Loreen’s most recent book,

A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach placed her squarely in the ranks of American travel writers.  Her walk around Lake Michigan was inspired by a lifelong love of the Big Lake.

With a Master of Science degree, she pursued careers in research.  She added an MFA from Spalding University to fine tune her writing skills.  Her short story collection, Scar Tissue, was a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award.  She continues to write fiction, and her new novella, Atlanta, is due out in the summer of 2011.

Atlanta: a novella is a story that melds history, racial issues, gender and class identity, mental fragility and emotional vulnerability in the 21st century. Niewenhuis writes with authority and perception, and her characters come to the page with raw intensity. There is an unsettling sense of verisimilitude that lingers after the last page is read. Atlanta is the geography of life.

She was born in Michigan and has lived there most of her life.