Robbie Q. Telfer

Sep 19, 2024 | wbez.org | Anna Mason |Andrew Meriwether |Robbie Q. Telfer |Max Lubbers

Nowadays, if you see a low-riding bicycle with high handlebars, lots of shining chrome and a long banana seat, you may think two things. First: that’s one hot retro bicycle. And second, if you know your bicycle history: that’s a Schwinn. Schwinn Bicycle Company single handedly shaped bicycle culture across the country for decades, all while maintaining their strong Chicago identity through four generations of family ownership.

Sep 13, 2024 | wbez.org | Andrew Meriwether |Robbie Q. Telfer |Max Lubbers |Maggie Sivit

Behind the Chicago Transit Authority’s massive Skokie facility stand several dozen of the agency’s best bus drivers. Their uniforms are freshly ironed and their gaze is focused on the parking lot in front of them, where a competitor is maneuvering a bus between a narrow set of cones.

Sep 5, 2024 | wbez.org | Robbie Q. Telfer |Max Lubbers |Maggie Sivit |Susie An

Editor’s note: This story originally published in 2019. Listen to the kid-friendly version of the audio story here. The Chicago region has been experiencing a collective case of the heebie-jeebies in recent years, ever since reports of a giant, flying, winged humanoid began surfacing in 2011.

Mar 13, 2023 | robbieqtelfer.substack.com | Robbie Q. Telfer

The pandemic has made my performance and speaking engagements almost nonexistent. This is partly by choice at this point, but I still don’t want to get Covid (or regular sick for that matter) and I’ve been focusing a lot of my professional time trying to save doomed prairies. But in April, 2020, I started leading poetry workshops on Zoom every other week with only a few breaks. As long as people keep showing up, so will I.

Mar 10, 2023 | twibchicago.com | Robbie Q. Telfer

Pictures do indeed say a thousand words. On Wednesday night, a small group gathered on the outskirts of Rockford standing beside an ancient prairie. There’s a sense of foreboding in the late winter cold. You can almost hear the drum in the picture. When dawn arrived the next morning, a bulldozer began plowing a path through ancient Bell Bowl Prairie, a glacial remnant, one of the last intact prairies in the so-called Prairie State.