Current EngageWisconsin Bloggers
Sarah Karon, Prohibition in Wisconsin Blogger
Sarah Karon is a Madison-based journalist and writes a monthly cocktail column for Madison Magazine. Her work has appeared in Isthmus, San Francisco magazine, the Wisconsin State Journal and other media outlets. She holds advanced degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Esther Crawford, Adoption Stories Blogger
Esther Crawford is a mom to an eighteen-month-old biological boy and is in the process of adopting a five-year-old girl through Milwaukee’s foster care system. She has been blogging since 2004 and is the founder of the mom blogging news site ShePosts.com. She is also a social media consultant and works with companies interested in reaching the mom demographic online. Contact information can be found on EstherCrawford.com. Follow Esther over the coming weeks as she and her family explore adoption via Milwaukee’s Foster Care system, taking the steps toward bringing home a daughter.
Neil Franzen, Sustainable Wisconsin BloggerBorn in Manitowoc and now living in the Milwaukee area, Neil was an engineer who decided this was not what he wanted to be when he grew up. Presently Neil is searching for the ideal combination of working with food and helping others live healthier lives. Neil enjoys hiking the many beautiful Wisconsin trails, cheering for the Brewers and Packers, drinking craft beer, and cooking with real food. Read more of Neil’s life adventures on his blog, Stream of Consciousness. Follow Neil as he shares his story and ideas regarding sustainable living over a ten week period and continue the conversation online within our Sustainable Wisconsin project, a digital exploration of living green in Wisconsin.
Susan Gloss, Sustainable Wisconsin BloggerSusan lives, writes, and practices law in Madison. She is passionate about supporting local businesses and raising awareness of sustainable lifestyle choices through writing. Susan recently completed her first novel and is hard at work on a second. When she’s not writing fiction or posting to her blog, Glossing Over It, she can be found daydreaming about what to wear or what to eat. Her food writing will be featured in the upcoming edition of Edible Madison magazine. Learn more at www.susangloss.com. [Photo by Nick Wilkes] Follow Susan as she blogs for EngageWisconsin over the next ten weeks.
Kimberly Gonzalez, Adoption Stories BloggerKimberly Gonzalez lives in a rural village near Madison with her husband, two daughters, and a cat. She is a foster and adoptive mom, and was herself adopted at birth. “Scenes from the Broken Road,” a series of vignettes recounting the adoption of her first daughter, was published in A Cup of Comfort for Adoptive Families in 2009. She is also a freelance copy editor and proofreader and enjoys making money by reading sf/f books. Every now and then she even reads one just for fun. Her web site touches on all of her interests as a reader, writer, freelance copyeditor & proofreader, and foster & adoptive mom.
Amelia Klem Osterud, Big Top Wisconsin Blogger
Amelia Klem Osterud is a tattooed academic librarian from Milwaukee. She has a masters degrees in history and library science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and writes and lectures on the subject of tattooed ladies and tattoo history. She is the author of “A Life of Her Own Choosing: Artoria Gibbons’ Fifty Years as a Tattooed Lady,” Wisconsin Magazine of History, Spring 2006, and The Tattooed Lady: A History, 2009, from Speck Press. Amelia is always hard at work trying to on clear up misconceptions about tattoos and tattoo history, and is always planning her next tattoo. [Photo by Matt Dixon]
Jill Sisson Quinn, Sustainable Wisconsin Blogger
Nature writer and poet Jill Sisson Quinn recently published Deranged: Finding a Sense of Place in the Landscape and in the Lifespan, a meditation on nature and reflections on life after she moved to Wisconsin. Quinn’s poems and essays have appeared in Phoebe, Antietam Review, Fourth Genre, Quarter After Eight, Crab Orchard Review, Bellingham Review, Ecotone, The Good Men Project, and American Nature Writing 2003. She was the winner of the Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2003, and her winning essay was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Quinn holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College and she currently teaches English at Stevens Point Area Senior High. Follow Jill Sisson Quinn and her students as they mix woods and words over the next several weeks. Find more of her writing at www.naturescribe.blogspot.com.
Margaret Wolski, Adoption Stories BloggerMargaret Wolski is a Milwaukee-based social worker, an adoptive mother of two, and a birth mother of one. She and her husband adopted their five-year-old son in 2006 from South Korea, their 19-month-old daughter in 2009 from Ethiopia, and are in the process of adopting an older Ethiopian child. Margaret spent 6 years working in Milwaukee County’s Child Welfare Services and currently works for an adoption agency, specifically in post-adoption. Follow Margaret over the coming weeks as explores the reasons why families adopt, the process of international adoption, birth families, post-adoption depression, special needs adoption, and other important topics.
