Katie Stearns has been writing since she was a small child, never imagining that she would eventually make a career from her hobby. After she and her husband moved from Duluth to a farm between Clarkfield and Montevideo with their two young children a year and a half ago, Stearns began seriously working on publishing her first novel. “I never really thought that I would let anybody read anything that I wrote,” she says. “It was always a very private thing.” Stearns recalls in childhood, having her first experience with positive feedback from something she wrote from a sixth-grade teacher. “It was like oh I’m actually good at that. Ever since then I was always writing something – even if it was just in my head,” she says.

Arthur Norby was born on Christmas Day, 1937 in the Montevideo Hospital. Being raised in Montevideo, he carries many memories of what the town once was, recalling various elements of the community that no longer exist, such as the shoreline of the river being located much closer to downtown than it was today. It is those memories that inspired a series of mysteries set in and around Montevideo that he has penned over the years. The series, titled Tom Hall Mysteries, is comprised of seven novels with the eighth in production currently.

Shi-Quan Nettingham spent his first winter in Minnesota after moving from Las Vegas a little over a year ago running the frigid prairie to train for his long-time goal of running in the Boston Marathon. Nettingham, the Sports Director at KDMA, has been running for nearly 13 years, starting out with track and cross country in high school. It wasn’t his intention, originally, to become so involved in running, as at the time, basketball was his preferred sport. He says he used running as a way to stay in shape in the off-season, but soon discovered a love for the sport. “I kind of just fell in love with it. It’s a healthy lifestyle, and really something that became kind of an addiction,” he says.