Fresh MN

The Twin Cities blog fresh.mn was founded by local blogger extraordinaire, Erica Mauter, after several years of writing for the Minneapolis Metblog. Erica is a native of Detroit who actually grew up on 8 Mile. She moved here after she finished college and has lived in the Twin Cities since 1999. She currently lives in Eden Prairie and works at a pharmaceutical company. In her spare time, she likes to attend cultural events, sing with the Twin Cities Women’s Choir, follow Minnesota Lynx basketball, further her plans to move back to Minneapolis, and write the fresh.mn blog. That’s pronounced “fresh-minn” and it’s all about living in her adopted home, the Twin Cities.

There are as many reasons to blog as there are bloggers. What inspired you to create the first post for FreshMN?

There are two answers to that. I was lured to cityblogging because I was getting out and about more and discovering new and different things and people which I was terribly excited about but most readers of my personal blog, swirlspice.com, were not from the Twin Cities. I joined up with the Minneapolis Metblog to have a local audience with which to share those experiences. After 3+ years at Metblog, I decided I wanted to strike out on my own but also continue to keep my cityblogging content separate, and thus FreshMN was born.

Lack of time, lack of ideas, writer’s block: Blogging isn’t always easy. What’s your biggest blogging challenge? How do you choose to tackle it?

What I used to really struggle with was my perception of my audience’s expectations of what I produce. And then I finally realized the world wouldn’t end if I didn’t post for a week. I’ve learned to only post longer form stuff when I actually have something that I feel like talking about. I’ve also learned to both accept and refine a style for sharing shorter form stuff. In other words, I’ve developed a way of brain-dumping that works for me.

What other blogs do you enjoy reading and why? Who are your favorite local bloggers?

Twin Cities Daily Planet – Okay, it’s not a blog, but it is THE best local aggregator of community and ethnic media, and they do incorporate a number of blogs (including mine).

3-Minute Egg – Longtime Twin Cities arts journalist Matt Peiken’s daily video blog.

City of Lakes Urbanism, twin city sidewalks, and Uptown Urbanist – All focusing on urban planning and livability issues.

Eden Prairie City Hall Blog – City manager Scott Neal provides a fascinating take on common city issues from the city’s point of view which is probably representative of many suburbs.

Heavy Table and Simple, Good, and Tasty – I’m totally not a foodie but I love what these folks are doing around food system issues and awareness.

TheColu.mn – A new web magazine covering LGBT issues. I’ve enjoyed the work of Andy Birkey and James Sanna in other publications and I’m happy to see them bring it together here.

mediation – Just for the wide variety of random stuff Taylor Carik posts.

The Deets – Ed Kohler is really good at data analysis and he turns it towards interesting civic issues.

At the end of the day, what is it you hope your readers take away from FreshMN?

I hope my readers discover one new thing about the Twin Cities that they didn’t know about.

Sports teams, a great art scene, entertainment options galore, new transportation options: The Twin Cities are a great place to live. If you were to narrow it down to one answer, what’s your favorite reason to live here?

Accessibility. The Twin Cities area has all of the great things about living in a big metropolis, but on a scale that’s much more manageable to consume.

What is the best advice you can offer a beginner blogger just entering the blogosphere?

Just do what feels right for you and keep doing it until it’s not fun anymore.