Shawn Lawrence Otto

Shawn Lawrence Otto is an American novelist, nonfiction author, filmmaker, political strategist, speaker, science advocate, and screenwriter and co-producer of the movie House of Sand and Fog.

Otto lives on a hobby farm near Marine on St. Croix with his wife, Rebecca Otto, the current Minnesota State Auditor. Their home, called "Breezy," is passive solar, geothermal, wind-powered, and superinsulated. Otto designed it, and the couple built it with their own hands. Otto claims his family forefather, C.D. Gilfillan, founded the Republican Party of Minnesota.

Otto is a past (2009–2011) Board Chair of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.

During the Hollywood writers' strike in 2007 and 2008, Otto co-founded and became the CEO of the Science Debate 2008. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain participated in the debate.

Otto delivered the keynote at the 45th annual Nobel Conference, on "Democracy in the Age of Science", and has spoken at the United States National Academies, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) 2010. He has also spoken about science and politics on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday and on television and radio throughout the world.

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