Terri Laxton Brooks is the author of “On Loneliness: How to Feel Less Alone in an Isolating World.” Brooks grew up in Reedsburg and earned degrees in journalism and French at UW-Madison in the 1960s. She worked at the Chicago Tribune and as a freelance writer. She taught journalism and chaired the journalism department at New York University. She was also dean of the college of communications at Penn State University. She moved back to Madison in 2022.