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Madeleine Baran
St. Paul, Minn.

Brian Anderson, long-time MSP magazine editor, dies

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Brian Anderson, the longtime editor of Minneapolis-St. Paul magazine, has died at his Minneapolis home, after a months-long battle with leukemia. He was 65.

Anderson had served at the magazine's editor since 1977.

"He succeeded in spending 33 years as a journalist without being strident, without being mean spirited, and without making fun at other people's expense," said Gary Johnson, president of MSP Communications, and Anderson's coworker for most of that time. "He was a steady, positive, constructive and enlightened journalist."

Anderson worked as a reporter for the former Minneapolis Tribune and worked for Sen. Walter Mondale before he accepted a job at Minneapolis-St. Paul magazine.

He was diagnosed with leukemia in July, and had entered hospice care earlier this year. Anderson's colleagues held a celebration in his honor last month, where he received a lifetime achievement award from the City and Regional Magazine Association.

Johnson said Anderson will be remembered for his quiet, kind manner.

"He was fairly spare and very level in his temperament and in his output," Johnson said. "So he wasn't somebody who got a lot of attention necessarily, but the people who worked for him and with him, and the people who read his stuff had a tremendous amount of respect I think for those very things."

Anderson expressed gratitude to friends and family in a final update to his Caring Bridge website on March 7. He described the emotional stress of planning his own funeral, but also showed a sense of humor about the process.

"I've also been doing my part to spur the economy," he wrote. "I bet I'm one of the few people last month to buy lakefront property. Of course, in my case it's only the length and width of a casket, but it does overlook a lake in Lakewood Cemetery."

He added that parents had purchased family plots in a suburban cemetery, but, he said, "I'm an urban guy, and I'm insisting on a burial in the middle of 'my' Minneapolis, with Lake Calhoun just within sight."