Spike Carlsen

Spike Carlsen (spikecarlsen.com) has been writing about the world around us for the past 25 years. His first book, "A Splintered History of Wood: Belt Sander Races, Blind Woodworkers and Baseball Bats," was selected as a NPR "Best Book of the Year for Gift Giving" and became Amazon's #1 "Mover and Shaker." He has written numerous other books on self-sufficiency and woodworking as well as "Cabin Lesson"—a construction memoir. His latest book, "A Walk Around the Block: Stoplight Secrets, Mischievous Squirrels, Manhole Mysteries & Other Stuff you see Every day (but know nothing about," was released by Harper One, October 2020 and will be available in paperback mid-September of 2021. He is former Executive Editor of Family Handyman magazine where he wrote hundreds of articles on home improvement and oversaw the creation of dozens of books including the revised "Readers Digest, Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual". He has written articles forThe Wall Street Journal, Readers' Digest, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Men's Health, MAKE, Fine Homebuilding, Mother Earth News and other publications. He has made appearances on The Today Show, Modern Marvels, the CBS Early Show, Cabin Living, The Weekend Today Show, HGTV's "25 Biggest Renovating Mistakes" and many other national radio and television shows. His checkered past includes working as a carpenter for 15 years, teaching elementary school in Denver, working at a secondary school in Tanzania and building hurdy gurdys and harps. He and his wife Kat have five adult children and 8 grand daughters (yep, all girls) and live in historic Stillwater, Minnesota. In his spare time he enjoys riding his wood bike, serving on the library board, teaching woodworking to kids and renovating (and renovating and renovating) their 1850s Greek Revival home.