Alida Winternheimer
My Story
A lifelong lover of story, I have been writing for as long as I could hold a pencil. Life, however, has led me down a winding path that includes deep and abiding interests in animals and nature (I entered college a biology major, intending to be an ethologist in Africa), theatre (I changed my major to theatre sophomore year), culture (I added an anthropology major next and spent six months studying abroad in Zimbabwe), coffee (but who hasn’t worked as a barista?), bodies and movement (I took ballet lessons throughout my childhood and later studied and taught yoga for nearly twenty years). I am a mother (which is a journey all its own).
I returned to school, being something of an academic at heart, second of course to being a creative at heart, and earned a Master of Liberal Studies at the University of Minnesota. I intended to write a thesis on women and spirituality. One particular figure buried deep in the historical records captured my imagination. Torn between my passions, I wound up doing a hybrid project, half thesis (fact) and half novella (fiction).
That project evolved into an exploration of the treatise of a medieval, French, Christian mystic who was burned at the stake for heresy in 1310 and a novella, imagining the life of the woman who could write such a treatise. My capstone professor told me he had seen dissertations half as long and half as rich as my thesis. You can read the excerpt from God’s Mirror, that won the Confluence Prize and was published in the Confluence journal here.
Who ever said you can have too many degrees?
From the MLS, I hopped straight into an MFA. It seemed I had at last commited my life to being a writer! I earned a Master of Fine Arts in Writing, specializing in fiction, from Hamline University. My next thesis, Saving Annabelle, is a historical novel set in Minnesota in the 1860s and 1870s.
While in my MFA program, I developed my penchant for midwestern gothic tales. Shall we just say I can get dark. Two of my definitely-midwestern-and-dark short stories were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Oh, but one of them is very funny. You can find them on my Stories and Essays page.
Since then, I have worked as a developmental editor and writing coach, helping writers to write better. I host a podcast, have an online school of writing, have published two craft books (with more to come), and teach for the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. I also trained a service dog for Helping Paws of Minnesota, you can read her blog, Seva the Wonder Dog here.
As I said above, my passions are varied and abiding. When I am not writing (or teaching writing or talking about writing on my podcasts), I paddle a sea kayak, road bike, camp, hike, and other outdoorsy things. Also, Seva enjoys taking me for daily walks.
