The heart of our mission is to find the amazing souls that breathe life into our communities. In the recent weeks, we’ve had the privilege to connect with some incredible artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with the incredible group below. Check out our favorite stories from across the Voyage family.
Abby Williams
As I’ve learned in this beautiful walk of life, times can get challenging. And some of us are built to have higher capacity than others. My life journey has continually shown me that my capacity is different than others. And others capacity is- of course- much different than mine. I always loved speed. Read more>>
Sabian Beard
They say “life is an adventure”, and what’s an adventure without twists and turns, unexpected detours, and a glorious purpose to give it all meaning? Such is my story. Read more>>
Johnathan Smith
I was born in East Chicago, Indiana. I was a drummer first. Began playing at the age of 4 in church with my mother. My journey with playing piano/keyboards, started at the age 9, in my mother’s church. She was the pastor. Was active in school (elementary, Jr. High) with different musicals and talent shows. Even had my own band in Jr. High. Read more>>
Dr. Forbes Riley
I didn’t start as the “Queen of Pitch.” I actually started as a shy little girl from Long Island who struggled to speak clearly because of years of intense jaw reconstruction and braces. For almost two years, talking was difficult, embarrassing, and frustrating. Read more>>
kitty Amy
I started working in hair salons at the age of 16 in Toronto Canada, I feel like the industry chose me. I left canada when I was 21 to do hair in London uk, then I lived and worked in India for 3 years as a hair color educator, then LA, and have been in nashville for the past 6 years. Read more>>
Violette Adams
Hi! My name is Violette Adams, or known as StudioxViolette. I am a local photographer, singer, actor and model. I started photography very young and only started taking it seriously about 2 years ago. I view artists and creatives as the foundation of all things magical in this world. Read more>>
Angie Taylor
before I began to Watercolor, I painted on Silk. I then took a class on how to do portraits and it was so much fun. I explored Watercolor because it’s so close to painting like I did on Silk. In the beginning, I painted Flowers and Animals 🐶🐰🐵🦁🦊 and then I began to develop my own personal style which I now call Sonshine Whimsical Art. Read more>>
Zoe Ware
I’ve had an entrepreneurial spirit since I was in fourth grade. Over the years, I’ve started several small businesses, including a slime business, jewelry business, cleaning business, hairstyling services, and eventually my treat business. I’ve always loved creating things, coming up with fun business names, and sharing my creations with others. Read more>>
Carmen Boone
I truly believe God orders our steps. I certainly did not plan on teaching, learn engraving, and heat foiling, networking, doing live events/activations, working with event planners and venues, opening up an ETSY shop and essentially starting a small business. I simply wanted to learn a new craft I had on my mind since childhood. I loved art, letters, drawing and calligraphy intrigued me. Read more>>
Dr. Kim McLean
I moved to Nashville from my hometown, Greensboro, N.C. to write songs. My husband was a carpenter, and our two daughters were in pre-school at that time, so it was an exciting adventure for our little family. I’d written about 100 songs when we moved and had alot of musical training, so I was ready! I wrote Country and Christian songs. Read more>>
Jessica Holmes
I have always loved being in the kitchen and creating really delicious things! Twenty years ago when I was pregnant with my first daughter, I took a cake decorating class at Hobby Lobby. I fell in love with the craft and dabbled over the years in creating beautiful cakes for family and friends. Read more>>
Holly Martinez
My journey to starting HUNLEY has been shaped by family, community, and a deep love for East Tennessee. I graduated from the University of Tennessee, where I was a cheerleader, and spent many years raising my family, coaching cheerleading, serving my community and church, and supporting local organizations. Read more>>
Daniel Craig
For more than two decades, my life has been centered around serving others. As a Special Education teacher, I had the privilege of working with students who taught me some of life’s greatest lessons about resilience, patience, and the importance of being seen and heard. Read more>>
Savannah Haddock
I’ve always been drawn to creativity and connecting with people, but my path into the beauty industry wasn’t exactly a straight line. Before becoming a hairstylist, I worked in the service industry and spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I wanted my future to look like. Read more>>
Kiki Plesha
I’ve worked in the entertainment industry for most of my life. In my early years, my focus was on music, dance, and theater. I first stepped on a stage at age 4 and discovered that I loved applause. I took up guitar/singing at age 8 and I was off to the races. Read more>>
Michael Schott
There hasn’t been a time in my life where I haven’t been thinking of music. I really developed a love early on for bluegrass and country through the world-class banjo player and a great friend of ours, Jim Lloyd, who taught me my first guitar chords. Read more>>
Mandy West
I consider Nashville my second hometown! I’m from Bowling Green, KY and throughout my growing up years, I came to Nashville for performances at T-PAC, concerts, shopping and restaurant experiences with my family. I moved to Nashville in the 90s to go to college and later began my career in the music industry. Read more>>
Barry O’Neill
I’m originally from Scotland, and my path into coaching has really been shaped by three worlds: psychology, leadership, and personal transformation. My background includes psychology, coaching, and clinical-style hypnosis, not in the entertainment sense, but as a practical way of helping people understand and change subconscious patterns. Read more>>
Jesse Green
I am a financial strategist, and I work with small business owners and individuals to help with tax strategies, retirement planning, and wealth accumulation. I started entrepreneurship at age 9 when I wrote letters to all the kids in my class and had there parents call my house if they wanted lawn service. They started calling and my dad and I cut grass all summer. Read more>>
Lejuan King
My story started in Denmark, Tennessee, with a love for creativity and capturing real moments. At first, photography and videography were just things I enjoyed doing, but over time I realized I had a gift for telling stories through visuals. That passion grew into LeJit Visualz and MaddMixTapez, where I focus on photography, videography, sports media, events, and creative storytelling. Read more>>
S-ROCK
I started out as a lover of the art. Initially doing music for fun until one day I went to the studio with my god-brother to support him. One thing lead to another and I found interest in the business of music, leading into the business of entertainment and kept going from there. Read more>>
The Glumlots
For two weeks in a row in July of 2024, masked Neo-Nazis marched in downtown Nashville. It shocked me to my core, but then I started to think, and it occurred to me that this was just a natural progression from our state government passing a law which prevented the teaching of much of black history in public schools. Read more>>
Chelle Baldwin
Our oldest daughter, Rosie, was diagnosed with Autism and Apraxia of Speech by the age of three. When she was nine and transitioning to middle school the school system did extensive testing to verify that she still qualified for Special Education services. Read more>>
Robin Frederick
I grew up in Northeastern Kentucky and have always been drawn to questions about community, place, sustainability, and how people connect through shared spaces, land, and experiences. Over time, that interest evolved into a career path that blends higher education, sustainability work, research, teaching, and community organizing in ways I never fully expected when I first started. Read more>>
Chakra Shay
I ran a business called Chakra Shay for several years and in 2023 I went through a business program, Corner to Corner, and changed the name of the company to Heal N Center. Needing a brick n mortar, I took a side job at a gym as a yoga teacher and left a certified personal trainer. Read more>>
Yaminah Mitchell
There was a moment in August 2020 that changed everything. A friend lost someone to suicide — and when I heard the news, I went still. Because I recognized something in that story. Not a desire to die, but a deep exhaustion with the pain. I knew what it felt like to smile and mean nothing by it. Read more>>
Steven Nelson
My name is Steve Nelson, also known as “Big Steve the Barber.” I was born in the 1970s and raised in North Nashville, Tennessee. Coming up in the inner city, I got caught up in drugs and drug sales and spent many years in and out of the penitentiary throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Read more>>
Jennifer Percy
In May 2012, my dad spent an afternoon running on a local greenway as he did frequently. He was assaulted by three individuals and their dogs. Trying to get away back to his truck, one of the individuals stabbed my father through the throat, severing his esophagus and trachea. Read more>>
Sam / Tony Swetlik / Oakley
Tony and Sam met by playing Halo 3 over Xbox Live. They went to the same high school, eventually started hanging out in person and became fast friends. Both of them played the guitar, started jamming and wanted to form a band. They formed their first project called ‘The Davenport’ but the project only had 3 guitar players, no drummer and no bassist. Read more>>
Taylor Love Peterson
I’m Taylor Love, a wellness, beauty, and style content creator living in Nashville, TN. I’m also the founder of a new clean beauty brand, LOVÉE Beauty coming soon. What started as a career in digital marketing after college in 2016, alongside a side hobby of sharing my passions online, has grown into a full-fledged lifestyle brand. Read more>>
Britt Wilder
I grew up in Oconee County, Ga. playing sports and hunting/fishing my entire childhood. I always liked to sing and learned to harmonize listening to my mom and grandmother in church. While playing on a showcase baseball team in high school, and trying to get a scholarship I found guitar through a teammate. Read more>>
Sonya Cox
With a long time career in HR Management, I’ve always sought the path of lower stress environments, with an enriched way of living, but at a much slower pace. Across the years, I have blogged my way through life, family, pets, career, through My Southern Home, The Mellow Pages, Southern Lattitudes, and currently Less Hustle More Coffee Blog. Read more>>
Lacey Hayes
I am originally from Hawaii, went to college in Seattle, and grad school in DC. I spent my twenties as a political analyst at the Department of Defense, executive assistant at the White House during the Bush and Obama administrations, and my thirties “leaning in” with consulting and program management roles in consulting and big tech. Read more>>
Chris Layman
My journey of photography/videography first started when I was living in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Nature was always a beautiful escape and I enjoyed doing my best to capture it so I could save that moment to cherish later. I was gifted my father’s old camera which was a Canon EOS T1. Read more>>
Alexandra Taylor
My name is Alex and I recently started a local Instagram page called ‘Between the Lakes’, focused on happenings in Hermitage, Donelson, and Old Hickory. I live in Hermitage and work a full time corporate job in Nashville—this is a passion project for me. Read more>>
Cindy Mayes
Several years ago I suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm which almost killed me. I spent thirty days in NICU and had several complications. A year later we were told the aneurysm had returned and I needed to have it surgically clipped at Emory in Atlanta. I had more complications and ended up having about five more surgeries. Read more>>
Majo Herrera
I was born and raised in México. I started getting interested in drums around the age of 14 and I was very fortunate to have a family that supported me from the beginning and encouraged me to do what I wanted. Read more>>
Caylin Lancione
I started in photography a little later in life; I had gone straight to college, and on to graduate school after graduating high school in 2005, in order to take advantage of scholarships available at that time. I began my photography career capturing live events and assisting with weddings in Charleston, South Carolina in 2014. Read more>>
Liz Mitchell
Founded in 2005, FrankTown Open Hearts was originally established to serve children in the inner-city communities of Franklin, TN. Because Franklin and Williamson County are recognized as one of the most affluent areas in the state of Tennessee, most people don’t even realize public housing developments exist in this area. Read more>>
Anthem and Aria Flint
Anthem and Aria’s story started with a shared fascination for the impossible. Long before we were touring nationally, appearing on television, or headlining theaters and cruise ships, we were two people obsessed with psychology, theater, storytelling, music, hypnosis, and the strange ways human beings connect with one another. Read more>>
Stelle Amor
Hello, I’m Stelle Amor! I create smoky, soulful pop steeped in jazz club intimacy and timeless soul. Blending alternative, blues, and jazz into what I call “soulternative,” my sound carries the emotional grit of Amy Winehouse, the wild heart of Janis Joplin, and the cinematic mood of Lana Del Rey. Read more>>
Jenny Fann
Real estate is truly in my blood. My grandmother was a real estate broker, and my mother followed in her footsteps, so I grew up around the business. Some of my earliest memories include listening to conversations about homes, clients, and helping people through important life transitions. Read more>>
Karen Thames Ballew
I am deeply grateful to have a wonderful family and mentors who have encouraged me to pursue a creative path. It started when my mom’s friend recommended I audition for the Classical Youth Chorus in my hometown of Abilene, Texas. The director, Dr. Betty Karol Wilson, is an inspiring teacher and taught us classical songs and folk songs from around the world. Read more>>
Dustin Chapman
I grew up in Whiteville, North Carolina, where music was always a part of my life. Some of my earliest memories on stage involved singing in church, performing at local events, and doing musical theater, etc. Like a lot of small-town kids, I had big dreams but no clear roadmap for how to get there. Read more>>
Sherri Weakly
My story is like that of many single mothers who have experienced both challenges and triumphs while working to establish creditworthiness and create a stable financial future for themselves and their children. As a single mom, I faced my own struggles with credit and finances. Read more>>
Christine Gallarello
Back in 2020 I was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. I went back to school for holistic nutrition after my diagnosis learned about how to heal myself through food and I researched what to put in and on my body. I became a certified holistic nutritionist as well as a wellness, coach. Read more>>
Nafis Ricks
Where I am today is the result of those experiences coming full circle. From the court to the mind, it’s all connected and I’m building something meaningful from both. I am currently a doctoral candidate at Tennessee State University to become a psychologist Read more>>
Caitlin Crow
Hi there! I’m delighted to be back and honored to share another chapter of my story with you. My path began in a small, charming beach town, Pensacola, Florida. I was a multi-passionate girl with big dreams, supportive parents, close friends, and an inner knowing that I was meant for something meaningful, even if I couldn’t quite define it yet. Read more>>
