Diane Dettmann
Diane's the author of two memoirs, Twenty-Eight Snow Angels: A Widow's Story of Love, Loss and Renewal, and Miriam Daughter of Finnish Immigrants. Twenty-Eight Snow Angels was selected as a runner-up in the national "2013 Beach Book Festival" awards. She has presented her work at libraries, historical centers, Barnes & Noble, local bookstores, the “Minnesota Reading Association,” and at international immigration conferences in Turku, Finland and Thunder Bay, Canada. She has facilitated writing workshops at the Bloomington Writer's Festival and Book Fair in Bloomington, Minnesota and at local writer's groups. As a literacy staff developer in the St. Paul Public Schools, she attended national literacy training and provided staff development for teachers in the area of writing and reading instruction. She has attended national writer's conferences where she has met and interacted with authors, publicists, agents and writing instructors. Her books have been reviewed in local newspapers and also in national and international publications. Diane is a contributing author for the “Women’s Voices for Change” website. Her writing has also been featured online on “Brandlady,” “The Finnish North American Literature Association,” and the “Grief Project”. She has been interviewed by KAXE radio in northern Minnesota, Dr. Gloria with Open to Hope Radio in Palo Alto, California and the national magazine for retired educators, neatoday This Active Life. Reviews of her writing have been published in the Finnish American Reporter, The Woodbury Bulletin and the St Paul Pioneer Press. A portion of her book sales is donated to the “American Widow Project,” a non-profit that supports military widows, widowers and their families. Diane is currently working on a post WWII novel.
Articles:
Sunrise of Hope
“I want people working through grief to know they are strong, capable, resilient human beings who have the strength to survive the death of their spouse and find themselves again—maybe even […]
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Diane Dettmann: Sudden Death of a Husband
Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley welcome Diane Dettmann to The Open to Hope show. Dettmann lost her husband and literally wrote the book on it. She’s the author of Twenty-Eight […]
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A Widow Goes Back to Work
When my husband died suddenly in 2000, the thought of walking on this earth 14 years later, much less enjoying a productive and rewarding life, seemed impossible. Never able to […]
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July 4 in Minnesota Lifts Spirits
With the grueling winter behind us, I, like most Minnesotans, cherish these hot days of summer. Families gather for picnics, hang out at their lake cabins, and squeeze in every […]
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Something’s Not Right: Remembering a Husband Near the End
During our twenty-eight years of marriage, whether we drove to a northern Minnesota resort for a weekend, canoed on a Boundary Water lake or flew to a faraway city, my […]
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Grief Marathon
Two weeks after her husband’s death on June 30, 2000, trying to get the grief behind her, Diane Dettmer accepted a new position as a literacy staff developer. Traveling with […]
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Remarriage Surprise: A Mother-in-Law
On February 19, 2006, when Allan proposed to me at Hoff Jewelers at a mall in Maplewood, Minnesota, for some odd reason it never dawned on me that I’d be […]
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Searching for Meaning in Life
Alone after the sudden death of my 54 year-old husband, I struggled to figure out who I was and where I was headed in life. Trying to find the “Diane” […]
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Celebrate Valentine’s Day Everyday
First posted by Women’s Voices for Change: www.womensvoicesforchange.org During our twenty-eight years of marriage, my husband and I celebrated Valentine’s Day in various ways. Many Valentine’s evenings involved an elegant […]
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