Holly Day has worked as a freelance writer, indexer, and editor for more than 25 years. She has over 7,000 published articles, poems, and short stories, and more than a dozen published books of fiction and nonfiction. Her book titles include Insider's Guide to the Twin Cities, Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies (also released in Dutch, German, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Persian, Polish, Italian, and Russian editions), Music Composition for Dummies (also released in German, Portuguese, and Spanish editions), Guitar All-in-One for Dummies, Piano All-in-One for Dummies, Nordeast Minneapolis: A History, A Brief History of Stillwater, Minnesota, The Book Of, and the poetry books The Smell of Snow, Late-Night Reading for Hardworking Construction Men, and Ugly Girl. Her writing has been nominated for a National Magazine Award, a 49th Parallel Prize, an Isaac Asimov Award, eight Pushcart awards, and three Dzanc Book's Best of the Web awards. She is the recipient of two Midwest Writer's Grants, a Plainsongs Award, the 2011 Sam Ragan Prize for Poetry, and a Dwarf Star Award from the international-juried Science Fiction Poetry Association.