>The Lanesboro Public Library is happy to welcome Minnesota author Catherine Friend to the library on Wednesday, April 15th. Friend will present a storytime for young children at 4:00 and at 7:00 will have a reading and author talk for adults. Friend is author of A Perfect Nest, a finalist in the Children’s Literature category for the 2008 Minnesota Book Awards, and of Hit by a Farm and Compassionate Carnivore.
Friend has been a writer since 1985, when she began working as a contract technical writer in the Twin Cities. In 1990 she left corporate life, started writing for children, and has published six children’s books. For ten years Friend taught adults how to write for children, and gave dozens of presentations to children, teachers, and librarians. In a previous life, Catherine was an economist, and has a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and an M.S. in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota.
Friend has also been a farmer since 1995, when she and her partner moved to the country, bought goats, chickens, llamas, and sheep, and plunged into the agricultural life. For a number of years the farm consumed all Friend’s creative energy and her writing ground to a painful halt. But once things on the farm were up and running, “Ruby the sheep” showed up in a story, and Friend found herself back on track again. “I don’t know if I’m a farming writer or a writing farmer, but I wouldn’t give up either,” says Friend. Both her memoir, Hit by a Farm, and The Perfect Nest were inspired by life on the farm.
