Singer-songwriter Syd is one of the pioneering and most prominent voices to sing about same-sex relationships in R&B music. She has now released solo music after working with hip-hop collective Odd Future, and her own Grammy-nominated band The Internet. Syd offers her Brief But Spectacular Take on her path to being an artist.

Christine Catipon is clinical psychologist at the University of California, Irvine Counseling Center. Growing up Filipina, she says that people around her did not want to talk about mental health. Catipon is now working to dismantle barriers that keep people away from this crucial therapy. She shares her Brief But Spectacular take on Asian American mental health.

As wildfires continue to rage in the western United States, we look at how these increasingly common events are affecting the people in the midst of them. Lucy Walker is a documentary filmmaker whose most recent work, "Bring Your Own Brigade," follows residents after the disastrous Camp Fire in California. She offers her Brief But Spectacular take on the power of documentary filmmaking.

As long as he can remember, author Viet Thanh Nguyen has been interested in how stories about his home country of Vietnam are told in America. In his own works, including the Pulitzer-winning novel "The Sympathizer," he centers on the voices of refugees like himself. He offers his Brief But Spectacular take on writing and memory.