Anne Nicolai, Writer
Anne Nicolai (askanne@nadfm.com) has been a public relations consultant since 1985 and a speechwriter for corporate executives since 1995, supporting the missions and the balance sheets of Fortune 500s, small businesses, non-profit organizations, and schools. Clients in a wide range of industries have relied on Anne’s skills in writing, marketing, sales, business development and strategic thinking. She has led teams in researching, pitching and managing strategic partnerships, responding to multi-million dollar RFPs, orchestrating national and international events, and building and managing public relations and marketing programs. Representative clients include General Mills, Hormel Foods, Jamba Juice, M&I Bank, Morton’s of Chicago, Select Comfort Corporation, Target Corporation.
Anne’s entrepreneurial ventures have included two radio programs—Night & Day with Anne Nicolai on arts and culture, and Singles Party with Anne & Friends on the single life—and DinaWorld Adventures, a high-end direct marketing company founded with a partner in 2001. Anne also has worked at Best Buy Co., Inc., as an executive speechwriter and in business development for services including Geek Squad.
An avid supporter of the arts, Anne writes gallery and theater reviews for her own blog, Night & Day, and for the Twin Cities Daily Planet. She recently started a blog on Prevention.com to chronicle her journey from couch potato writer to walking the Long Beach Marathon in October 2008.
Anne has taught undergraduate public relations writing courses at the University of St. Thomas. She will be leading a Blogging for Writers workshop at The Loft Literary Center in July 2008, and at the San Miguel Writers’ Conference in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in February 2009. She is a public speaker and currently is writing two books.
Theater note: Guthrie's "The Fall of Constance Wilde" tells a sickening but fascinating tale
Happy belated Fathers’ Day! Any father attending The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde at the Guthrie may feel that he has done a wonderful job in comparison to Oscar Wilde. (Who knew the famously gay Irishman had kids? All we talked about in English Lit was his work: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere’s Fan....) MORE »
Bush Foundation Awards to help sustain, enliven Twin Cities arts community
People who make art don’t get salaries. Very few people, relatively speaking, buy much art. Yet as a community, we want painters to keep on painting, writers to keep on writing, dancers to keep on dancing, film makers to keep on making films, and sculptors to keep on forming objects out of clay and wood and metal. MORE »
Theater note: From the heart of a woman flows her song
Anyone who’s read my blog from the beginning knows that the voice of Thomasina Petrus leaves me breathless, and that I admire her talent and her work ethic as both an actor and a producer. (This view is not at all influenced by the drunken pleasure I derive from her butter-laden home-made cashew brittle.) But of the myriad characters and concerts I’ve seen Thomasina perform, none has touched me more than her title role in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, an end-of-life vignette of jazz singer Billie Holiday, at Park Square Theatre. MORE »
Book note: "The Florist's Daughter" reads like poetry
Perched on a cot in a hospital room overlooking the Cathedral, Patricia Hampl sits holding her mother’s hand through her last night of life. Balancing a pad of paper on her lap and scrawling notes (the start of an obituary), the author holds the hand that has crushed out countless cigarettes in saucers on the kitchen table, punctuating stories of the soirées decorated by her husband Stan, the florist. Sitting in the dark beside her mother, the florist’s daughter opens and closes her solemn gift of a memoir. MORE »
The show must go on...but when does being a "pro" become a no-no?
During my weekly radio show days, there were times when I felt woozy with a cold, but I would slog it out for two hours anyway because the listening audience was doing their part, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. Callers said my voice sounded sultry, which is fine. But had I crossed the line into froggy, I would have hired a sub or pieced together a “best of” show. MORE »
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