, and artists are sort of like more celebrated right now.
Juravich: They want more from you. I guess. Well, I guess, I hope. So your videos are filmed mostly, I'm thinking it's in your front yard, right? Front yard, yards.
DeFrancisco: I'm going a lot of yards, you're right. I'm like sitting in a chair or something like that. Yeah, exactly.
Juravich: You're standing on a stoop maybe, I'm not sure.
DeFrancisco: Yeah, standing on a stoop, just spitting my...
Juravich: Let's listen to another example. Here's a post from your Instagram.
DeFrancisco: Happy Fourth America. Hey, as you're enjoying the holiday weekend and contemplating what it all means and how we can do better as a country, just remember as an individual, you've never done anything nearly as unhinged as stick a feather in your cap and then called it macaroni. So yeah, we got a fighting chance.
Juravich: I mean, that one just made me laugh, because I've never really thought about how ridiculous that song is. It's a ridiculous song. Truly.
DeFrancisco: I just all of a sudden this year was like wait a minute. What did he do? Yeah, why?
Juravich: Why why are we why is this a thing? Why are we calling it macaroni? I I'm sure we can google that but why bother why bother? So would you say your posts are political or do you try to sneak politics in here and there through comedy or what like?
DeFrancisco: Oh, that's good. I think that living is political. So I think, that sort of where my brain falls. I don't think that I, the lovely thing about comedy is you don't necessarily need to soap box or really like speak in a specific way that feels like you're proselytizing to reach people more quickly. It's like if things are digestible again, like we're talking about, or succinct, sometimes it makes people have their own thoughts to. Compliment your own which is something I really love about comedy. It's sort of like it's almost like the the spark to start thought So if we have a captive like audience in our theater We're doing a really meaningful scene that has a little touch of something that feels Tough right now and people then feel it more deeply or earnestly themselves They can also continue that conversation in the car when they drive home away from the theater, which is something that I really love, rather than like telling them what to think, I'd love to have them think things that feel intelligent on their own from deriving what we thought we were saying.
Juravich: Following, you have a lot of following on Instagram and then also TikTok. Do you make different content for the platforms or is it the same? Yeah, not really.
DeFrancisco: Yeah, not really. I think across all the platforms, there's there's quite a few followers against YouTube, TikTok, threads. There's like all these Instagrams. There's too many places. There are too many places. Right. We get it. But it's all of them are just sort of shared there because someone would pick their own flavor of which one they follow. Right? So as they're like, please come to, you know, Blue Sky, like they'll always ask me to go to another platform, because they want to quit one of the other ones. And so we just kind of spread them out to wherever they are.
Juravich: So people listening right now, if they want to follow you, it's just your name. Yeah, it's my name. Yeah.
DeFrancisco: Exactly.
Juravich: Let's talk about the Nest Theater before we run out of time. You're the co-founder and artistic director, you're an instructor, a main stage performer, all happening at the Nest theater, which is in Old North Columbus. Tell me about why you decided to create a theater.
DeFrancisco: Well, we were in Chicago and we were touring that show here, the Improvise Musical. It had a lot of critical, fun, praise. And we run a camp called the Improv Retreat that was happening outside of Chicago. And some Columbus community members came there. I was teaching for free and driving back and forth for a number of years just to come into community and raise with the Columbus community here that didn't have as much resource for improvisation. And then those people came to that camp and said, would you ever start a brick and mortar? And my partner and I were like, I think we can because our show was doing so well by itself That we could tour it out of Columbus instead of Chicago. I'm from here. I love Columbus when I was a child I would have I would've killed for a place like the nest because it's like this community that has everything under one roof And I had to move to find that resourcing for myself. Then I love Chicago I love it, but I also love Columbus like there's nothing. There's nothing lacking here except for that sort of thing So making a space like that that felt like cheers for artists was so cool.
Juravich: So you made your own.
DeFrancisco: We made our own, yeah. Is it mainly adults or do you have kids? We have kids camps. We have all kinds of things in the summer that address kids. And sometimes we have all ages shows that are matinees. But generally speaking, there's like 50 to 60 plus teams and improv groups and shows on rotation there all year long. And it operates every day of the week at some way. And all of our classes have sold out since 2016.
Juravich: Is that when you opened, I was going to ask 2016?
DeFrancisco: Yeah, end of 2016, yeah, exactly.
Juravich: What dreams do you have for the future of the Ness Theater? Are you going to keep doing what you're doing?
DeFrancisco: Yeah, I mean, I think the dream is to continue like this beautiful space that we're in the community is so cool. They're so kind. They are so smart, they're very hungry. They really willing to make things and make them good well. And that's something I love to see. We recently expanded into three small stages instead of one. So we have a 75 seater, a 40 seater and an 18 seater. So like you can experiment a bit. You fit.
Juravich: Wait, you fit that all in that building? All in that Building! Yeah! All in the building. I was just going to say did you
DeFrancisco: build another building. I know right there's like there's a up upstairs it's like a little sneaky like okay easy and it's been so cool and then we get to tour and kind of pass more I think we're really excited about like helping other people step into what my partner and I have gotten to do which is like do you want to teach do you wanna coach like what do you feel like you'd like to grow into and help an artistic community as we keep going and we keep touring our same show so it's just really cool to see the community step up to it.
Juravich: How do you balance all of these different roles? Like, be consistent, because you have to be consistent on social media if you want to keep the following, or at least that's what they tell us. That's true. Who knows if that's true, right? But to keep up with the social media, keep up the Ness Theater, do your teaching, do your own comedy, how do do it all?
DeFrancisco: It's definitely plate spinning. I mean, that's for real. I think it's very much like me trying to catch something before it falls. And yeah, I'm just now stepping into the world of managers and things like that, that help you with your social aspect because I'm still an artistic director at this theater as well. So in addition to the show I tour, I tour another show and I run the theater and I'm a teacher there and I am a performer there and we have the social aspect of my life now too. So it's been kind of like I have to delegate some responsibilities to some other people to tell me. What the heck I'm doing this month?
Juravich: Yeah, I'm glad you learned that. That's good. Yeah, hire some help, right?
DeFrancisco: Trying, trying. Yeah.
Juravich: Yeah, do you want to keep going?
DeFrancisco: Viral? I want to keep making people happy and I think that that's been our I think some people correlate comedians with like they want to get famous or like that fame is the ultimate goal and for me the ultimate goal is as much joy as I can bring to people in tougher times is like my my hope is tethering the the fabric of humanity best they can.
Juravich: So when you make a video, you don't think like, yeah, this one's gonna, this will be good. Do you have any idea?
DeFrancisco: I'm sure there's some little imp in me that's like oh get those numbers But I mean like not not like that's not the primary thing It's kind of like share this idea and see if it if it feels right to other people and often it does I I if I can give any like helpful hints to anyone be who you are I mean people will find you as long as the algorithm doesn't come for you You know like it doesn't hurt you but other than that be yourself
Juravich: Well, and you've also been in several commercials, TV shows, movies. Are you seeking more opportunities like that, too?
DeFrancisco: Sure, I mean, it's a strange path because live art is such a huge thing for me. Being in a room with an audience of people is so important, because you can feel the effect right away. But I love media too. I mean I love the television and commercials and movie stuff I've gotten to do has been exhilarating. You just don't get to see the impression it has, I suppose, that quickly. But that's like social media now too. Social media, you don't see it. You kind of like maybe get a comment or something and then you know what's happening. But. But yeah, I mean, all of it is great. And I think that live improvisation as an art form is now also at its peak of popularity. So now it's like getting filmed in a way that people can understand it better. It's like filling the palace or Ohio theaters for like big traveling shows. So it's really cool to see it change and have more people invited into why it's good.
Juravich: You're gonna hate this question, but I'm gonna ask you it anyway, like where do you see yourself in 10 years? Oh my god
DeFrancisco: Oh my gosh.
Juravich: Yeah, I mean I hope
DeFrancisco: I hope alive. I hope happy. Probably doing something similar and maybe starting to pass off the responsibilities of a lot of the heaviness that comes with being an artistic foundation. The arts aren't well-founded. I mean, I aren't very well-supported in the states, mostly. So, finding more resources for spaces that I've made or places that I have made to continue as healthily as they have. And for me, maybe to have a little more autonomy with my partner and like my my my family to like. Grow and continue being creative in some way. As I get older, I suppose, that's what I want. I mean, and yeah, whatever jobs come, I'll take them because I like working, like Ernest like working and it's fun to reach people and touch their hearts.
Juravich: Well, you certainly have a lot of jobs, so I hope you can continue to balance them, but we have been talking with social media influencer, comedic performer, and Nest Theater co-founder Tara DeFrancisco. Thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for having me. This is great. And coming up, we're going to talk to a poet whose trip to Iceland transformed her art. That's when Fascinating Ohio from All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. This is Fascinating Ohio, a show from All S sides in WOSU where we introduce you to people from the Buckeye State with an interesting story to tell. When Erin Boggs, a Columbus based poet planned her visit to Iceland, she wasn't expecting to turn it into one of her most successful exhibitions, a journey of Iceland from darkness to light. The piece includes poetry of her time in Iceland, as well as music and visual elements by an Icelandic artist that she met on her trip, and she joins us today. Welcome to All Sides, Erin.
Erin Boggs: Thank you for having me.
Juravich: So you went to Iceland originally for a concert. Tell us how did that turn into artwork? Yeah.
Boggs: Yeah, so Damon Auburn from Blurr& Gorillaz was performing in Reykjavik in Iceland, and so I thought I've always wanted to go, so I would go for that concert.
Juravich: Why not? Why not.
Boggs: And so while I was planning that trip, I reached out to Anor, or Bennett Dixon, who I've been following his work since he was in the band the Sugar Cubes. He co-sang with Björk. And so I just DM'd him and asked him if he was exhibiting. And he said yes. And so, I met him at his exhibition. And just came back from that trip really inspired, started writing and reached out to Anar again, asking if he wanted to collaborate on a project and he said yes.
Juravich: Wow, so was this kind of like a fangirl moment for you whenever you like reached out? Oh, definitely. And how do you say the name again? It's In-ar-orn.
Boggs: A and R, Erin Benedictson.
Juravich: I'll let you say it. Okay. So you knew of the art and you just thought, well, while I'm here, you know, like kind of like a when in Rome moment, I might as well try to meet him. Is that?
Boggs: Absolutely. And I didn't have anything to lose, either he responded or he didn't, and I was really happy that he did.
Juravich: Okay, so what was it about his artwork that made you want to collaborate with him?
Boggs: Well, my first impression of his art is he does a lot of one lines and it reminded me... It reminded me.
Juravich: Describe it for our radio audience.
Boggs: Yeah, so he will take a singular line to draw an image and tell a story, and he calls them his one-liners. Not all of his art is that way, but that's what first attracted me to his art. And so I often see it similar to electronic circuitry, like circuit boards that my father used to build, he was an engineer.
Juravich: Okay, so his art made you think of circuits too and yeah, like
Boggs: Yeah, electricity. Yeah. Yeah.
Juravich: So the work is compiled in a book and the exhibit though has musical, visual and written parts to it. So give us a rundown of the different parts of this work.
Boggs: Yeah, so this is a conversation between me and Anar. It's my perspective, I'm writing poetry from my perspective of Iceland for the first time as an alien or a foreigner. And then Anar is responding through his art and he's responding as a local. So he's kind of telling me if I'm right or wrong. And then Cactus Anason is the musician and he created music to set the tone in the pace of the conversation. So I really wanted this project to be multi-sensory and immersive. And so we represent that in an art exhibition where we have the art and the poetry and the music playing as you go through different chapters. But then we also have it represented in a book, tea page spread, poetry, art, and then we have a QR code where you can download the music to listen to you while you go through the book. Oh, okay. So
Juravich: while you're flipping through the book, the music will be a part of it if you don't see the exhibition in person. Correct. Right. And then tell us about how the book is unique because you brought the book in and you showed it to me before we started talking on the radio, but if you flip it around, Like talk to it, tell us about the book, yeah.
Boggs: Yeah, so the exhibition as well as the book is in English, but it's also in Icelandic. I really wanted to honor the source of this, you know, creative project. And so we had my poetry translated from English into Icelandic Do you speak Icelandic or? Not well Okay, got it
Juravich: and but I'm thinking if you just went over there for a concert and you just hoped to meet him, I mean, did you have to make additional trips back to make this all happen?
Boggs: Oh yeah, I was traveling for, so it took us, I would say two years from when we met to when we were ready to exhibit. And so I was traveling back and forth at least twice a year. Did he come here too? Yes, he and Cactus, they were here when we exhibited in Dublin at the Dublin Arts Council. First, we exhibited in Reykjavik, and then we brought the exhibition here. And that was.
Juravich: This is Fascinating Ohio From All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking to Columbus-based writer, poet, and creative collaborator Erin Boggs about her recent exhibition. So your exhibit at the Dublin Arts Council was really successful. I mean, hundreds of visitors went through. How does it make you feel to get to share your work with so many people?
Boggs: Yeah, it was amazing. So we were told that it was the largest opening that they could remember. Yeah. Oh, that's nice to hear. And the response was amazing, we had people not only coming from Ohio, from Cincinnati, Akron, but we also had an individual who drove from Tennessee to see it, which was amazing and the thing that I appreciated about the exhibition and the opening was the immediate feedback. From the audience. Because as a writer, you know, you don't normally get to interact or engage. You know, somebody will buy the book, read it, but you don t know what their response is.
Juravich: Wow. Okay. Did you, I'm sorry that I don't know this, but is the exhibit still up or is it? No, not right now. It's resting. What was the response like when it opened in Iceland?
Boggs: Same. We had similar numbers. I think we had over 200 people for the first opening. And yeah, it was really special. And you said it's resting. Are you hoping?
Juravich: Take it other places.
Boggs: Uh, never say never. Okay.
Juravich: You're like teasing me. You have something in the works that you can't tell me about, yes. So this work is about Icelandic culture and the environment. What were some things you learned about the culture in Iceland through this piece?
Boggs: Yeah, so this is a journey through four chapters, right? So you begin with the mystery of Iceland, travel through the weather, the landscape, and then I end with culture, which I was so impressed by just the Icelandic people and their warmth, their sarcasm. There's a pun in there about the warmth and it being called Iceland. Yeah, they definitely are the opposite of the weather, and their love for coffee and things of that. It's, yeah.
Juravich: And I wanted to ask you a little bit about some of your other work. Can you tell us about other work that you do? Overall, when you're not focusing on Iceland, what do you like to write about?
Boggs: Yeah. So I'm currently working on another book. This is a solo project, so not a collaboration. And it's called Rebound. I don't want to talk too much about it. It's like talking about a baby that hasn't been born yet.
Um, but it's about coming back from an ending and it was inspired by the Iceland project, like the ending of the Iceland Project. Yeah. And, uh, especially after the, um, the last exhibition, it's like, where do I go from here? Oh, cause you, cause you were, you were successful and then you're like, okay, can I do it again? Yeah. Coming off of that high and how do you move forward? And so this next book, uh it'll begin with the end. Fascinating.
Juravich: We usually start with this question first, but we're gonna go back in time here. Did you always want to be a writer? I-
Boggs: been writing since I was a teenager, but I never really shared it. I wrote for me and just as a way to understand my thoughts, my feelings. And so I was kind of, you know, my own personal therapist in a way. I didn't really ever pursue publishing until the Oh, really? As an adult. Mm-hmm. Oh, I didn't...
Juravich: Know that. Okay. Well, was it always poetry? Like when you were a child writing, were you writing poems? Yes.
Boggs: The majority of what I wrote is kind of how I think. I think in poetry more, you know, rather than prose. Did you take classes to learn to be a poet? Yeah, my bachelor's is in English. And so yeah, there has been some creative writing training.
Juravich: Okay, well that's, I mean, you know, there's different ways to write poems. I mean did you try to, you know, start out, because I would think all kids try to make a rhyming poem first, you know, something like that, yeah.
Boggs: Yeah, I don't really try to follow, I don't specialize or think too heavily on technique. I just follow the flow of it and the tempo and how it sounds, how it feels.
Juravich: You also call yourself a creative collaborator. What does that mean to you, putting those words together? Creative collaborator?
Boggs: I love to create conversations, especially with this project, creating the conversation and represent different perspectives and tie that all together, different perspectives into a single piece of art.
Juravich: So you also have your MBA from Ohio University. Were you always expecting to be, I guess, like self-employed? Like, what did you wanna do with your MBA whenever you started getting that?
Boggs: Yeah, try to understand business so that you know Revenue, you know managing it marketing and branding, you, know Just the business of me
Juravich: Okay. Yeah. And so, so how would you say things are going with the business with you, of you? You know, how, how are you supporting your brand? Growing and evolving.
Boggs: So I've been, social media is not a comfortable space for me. So I have been working to kind of learn, you know, how to play in that arena. So I been doing reels and videos called Tea and Poetry with Erin. So I had a cup of tea because I love tea. And like any good
Juravich: Like any good poet should.
Boggs: It goes naturally, like peanut butter and chocolate. And so just trying to share my work with others, not necessarily to generate revenue, but just so that people can become familiar with what I write.
Juravich: Yeah, in the previous segment, we were just talking with a social media influencer who has like a business with it and has gone viral. Are you hoping to try to go viral or does that, does that a little much?
Boggs: It's not, I mean, that would be great if it helps build an audience, but it's not something that I focus too heavily on. I much more would rather just focus on creating.
Juravich: And prior to this Iceland project, did you have, have you ever exhibited in this way before? Like what you did in Iceland and with the Dublin Arts Council.
Boggs: No, this was a first for everything. I used to, years and years ago, I worked in publishing. So I was at least familiar with the process to create the book. But the art world and exhibiting was completely foreign to me, but it was, and I was very familiar with it. So he was a big influence in putting that together.
Juravich: And the book right now, if someone was interested in it, where do they find it?
Boggs: Uh, information to buy, um, you can go to my website, Aaron Boggs dot art. Um, also I have an event coming up at, uh, the whispering page in September. And so I will have signed copies signed by all three of us, which is really unique.
Limited qualities. So I'll have those available for sale.
Juravich: Years ago when you were starting out and just writing poetry, did you have any individual poems published in like compilations or here and there or anything like that?
Boggs: Um, so I do now, um, so, I, I'm still, you know, going the competition route or, um you know submitting to magazines. Oh, like a poetry con I was like, what are you
Juravich: What are you competing in?
Boggs: Poetry. There's poetry competitions. Right. And I do that, again, to help build my audience, but also that helps get the attention of editors and publishing companies.
Juravich: So are these other poems or are you putting a couple, like one-off Iceland-focused poems into competitions?
Boggs: Isolated. A majority of competitions you can't be published. The poems can't
Juravich: published. Oh, that makes sense. Right. Okay. So it's just other pieces that you have. Correct. Do you have plans to make more versions of this journey of Iceland, maybe like a different country?
Boggs: This. Once I had agreed with myself to pursue this, I did envision it as a series, so a journey of series for different countries because I love exploring new places and meeting new people and cultures. And so I want to take the series and really kind of help identify places all over the world. So what country might be next? I have the idea for the UK. Um, I also have an idea for the U S so, but I haven't, um, you know, really gone too far to identify, uh, potential musicians or
Juravich: artists for this. Like an individual city, or would it be a journey of United States? US, country as a whole. Yeah, OK. So I mean, if you were to decide to go to another country, you would want to make it the same kind of formula. I don't mean to call it a formula, but you'd want to find an artist to collaborate with, right?
Boggs: Yeah, for this series, A Journey Of, the intention is, again, to have a different conversation but a similar format to Iceland, so partnering with an artist to kind of respond through their art and then have a musician create, you know, music to set the tone and pace.
Juravich: All right. Well, if you if you do that for the UK or the US for that matter, come back and tell us about it. All right, we have been talking to Columbus based writer, poet and creative collaborator, Erin Boggs, about her recent work, A Journey of Iceland from Darkness to Light. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for having me. And coming up, we're going to talk about diversifying retail jobs and elevating women of color in the retail industry. That is when Fascinating Ohio All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. This is Fascinating Ohio, a show from All Sighs and WOSU where we introduce you to people from the Buckeye State with an interesting story to tell. According to the National Retail Federation, there are 55 billion retail jobs in America. However, only 6% of those leadership roles are held by women of color. The Women of Color Retail Alliance is working to close that gap by providing training and support networks. CEO and co-founder, Kimberly Lee Minor, has 30 years of executive leadership experience in consumer brands and retail, and is a faculty member at Ohio State's Fisher College of Business. She joins us today. Welcome to All Sides, Kimberly.
Kimberly Lee Minor: Well, thank you very much. It's great to be here.
Juravich: So when did it come to your attention that the gap existed in retail jobs for women of color?
Minor: You know, it's interesting, you know. Having my career there, I didn't really notice because if I just go back a little bit, my family was the first black family in the neighborhood I grew up in. I was always the only one in my classes. And it wasn't until college that I started to have a more expanded circle circle you know and when I started my career I just didn't think about it because that had been the norm. And so I went through Macy's executive training program and then I came here to Columbus to work for Express. And I noticed it, there were just three of us in the executive offices and all the color was in the distribution center. But again, I didn't really think about. And I had like, it didn't seem to get in my way. I had eight promotions while I worked for Express. It was, you know, and as I moved through my career and maybe it was the second job that I had when I was in New York, because I left here and moved to New York. I noticed it because I was used to a certain rate of promotion and, you now, movement. And I was doing the same thing. And I was having the same business results, but I wasn't being received the same way. And I started to look around and have some conversations and realized, which is kind of embarrassing, but I realized at that point that it wasn't really about what I was doing, it was more about who I was. And that was the first time that I reached out to people I knew. Now we didn't have LinkedIn, we didn't have any of that then. It was, you know. Early 2000s, but I reached out. You literally called them on the phone. I literally called on the phones. And I said, hey, when are you gonna be in New York for market week, let's get together, I think we should know each other. And I was introduced to you by such, such, such, but when we came together, there were six of us. And I say, you know, Kimberly, it's no different. There are just so few of us who make it to director. Or VP, and at the time I was a VP. And so that was the first time that I said we have to do something about this.
Juravich: So you created the Women of Color Retail Alliance and you're trying to offer skills, training services, what types of services do you offer? I mean, do you have classes? Is it networking? What are you doing?
Minor: We do, so number one, we wanted to create community. And so we have actually trademarked a walk where we should know each other. And that's our networking, that's the nucleus for our organization. Networking events, our big summit where we bring people together so that they can have exposure to senior leaders and build their network because there's still so few of us in leadership. You have to have that connection because if someone's not sharing your experience or doesn't understand the nuances and the micro-preventions that are happening in your career, then you don't have that support. So that is the nucleus. It's about networking and community. And then beyond that, we have mentors who are walk-retrained mentors, and they come from all areas of business, and they're not women of color. It's a very diverse group of mentors. So if you need a mentor who actually is in the business, is not just a trusted friend that you can talk to, we have mentors and we've worked with different retailers to support their staffs. We also do have training programs that we've work with people in learning and development in corporate, some in retail, just some in business to develop. Training programs for leaders as well as for workers, for store line and corporate America. We also do a lot of workshops at our summit and we've partnered with the Retail AI Council to do retail AI training. So, you know, that's important retail math because one of the things we heard is we've talked to so many leaders and said, why, why this gap? And why are women of color almost just stunted at the broken rung, the first opportunity for advancement, 54% of women of color, and particularly black women, get promoted. So that's half. So you bring in 100, and 54 get promoted, and so why is that? And the question always came back to P&L responsibility. They don't understand how to manage P&l. What is that P&? Profit and loss. They don't understand how to manage profit and loss, they don't under stand retail math. Well, I am not a person who had training in retail math, my degree was in radio, television, film, and then I went to grad school, right? I didn't know retail math I had to learn retail math, and I had to have a leader who was willing to give me the resources and training. And so we provide that so that you can't say it anymore. So wherever we, as we're talking and people are identifying gaps, we try to fill those gaps.
Juravich: So it's the Women of Color Retail Alliance. You called it WACRA, is that your? Yes, that's affectionately known as WACR. Okay, and you're across the US and also in Toronto and Montreal. I mean, tell me about broadening your reach. How are you trying to expand? Absolutely.
Minor: Yes, so we are in different cities in the United States. We are here. We're in New York City. We probably have the largest concentration in New New York city. We're Miami, Florida, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and strategically, that's where our board members are. So we have board members across the country and where they are, they have grown the attendance to events because we have those networking events. And our networking is not just coming together and sharing cards. Our networking is purposeful. So every networking event has a theme and we'll have a workshop or we'll have a panel discussion. And then we actually show how to effectively network, not just share cards. And so that's how we've expanded across the United States. And then, we also have a board member who's in Canada. And so we were able to expand into Toronto. And we've done one event in Montreal, but we've don't quite a few in Toronto. And our plan is we wanna be in every city. There's retail everywhere. And you started this with the number of retail jobs. So there's retail, everywhere. And we want to be a resource for all of the women who work in those retail jobs, so that is a goal of ours to expand across. As many cities as possible in the United States and to go international.
Juravich: This is Fascinating Ohio From All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. And we're talking about the Women of Color Retail Alliance with CEO and co-founder, Kimberly Lee Minor. You were recently recognized as one of Columbus Monthly's 2026 Class of Inspiring Women. How did that feel to be told you're inspiring?
Minor: It felt really incredible. It really did. It's like, I don't do this to be inspiring. I do this because I think it's so important and I want to leave a legacy. Like I, my mother, I'm an only child and my mom always said, you know, you, and I know that Kamala Harris said that her mother said it, but my mother said it too. And they might've said at the same time cause we were about the same age, but they said, you know you might be the first, but just make sure you're not the last. And when I brought my colleagues together and said, we need to do something, it was so that we really did something and we could make a difference. And so I try to show up in that way in everything I do. And to get that letter that said, congratulations, I was like, that means someone who I don't even know.
Juravich: You don't know who nominated.
Minor: Well I found out, but it wasn't, I didn't know I was being nominated, you know, and so that just, it fills my cup and it just makes me want to be even more of who I am and share as much as I can because my life experiences have been pretty full and if I can use that to inspire someone, another woman, you now to help someone, then it feels good at the end of the day. And so to be recognized for that. I mean, I don't even, there aren't words. Your cup runs over. My cup runs.
Juravich: So you, I also mentioned at the beginning that you're a faculty member at OSU's Fisher College of Business. What's your role there? Does it tie into retail?
Minor: Well, not necessarily retail, but it does tie into finding opportunity and bringing people to the opportunities. So I started as an adjunct strategic brand management, teaching seniors, and then also taught in the MHRM program for leadership. I don't know what those letters are, but yeah. So it's HR, Masters of HR at Fisher in the grad school. And after I think maybe two and a half years, there was an opportunity to actually use my experience in building teams, processes, and. Process improvement in the Office of Career Management. And so I took that on as a project and I am now the interim executive director there and we've had incredible success just thinking differently and connecting with students to see what they need. And then because I'm still in industry, you know, of course retail, but other industry. I have relationships with hiring managers and senior executives across the board, and they like to talk about business, and they talk about where they're going, which leads to, well, what opportunities do you have for our incredible Fisher students? And so leading that team, creating new processes, and we have a new program that we're trying to stand up for spring of 27 called Pathways. And it's to create pipelines for students, but not in a traditional way. Traditionally, when you're a junior, you go to a career fair, you get an internship. Well, we know in the economic situation as it is now, it's not that easy. So how do we get our students even more exposed, more internships? Well, Pathways starts your second semester of your freshman year, and it gives you exposure. Generally, just exposure to different jobs, different industries, different companies. We have people coming in to speak and job shadowing. And then your sophomore year, it's a little more immersive, it's more cohort focused and we work with companies, right? And so from there, now you have experience. So when you're interviewing for that internship, you have an advantage. And then that internship can lead to a job. And so I feel like that is like the same kind of. Path that we're creating with women of color in retail, because we are finding the gaps, trying to close those gaps so that people have the opportunities that they should.
Juravich: Unfortunately, we only have a minute left, but what do you want people to know about your organization that you co-founded? I mean, the Women of Color Retail Alliance, just give people a takeaway if you want them to know one more thing about it.
Minor: Talent does not have a gender and does not have a color and everyone should have the opportunity to be as big as they can be. And we want to make sure that that happens for everyone because if we focus on women of color, that means that everyone can win. Our programs are always inclusive and we wanna make a difference for the future.
Juravich: We've been talking about the Women of Color Retail Alliance with CEO and co-founder, Kimberly Lee Minor. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. And this is Fascinating Ohio from All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. Thanks for joining us for Fascinating, Ohio. I wanna say thanks to the All Side staff, producers Marcus Charleston and Erin Esmont Rabinowitz. Our student producers are Iza Huck, Colin Simpson and Brianna Fortunate. Our student producer from Denison University is Ellen Hansen. Video production by The Ohio Channel and board operation is by Chris Johnston and Trey Hayes. Thank you so much for listening. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.