Secrets revealed: Three new projects by Jordan Hart, Lois Bielefeld and Lauren Fox mine the intimate details of everyday lives, each from a fresh perspective.

"The Bedroom"
By Lois Bielefeld

Lois Bielefeld of Shorewood found the inspiration for her series of photographs, "The Bedroom," when she was sharing a bedroom with her daughter in 2008.

"Her half of the room was full of stuffed animals and toys, and my half had my office and my art and my bed," Bielefeld says. "I just started thinking about how we start filling our spaces and make them reflect who we are."

Starting with friends, Bielefeld began shooting photos of people in their most intimate space, the bedroom. The project eventually included strangers and new acquaintances, ranging from a 2-year-old child to a Holocaust survivor in her 90s, from the New York to the Midwest to the South. Each photograph tells a personal story.

Although many people whom she approached about participating in the project turned her down, others welcomed her warmly. Some wore their street clothes, others donned pajamas, and a couple of subjects posed without clothing or reservations.

Bielefeld assembled 38 of her photos into a prototype book for an exhibition at Milwaukee’s Portrait Society Gallery (which runs through June 9), and is now looking for a publisher for the entire collection of 100 images.

"Steel Rainbow, the Legendary Underground Guide to Becoming an ’80s Rock Star"
By Jordan Hart

Jordan Hart, a Milwaukee-based graphic designer, lets the White Snake out of the bag with his just-released book, "Steel Rainbow, the Legendary Underground Guide to Becoming an ’80s Rock Star" (Lyons Press). Simply by following Hart’s illustrated instructions, aspiring hair bands can make their most awesome fantasies come true.

As a defenseless child, Hart was overexposed to heavy metal from his dad’s Van Halen and Motley Crüe album collection, perhaps resulting in permanent, hidden trauma. "I couldn’t tell my mom I was listening to ‘Hot for Teacher’ at 4 years old," he says.

Hart’s guide is a tongue-hanging-way-out-of-cheek road map to arena rock stardom, from choosing a mesh tank shirt to proper use of glitter, to a foolproof method for telling your roadie which "chick" to pluck from Row D and escort backstage. It’s 208 pages of epic glamosity.

"Friends Like Us"
By Lauren Fox

With friends like Lauren Fox of Shorewood, your life may be turned into fiction, but you won’t necessarily know it. Fox recently followed up her first novel, "Still Life with Husband," with her latest effort, "Friends Like Us," both published by Knopf.

Set in Milwaukee, "Friends Like Us" is about a love triangle amongst three friends in their mid-20s, Fox says. "And it’s about the intense bonds of friendship and the unintentional ways we betray each other."

Although characters in her novels and short stories are based on people she knows, Fox says they "become their own people" once she begins to write. At that point, she has thought about her characters for years. "That’s the fun of fiction — you take little bits of truth and turn them into something unrecognizable," she says.

"When you’re a novelist, you sort of take everything that you’ve observed throughout life, and I take tons of notes, so I have a vast wellspring to draw from."

Fox also draws on that material when she writes short stories. She recently had one of those stories, "Ongry," published on the Five Chapters website. It, too, is about a relationship between friends.

As a wife and mother of two young daughters, Fox says she finds time to write when the children are in school and preschool. She is now working on a third novel. But her friends need not worry. "I’m not telling a true story," she says. "But sometimes I think it’s easier to be honest when you’re writing fiction."