About Me — Andrew Gaertner
I write to hold up a mirror to myself.
I write to reveal who I am, to the world and mostly to myself. Who am I? How do I fit in? What is my great work? These are the questions that I seek answers to in this mirror.
My surface identity is simple to talk about. I am a 53-year-old white man who grew up in Wisconsin. My dad is a retired Lutheran minister, and my mom, also retired, held various working-class jobs throughout her life. I have one younger brother, who lives in Michigan, and one older brother, who died in 1996. I currently live in rural northwest Wisconsin on a farm. I have worked for the last 22 years as a farm manager for a Montessori school, where I mostly work with middle schoolers. I’m married, and my partner and I have a dog, Pippa, but no children of our own. I think and write about the existential threats we face: exploitative capitalism, climate change, racial injustice, Indigenous rights, ocean acidification, anti-fascism, and more. I especially think about how I can be part of the positive potential for us all to do more than survive.
I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras from 1993 to 1996, and I continue to return to Honduras every year I can. When I go…
