ANDY FLYNN

Andy Flynn is an author and publisher living in Saranac Lake, N.Y. He currently operates Hungry Bear Publishing with his wife, Dawn, publishing the "Adirondack Attic" book series and the Meet the Town community guides. He is also the Assistant Managing Editor at Denton Publications in Elizabethtown, N.Y.

In 2008, Andy was awarded a Certificate of Commendation from the Upstate History Alliance (now Museumwise) for the Adirondack Attic History Project, which he founded in 2003 to actively preserve Adirondack history by collecting artifact-based, human-interest stories. He has since presented programs on the Adirondack Attic History Project to scholars at the New York State Archives Conference (2008), Association of Public Historians of New York State (2008) and Conference on New York State History (2009).

In 2003, he began writing a weekly, syndicated column, “Adirondack Attic,” for several newspapers in northern New York. The column series wrapped up in May 2009. For the column’s material, he worked with curators at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake to tell human-interest stories about the facility’s artifact collections.

In 2004, Andy founded Hungry Bear Publishing and self-published his first book, New York State’s Mountain Heritage: Adirondack Attic, Volume 1. His catalog now includes six Adirondack Attic books, which include the columns he wrote from 2003 to 2008.

In April 2010, Andy began working with the Adirondack Museum, singer/songwriter Dan Berggren and North Country Public Radio to produce the Adirondack Attic Radio Series, which airs monthly on NCPR.

In 2007, Andy and his wife, Dawn, acquired the 80-year-old Meet the Town publication, a community resource guide series with booklets on the Saranac Lake and Lake Placid/Wilmington regions. They have since added three more booklets: Tupper Lake/Long Lake/Newcomb, Canton and Potsdam.

From 2001 to 2009, Andy was employed as the Senior Public Information Specialist at the Adirondack Park Agency Visitor Interpretive Center (VIC) in Paul Smiths, where he gained valuable experience as a public relations professional in the Adirondack tourism industry. The Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board awarded him the APA Professionalism Award in 2004.

Andy's magazine articles have appeared in Adirondack Life and the New York State Conservationist, and he was a contributor to the 2009 book, “Dog Hikes in the Adirondacks: 20 Trails to Enjoy with Your Best Friend.” He travels around the Adirondack region giving presentations on Adirondack history, and he is a public relations consultant for small businesses.

Andy is an award-winning journalist, garnering merits of excellence from the National Newspaper Association, New York Newspaper Publishers Association and the New York Press Association (NYPA) for photography, headline writing, editorial writing, news writing, feature writing, front-page layout and community service reporting. While the staff writer at the Lake Placid News, he was named the 1996 NYPA Writer of the Year for weekly New York state newspapers with circulations under 10,000.

Before joining the VIC staff, he was a writer and editor for the Adirondack Daily Enterprise in Saranac Lake and the Lake Placid News, a correspondent for the Plattsburgh Press-Republican, an announcer for WNBZ 1240-AM in Saranac Lake, and a general assignment news reporter and radio documentary producer for North Country Public Radio in Canton. He is a graduate of the SUNY College at Fredonia (1991) and the Tupper Lake High School (1987).