South Dakota native Susan Hvistendahl holds a B.A. from St. Olaf College and an M.A. from Iowa State University. After working in New York as a freelance writer and assistant to The Boys of Summer author Roger Kahn, she returned to Minnesota, where she assisted the Northfield Historical Society and wrote 119 “Historic Happenings” stories for The Entertainment Guide of Southern Minnesota. Three books of her collected columns on Northfield, St. Olaf and Carleton were published in 2014 and 2015. An updated and revised second edition of volume one on Northfield was published in 2021.