James Lenfestey

James P. Lenfestey helped found the Hill and Lake Press, a community newspaper, in which most of these columns first appeared. After a career in academia, marketing communications, and journalism, on the editorial board of the StarTribune, where h won several Page One awards for excellence, since 2000 Lenfestey has published a previous collection of Urban Coyote essays, seven collections of poems, edited three poetry anthologies, and co-edited Robert Bly in This World (University of Minnesota Press). His haibun memoir, Seeking the Cave: A Pilgrimage to Cold Mountain, was a finalist for the 2014 Minnesota Book Award. His sixth poetry collection, A Marriage Book: 50 Years of Poems from a Marriage, was a finalist for two 2017 Midwest book awards. In 2020 he received the Kay Sexton Award for significant contributions to the Minnesota literary community. For fifteen years he chaired the Literary Witnesses poetry program in Minneapolis and led a summer poetry series on Mackinac Island, Michigan. He lives in Minneapolis' Lowry Hill neighborhood with his wife, the political activist Susan Lenfestey. They have four children and eight grandchildren.