"Laurie is a top notch storyteller, and this book is an intimate and entertaining look at a wonderful career in journalism."--Cathy Wurzer "This affectionate and insightful memoir may recount Laurie Hertzel''s days at the Duluth News Tribune but it will resonate with anyone who has loved newspapers and newspaper reporting."--Louise Kiernan "Salty characters abound in this charming, picaresque tale of the shy girl growing up mentored by the smoky, boozy, old-style reporters that populated the newsrooms of the ''70s. Her loving portraits of these denizens never fail to charm."-- mnartists.org "The most poignant chapters in this compelling memoir relate how Hertzel chanced upon the story of her career: in 1986 she accompanied to the USSR a group of Duluthians wanting to establish a Soviet sister city relationship. While there, she discovered a community of American expats, taken as children to Russia in the 1930s by their communist parents, some of whom were later executed. Her 2004 book, They Took My Father: Finnish Americans in Stalin''s Russia made an accidental journalist an accidental author, but her storytelling abilities are no accident.

"-- Publishers Weekly "I thought journalists'' lives--aside from the stories we write about others--were ho-hum affairs. That was before I read Laurie Hertzel''s honest, engaging and witty memoir about working at her hometown newspaper in Duluth."-- Lake Superior Magazine "After reading Hertzel''s account of her lifelong affair with words, I found myself jonesing for newsprint. She may deem her career "accidental," but how can anyone who coined the term "Magapaper" for a childhood publication have been destined for anything else? Delightful."--Bethanne Patrick, The Book Studio "Whatever her focus, Hertzel is a powerful storyteller, with an eye for the radiant details that conjure an entire way of life. As she journeys from journalist to award-winning fiction writer, she shows us that these accidental particulars, if we care for them properly, are the stuff of real romance."-- Charlotte Observer " News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist is a wonderful (and often funny) memoir of a woman at work in a world where the next story is always breaking now!"--Melissa Westemeier, Green Girl in Wisconsin "It''s a 224 page love letter to her hometown."-- Duluth Superior Magazine "Hertzel''s a naturally gifted storyteller with an eye for telling detail and a way with words.

"--Nancy Pate, On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever "In this equable memoir, Laurie Hertzel looks back to her youth as a neophyte newspaperwoman at the Duluth News-Tribune on frigid Lake Superior in Minnesota. Still a teenager, she started in 1976 as a clerk, then moved on to the copy desk, and ultimately became a full-fledged regional reporter. She makes it all sound wide-eyed and inadvertent, and her personal rise is winningly told."-- Columbia Journalism Review "Laurie Hertzel''s writing is rich for the senses; she takes you there and in many cases puts you in the thick of it. Call it coming-of-age, call it confessions of an ink-stained wretch; whatever you call it, you will root for her. And wait to see what she does next."-- Seattle Post-Intelligencer " News to Me is a thoroughly entertaining look at not just journalism, but life. Anyone who reads the book will be happy that Hertzel took [them] along on the journey.

"-- Cook County News-Herald "[Hertzel''s] contemporaries will enjoy the trip down memory lane and young, aspiring journalists will learn a lot from her journey."-- Media Report to Women "Hertzel tells the story of her career with a voice that is both humorous and provocative. Historically relevant and extremely readable."-- Superior Telegram "This is a great book for those who love writing, are interested in newspaper history/evolution,the Northern Midwest U.S., or the emigration of Finns during the Great Depression."-- Girl Detective " News to Me could be the story of anyone who enters the workforce at a young age and gets a load of on-the-job training in how to deal with office politics, people, and the disappointments that come with the daily grind."-- The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.