I'm Mike, a writer and a photographer that lives in Sarasota, Florida.

In the shadow of WWII, my grandfather, a Jewish refugee, returned to Vienna, Austria and wed a war bride who waved the Nazis into the 1st District as he fled by foot across the Rhine. Eighteen years later, a letter revealed his infidelity, and their marriage dissolved. My grandmother left for South Africa, and soon my mother followed. In Johannesburg, my mother met Barry, the son of dressmakers and diamond miners from the Eastern Rand. After a spell in New York, they made their way south to Florida where I was born with little tether to the place. It's part of why I've spent so much time making work about the American South.

A few years ago, I moved back to my hometown, Sarasota, where I'm working on a book, "A Stranger in Our House," about how a traumatic brain injury reshaped my family's lives after a car accident in Mexico, the history of the injury in America stretching back to before the Civil War, and what a meaningful life looks like now.

michaeladno@gmail.com
(941) 726-4752

My literary agent is Janis Donnaud in New York

My photographs are represented by David Castillo in Miami

Full CV available here

The New York Times, The Bitter Southerner, The New Yorker, Scientific American, The Guardian, The Surfer’s Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Wall Street Journal, Emocean, Aperture, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, The Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, The Oxford American, The Boston Globe, Garden & Gun, Men’s Journal, Southern Living, The Miami Herald, National Geographic, Outside, NBC, Curbed, Flamingo, Monster Children, Camera Austria, Void, Wax, Cultured, Boston, SRQ, PACKET, Hyperallergic, Wildsam Field Guides, Noah, YETI, Autre, Christie’s Auction House, Art Basel, Artsy, Indoek, AT&T, Guernica, At Large

Best American Science and Nature Writing, Edited by Susan Orlean and Series Editor Jaime Green, 2025

Green Eyeshade Award for Environmental Reporting, 2025

Green Eyeshade Award for Light Feature Reporting, 2025

Sunshine State Award for Serious Feature Reporting, State and National, 2025

Sunshine State Award for Light Feature Reporting, Local & Community, 2025

Economic Hardship Reporting Project Grant with Rolling Stone, 2025

Environmental Writer’s Fellowship, National Tropical Botanical Garden, 2024

Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts Grant with The Oxford American, 2024

Economic Hardship Reporting Project with The Oxford American, 2024

Art Writer’s Grant Finalist, The Andy Warhol Foundation & Creative Capital, 2022

Green Eyeshade Award for Business Reporting, 2021

Key West Literary Seminar Residency, 2020, 2019, and 2018

James Beard Award for Profile, 2019

The Writer’s Room Residency at the Betsy, 2019

Special Collections Research Fellowship, University of Florida, 2019

Culture Builds Florida Grant, Division of Cultural Affairs, 2019

Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship Finalist, 2017

Hermitage Artist Retreat Residency, 2016

Puffin Foundation Grant, 2016

John Ringling Towers Fellowship, 2015

Keyholder Residency at Lower Eastside Printshop, 2015

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency, 2015

Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation Fellowship, 2015 and 2014

Vermont Studio Center Residency, 2014