Storytellers

A writer and editor since a time when people still read newspapers, Michael Penn is currently the director of communications for the Duke University Global Health Institute. After taking to heart his university English professor’s advice that he wasn’t interesting enough to write fiction, Michael has been coopting the far more compelling lives of other people and turning them into articles for print and online publications, including Duke Magazine, On Wisconsin Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, and the Raleigh News & Observer. Outside of work, Michael enjoys reading, hiking, and annoying his family with things he just heard on NPR. A native Midwesterner, he has lived for the past 12 years in Durham, where he remains enthralled by longleaf pines, shrimp and grits, and the utter inattention to snow removal.