Maury Brooks is a local artist, writer, energy worker and healer who invented a technique he calls VibraHarmonics. In his book, Pain Free, Brooks uses an everyday party balloon to explain basic VibraHarmonics techniques.

Filmmaker Lexie Shabel has embarked on a project her brother dubs, in the unvarnished way only brothers can, “borderline narcissistic”: The Me Film, the story of Shabel’s breast cancer.

Peregrine Honig is a Kansas City, Mo.-based artist and entrepreneur. She was the runner-up in Bravo TV’s Work of Art: The Next Great Artist and will be exhibiting her work in a show called Loser at Dwight Hackett Projects in Santa Fe from Oct. 9-Nov. 6.

For more than eight years, Paul White has hosted a monthly poetry series, Poetry at Paul’s, at his home in Chupadero. A glassblower and fuser by trade, White has worked in education and community organizing, participating with and initiating numerous associations in land and water use, agriculture and more.

As of the last census, Santa Fe’s median age was 40. Anecdotally—and counting tourists—it’s much older. That said, Shannon Murphy, 29, has her work cut out for her. Murphy is a member of the newly formed After Hours Alliance, whose mission statement is “connecting the younger people of Santa Fe to meaningful and relevant after-hours events.”

As Santa Fe’s first official city historian, José Garcia, a genealogist and historian who can trace his northern New Mexico roots back to the early 1700s, wants to bring history to the people. His plans for the coming year: frequent history lectures in schools, libraries and civic meetings; a comprehensive index of Santa Fe’s historical monuments; and a paid laureate position for the next city historian. Garcia, for his part, is studying Santa Fe’s illustrious past pro bono. “I’m free!” he says.

Writer Emily Rapp is one of two new faculty members in the Santa Fe University of Art and Design’s (formerly College of Santa Fe) creative writing and literature department. Rapp, formerly of Antioch University Los Angeles’ creative writing graduate program, was born with a congenital bone disorder, and her left foot was amputated when she was only 4 years old. Her memoir, Poster Child, tells the story of a young woman growing up with a prosthetic limb.

Each year, an anonymous writing committee creates the Fiesta Melodrama, turning the year’s comic—and comically tragic—goings-on to farce, like so many glooms turned to ash. The Santa Fe Playhouse’s 89th season brings Fiesta Melodrama 2010: Reefer Melodrama

Darya Peterson, 25, teaches people how to stick up for themselves—unless they’re already too good at sticking up for themselves, in which case she teaches them how to cool it. Peterson is a program coordinator and instructor at IMPACT Personal Safety.

Jason Flores-Williams has had a wide-ranging career—as novelist, Hustler columnist, agitator and death-penalty defense lawyer. Last month, Flores-Williams returned to his hometown—he played football for St. Michael’s High School in ninth grade—to be a lawyer.