Shawn Lawrence Otto

Otto lives on a hobby farm near Marine on St. Croix with his wife, Rebecca Otto, a former Minnesota State Auditor and 2018 candidate for Governor. Their home, called "Breezy", is passive and active solar, geothermal, wind-powered, and super-insulated. Otto designed it, and the couple built it with their own hands. Otto's family forefather, C.D. Gilfillan, co-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.

Shawn Lawrence Otto (born April 21, 1961) 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 delivered keynotes at the 45th annual Nobel Conference, on "Democracy in the Age of Science", at the United States National Academies, on "Examining the Mistrust of Science,", the New York Academy of Sciences, the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), the European Conference of Science Journalists, and countless other conferences and colleges and universities. He has discussed science and politics on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday several times and on television and radio throughout the world.