Meleah Maynard
It sounds hokey, but it’s true. Meleah always knew she wanted to be a writer and started producing awful poetry and less awful short stories when she was in grade school. After many years spent as a waitress, bartender, mental health counselor working with people with schizophrenia and staff writer, Meleah has been a full-time freelance writer for over a decade.

Her stories are most often about nature, gardening, architecture, science, technology and business. But she writes about lots of other things, too. Meleah’s work has appeared in regional and national publications, including History Channel Magazine, Gardening How-To, Minnesota Monthly, Twin Cities Business, Northern Gardener, Midwest Home, Mpls. St. Paul, City Pages and OC Weekly.

A master gardener who can be found outside digging in the dirt when she’s not at her computer, Meleah writes regular gardening columns for Northern Gardener and Minneapolis’ Southwest Journal. Her first book: DECODING GARDENING ADVICE: The Science Behind the 100 most Common Recommendations, will be published by Timber Press in December 2011.

Mike Hoium
Mike didn’t set out to make his living on a computer. He was an art major at the University of Minnesota who, perhaps, may have wound up making sculpture or neon signs to pay the mortgage. But shortly before he graduated, professors asked him to try something new – using a computer to make art. It all sounds very primitive now. But back then, working in a classroom equipped with five Macintosh SE30s running Photoshop 1.0, Illustrator 88 and Director 1.0 was nothing short of amazing. Twenty years later, Mike’s creations are pretty much all in the realm of 3D and motion graphics, and we like that because they take up so much less space in the garage.