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Minnesota Book Awards in the News
Tour of Duty - Why one children's author keeps visiting schools: It isn't easy: a tough pace, scant pay, and lunches from the school cafeteria.
By Lynne Jonell, Publisher's Weekly, July 19, 2010 - Never again, I promised myself when I checked in at the hotel (er, motel). Never again would I do this tour of smalltown schools, where the accommodations included such amenities as duct tape on the Barcalounger and a Magic Fingers device on the bedside table. My resolution lasted longer than usual: almost a full day. This time, it crumbled before a 4th grader named John. READ MORE...
Author, Austin Native, to Talk about Books
by Kurt Nesbitt, The Post-Bulletin, Austin MN - July 16, 2010
Writing wasn't Richard Thompson's childhood ambition when he was growing up in Austin. But his fourth book, "Frag Box," earned him a spot on the list of finalists for the 22nd annual Minnesota Book Awards in 2010. His new book, "Wheat Belt" is coming out in January. READ MORE...
Minneapolis book club promotes human rights by learning about other communities
By Cynthia Boyd | MinnPost | Monday, June 7, 2010 - In her hauntingly beautiful memoir, The Latehomecomer, Kao Kalia Yang talks of the coming of the first Hmong families to Minnesota in the winter of 1976 and their fear of the stark, dead landscape: …“The first Hmong men to come to Minnesota talked of how they’d seen the trees without leaves in the depths of a cold winter. The American woman who welcomed them had explained the changing seasons, how trees without leaves will get all dressed up again in the warmth of summer. The group hadn’t believed her. They thought it was the chemical rains: the government killing the people all at one time, all over again.” Isn’t that reaction telling? Doesn’t it suggest the life experiences that came before, and doesn’t it illustrate how different these immigrants are from those of us born in Minnesota? And isn't that reason for The Advocates for Human Rights reaching out to promote and protect human rights in Minnesota and far beyond these borders, to include "The Latehomecomer" in its pilot book club? For what, after all, leads to empathy and understanding but the telling of life stories? READ MORE…
Minnesota Author to Visit Stillwater Public Library
Friday, May 14, 2010, Stillwater Gazette - Minnesota Book Award-winning author Patricia Hampl will speak at the Stillwater Public Library at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, May 19. Hampl’s most recent book is The Florist’s Daughter, winner of numerous “best” and “year end” awards, including the New York Times’ “100 Notable Books of the Year” and the 2008 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. Hampl is regarded as an influential figure in the rise of autobiographical writing during the last 25 years. In addition to her fiction and memoir work, she also has two collections of poetry – “Woman Before an Aquarium” and “Resort and Other Poems.” READ MORE...
A Celebration of Midwestern Poetry
Rain Taxi Review of Books and the Poetry Society of America are sponsoring a celebration of Midwestern poetry on Friday, May 14, with an afternoon panel discussion on the future of Midwestern poetry and an evening reading with Robert Bly and other Minnesota Book Award winners and “Friends of The Friends.” The panel discussion will be moderated by Rob Casper, program director of the Poetry Society of America, and will include poets Dobby Gibson, Sarah Fox, Sun Yung Shin, Michael Walsh and Bryan Thao Worra. The discussion begins at 4 p.m. Admission to the panel discussion is free. Admission to the 7 p.m. reading is $6. READ MORE…
Hassler interviews to become book
By Laurie Hertzel, May 1, 2010, Star Tribune
Conversations With Jon Hassler, by Joseph Plut, will be published this month by Nodin Press of Minneapolis. Plut was a longtime friend of Hassler, and the conversations took place over many years. “Jon and I speculated that we were involved in a unique undertaking,” Plut writes in the preface, “that never before had an author been interviewed about many of her/his novels by the same interviewer.” Hassler, the author of Staggerford and many other novels, died in 2008. READ MORE...
Encourage reading daily
The International Falls Journal, April 28, 2010
Spring has arrived, school is winding down, help your kids finish the year strong. Stop by the library and pick up a book or two for them to read. Encourage them to read every day, even if just 15 minutes before bed. The Annual Minnesota Book Awards that honor Minnesota authors were held recently. READ MORE...
Author talks about published and soon-to-released stories
4/24/2010, By Sarah Lysne, The Post-Bulletin, Austin MN – Popular mystery author William Kent Krueger explained his love of writing to an enthusiastic audience Thursday at the Austin Public Library. The event concluded the ninth year of the Austin Page Turners citywide reading program. This year, Page Turners chose Krueger’s Thunder Bay. “Thunder Bay is my favorite book of all the books I have written in the Cork O'Connor series,” Krueger said Thursday. “I like the idea that it is about the things we sacrifice in the name of love.” READ MORE…
Minneapolis author Muskin makes arresting annunciations in first novel
April 17, 2010 - Minneapolis Literature Examiner, by Karen Nobbe-Stephens – Scott Muskin’s first novel is well-written enough to earn it a finalist position in the novel and short story category of the 2010 Minnesota Book Awards. In his book, The Annunciations of Hank Meyerson, Mama’s Boy and Scholar, Muskin creates a man whose appearance and personality seems to embody all that we find unattractive and even contemptible. By the end of the novel, though, Muskin puts us thoroughly on Hank’s side, and not just because of the drastic changes that render him pitiful. Hank earns compassion by being utterly, recognizably human. READ MORE…
Susan Hauser wins $25,000 Loft Award in poetry from McKnight Foundation
BEMIDJI, Minn. (April 6, 2010) — Minnesota Book Award-winning author, Susan Carol Hauser, professor of English and chair of the Department of English at Bemidji State University, is one of five winners of a $25,000 McKnight Artist Fellowship for Writers for 2010. Hauser is one of four recipients of a Loft Award in Poetry and Spoken Word Poetry; a fifth Loft Award was given for children’s literature. Hauser is the author of 12 books, including “Wild Rice Cooking: History, Natural History, Harvesting and Lore” for which she won the Minnesota Book Award. READ MORE...
The Gutenberg of the North Loop
In our digital era, Chip Schilling gives books more spine
By Gregory J. Scott, Downtown Journal – At one end of the studio is a set of antique equipment. The board shears — an office paper trimmer on steroids, its arm blade the size of a scimitar and cast in heavy iron — is from the 1890s. The guillotine cutter, equally menacing, is from the early 1900s. Hulking machines comprised of levers, wheel cranks and fat threaded screws, they look straight out of the industrial revolution, as if they’ve been smuggled from a history museum. There isn’t a power outlet along the entire wall. READ MORE...
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“Prized Writers” Returns to TPT
The second episode of the Minnesota Book Awards' writers in conversation series, Prized Writers: Children's Tales features children's authors David LaRochelle and Alison McGhee discussing their perspectives on writing for children and the challenges that they share, as well as the books that earned them each a Minnesota Book Award.
The program will air on 
:
Sunday, August 15, 6:30 PM
Monday, August 16, 12:30 AM
Monday, August 16, 6:30 AM
Monday, August 16, 12:30 PM
If you missed the debut of the Minnesota Book Awards’ writers in conversation series last fall, you have more opportunities to catch a rebroadcast of “Prized Writers: Plotting Mysteries” featuring Minnesota Book Award-winning authors William Kent Krueger (Thunder Bay) and P.J. and Traci Lambrecht, the mother/daughter duo who make up P.J. Tracy (Monkeewrench).
This insightful and entertaining conversation about the art, fun and challenges of writing mysteries is scheduled to air statewide on on:
Sunday, August 8, 6:30 PM
Monday, August 9, 12:30 AM
Monday, August 9, 6:30 AM
Monday, August 9, 12:30 PM
Click here for statewide channel listings.
Obama purchase boosts Minnesota Book Award-winning author, Lynne Jonell
by Laurie Hertzel, Star Tribune, March 26, 2010 - You might have seen the Page One photo in the New York Times, showing a smiling President Barack Obama browsing at Prairie Lights bookstore in Iowa City, Iowa. What you might not have seen is the President buying a couple of books for his daughters--including The Secret of Zoom, written by Plymouth author Lynne Jonell. Jonell posted a video on her Website, showing Obama holding up her book and talking about it. READ MORE…
ABC News’ Sunlen Miller reports: After his speech in Iowa City, President Obama made a short visit to Prairie Lights bookstore -- a small local business in the community. While perusing the bookshelves Mr. Obama had a little fun with the books of two Republican foes, both whose faces graced the covers. Laughing, the president held up "No Apology," by Mitt Romney, and "Courage and Consequence," by Karl Rove," in each hand.
"What do you think guys?" he asked the group of reporters with him of the hardback copies in each hand.
Ultimately the president did not purchase either book, choosing instead to buy a book for each of his daughters: “Journey to the River Sea,” by Eva Ibbotson, and “The Secret of Zoom,” by Lynne Jonell (left).
"Memory Boy" author Will Weaver reflects on writing book
By Kelly Virden, Pine River Journal, November 18, 2009 – Memory Boy is one of the fastest books Bemidji-based author Will Weaver has ever written. Perhaps because much of it takes place in Weaver's native Minnesota, he wrote the first draft of the juvenile fiction in a month. It chronicles a family’s trip from the Twin Cities to Itasca State Park following the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, with effects felt dramatically in the Pacific Northwest and even the Midwest. READ MORE…
All-Points Bulletin...Residents urged to be on the lookout for MN Crime Wave authors
Echo Press, Alexandria, MN, November 6, 2009 – Not since the demise of the dime novel and pulp detective magazines – or the period when John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson walked the streets of the Twin Cities – has this sort of marauding band been seen in this part of the state. Known to travel together, this dangerous trio of writers, who have been dubbed “The Minnesota Crime Wave,” is considered armed and dangerous and should not be approached without a degree of humor! READ MORE…
Charles Baxter to host reading for hunger at U of M
By Laurie Hertzel, Star Tribune, October 17, 2009 – Back in the 1980s, novelist Charles Baxter helped raise money to combat hunger. "All across the country, writing programs gave readings to benefit hunger relief agencies, and then slowly they stopped doing so, except for a few programs here and there," Baxter said. "I thought, why not bring it back to Minnesota?" READ MORE…
Of Mice and Children’s Lit
By David Henke, Northfield News, Friday, October 16 – In one of Nancy Carlson’s latest children’s books, Henry’s Amazing Imagination, Henry the mouse learns to differentiate the truth from his imagination, after students in his class call him a fibber for telling tall tales during the class show and tell. Carlson, a finalist for the 2008 Minnesota Book Awards for Children’s Literature, will present at the Northfield Public Library at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24. READ MORE...
Minnesota author’s latest puts series on a new path
By Oline H. Cogdill, Grand Forks Herald, October 11 2009 – William Kent Krueger is a true stylist, combining thrilling plots packed with social issues, involving characters and a view of northern Minnesota often neglected in novels. A pertinent theme of his eight novels about former lawman turned private detective Cork O’Connor has been how the traditional culture of Native Americans fits with modern society. READ MORE...
'Carnivore' earns award for Zumbrota author/farmer
By Mike Dougherty, Rochester Post-Bulletin, May 18, 2009 – It's lambing season at Rising Moon Farm, but thankfully the ewes waited long enough so Catherine Friend could bask in the limelight just a bit with her Minnesota Book Award. Friend, whose book, “The Compassionate Carnivore” won the general nonfiction award last month, described the honor as “cool.” You can excuse the brevity of her answer. Lambs were expected to start dropping soon, meaning around-the-clock work. READ MORE...
Weaver wishes UMM graduates 'forever young'
By Tom Larson, Morris Sun Tribune, Saturday, May 16, 2009 – Author and outdoorsman Will Weaver told the University of Minnesota, Morris’ 2009 graduating class on Saturday that they are unique in that, like those in Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities,” they are coming of age during the best of times and the worst of times. And, quoting a Bob Dylan lyric, Weaver wished this for them: “May you build a ladder to the stars. And climb on every rung. And may you stay forever young.” READ MORE...
Mystery Meals: Sleuthing out the meals in detective stories
By Ron Ramey, HeraldNet, May 13, 2009 – Nothing like a good whodunit where the sleuth is caught red-handed in the kitchen with the knife. There's a sub-genre of culinary mysteries, with sleuths who are caterers, cooks, critics or otherwise expert in gustatory matters, complete with recipes in the text or at the end of the book. Susan Wittig Albert, Ellen Hart, Diane Mott Davidson and Lou Jane Temple are among many writers who have created culinary series. READ MORE…
Worthington native wins Minnesota Book Award
Worthington Daily Globe, May 9, 2009 — Barbara Windschill Sommer, a native of Worthington, recently won top honors in the Minnesota category for her book, Hard Work and a Good Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Minnesota, published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. The book features the Civilian Conversation Corps, which was born out of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal at the height of the Great Depression and supplied jobs to more than 77,000 Minnesotans. READ MORE…
Scene of the Crime
Star Tribune, May 8, 2009 — Take a video tour of St. Paul with national best selling author John Sandford as he shows us some of the hot local crime locations from his thriller book series. Sandford's new book, Wicked Prey is the nineteenth in his popular and award-winning "Prey" series.
Kao Kalia Yang wins two Minnesota Book Awards
By Tom Laventure, Asian American Press, May 2, 2009 — Kao Kalia Yang said that she was the most surprised to win at the 21st annual Minnesota Book Awards last Saturday, a project of The Friends, in consortium with the Saint Paul Public Library and the City of Saint Paul. READ MORE
Book publishing cutbacks continue -- Minnesota Historical Society Press latest local victim
By Joe Kimball, MinnPost, April 27, 2009 - Another book publisher takes a hit, this time the local Minnesota Historical Society Press (MHSP). With an expected 45 percent cut in funding from the state, MHSP announced April 22dn that it will decrease its annual book production by 30 percent and eliminate four positions from its 11-person staff. MHSP released 30 titles last year, of which five were Minnesota Book Award nominees. The press grossed $1.4 million in sales in fiscal year 2008. READ MORE…
Lawyer Nolan Makes the Case for Poetry
By Amy Goetzman, MinnPost, April 20 2009
By day, mild-mannered Tim Nolan is a lawyer, applying the steady words of the law to help his clients. By night, however, he sets aside all of that — the title “Super Lawyer,” conferred by Minnesota Law and Politics, the lawyer jokes that whittle at a guy’s self-esteem, the steady paycheck that makes other things possible. At night, Nolan is a poet. Later this week, he’ll find out if he wins his case to take home a Minnesota Book Award for his first poetry collection, “The Sound of It” (New Rivers Press). READ MORE…
Stories of American Indians Told With Gorgeous Absurdity
The Red Convertible by Louise Erdrich, reviewed by Helen W. Mallon, The Philadelphia Enquirer – April 15, 2009
Aristotle once declared that when it comes to whacking together a piece of literature from materials both quotidian and mythic, "it is probable that many improbable things will happen." By that light, The Red Convertible, Louise Erdrich's short-story collection that spans three decades of whacking stories out of the improbable, the tragic, and the hilariously painful stuff of life, deserves a laurel wreath. Actually, several of them. READ MORE...
Dave Wood's Book Report - Remembering Bill Holm at the Birth of the Minnesota Book Awards
Dave Wood, River Falls Journal - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 Our region, nay, our nation lost a treasure last month with the death of Bill Holm, writer, conversationalist, pianist extraordinaire. Bill died too young at age 65. The newspapers called him a giant in more ways than one. At 6’6” the big Icelander from Minneota, Minn., had big appetites all around, for reading, for writing, for big roast beef dinners, for good bourbon. READ MORE...
Poet Heid Erdrich speaks up for sanctity of human artifacts in 'National Monuments'
By Amy Goetzman, MinnPost, Mar 10 2009 — Leave those bones alone, says Heid Erdrich. A 25,000-year-old skull is still someone’s ancestor, after all. Maybe yours. So don’t use it as a paperweight. The Ojibwe poet notes that writers aren’t often called in to determine policy, but the cavalier treatment of human artifacts — often under the guise of scientific study — led her to issue her own statement on the subject, in the form of poems. In her third book of poetry, "National Monuments," which has been nominated for a Minnesota Book Award, Erdrich reminds us of the humanity of those old bones in stories about human artifacts going up for sale on eBay, an exhibit of children’s bodies taken from a Peruvian sacrificial site, and other incidents in which native artifacts stolen from graves are marketed to collectors and museums. READ MORE...
The Soul Thief: Charles Baxter explores identity, lost and found, in unpredictable thriller
By Joe Darda, The Daily of the University of Washington, February 19, 2009 - With identity theft on the rise — up 22 percent in 2008 — and the media not letting you forget it, stolen Social Security numbers, credit cards and bank account information are on everyone’s mind. This collective paranoia does not exclude Minnesota author Charles Baxter, whose latest novel, The Soul Thief, explores one man’s struggle to reconcile the loss of his identity and discover the ‘thief’ responsible. READ MORE…
Blogs about the Minnesota Book Awards and Minnesota Authors
You know what they say about opinions - and what they're like? Everyone has one, and we all think everyone else's stinks. But some of us just can't get enough news and opinion on topics of interest, or even passion. If you're one of us, here's a link to blogs about the Minnesota Book Awards. Are there others out there? Let us know and we'll try to include them.
Minnesota Reads Blog (with links to reviews and interviews of several nominated MNBA authors):
The finalists for this year’s Minnesota Book Awards have been announced, you can see the entire list over at MinnPost. While I wish all the finalists hearty congratulations and the best of luck, I gotta give some mad props to the authors we’ve been fortunate to cover here on MN Reads. READ MORE...
10,000 Books Blog:
Minnesota Book Award Finalists Announced
MNHS, February 1, 2010, by Alison Aten
Well, they may not be the Grammy Awards, but the announcement this past weekend of the finalists for the Minnesota Book Awards is cause for celebration for Borealis Books and Minnesota Historical Society Press and our authors! Five of our titles made the finalist list. READ MORE…
Award Tragic Blog:
Minnesota Book Awards 2010 Nominees
True literature lovers, The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library have issued the finalists list for this year’s Minnesota Book Awards. 2010 is the 22nd time that the award has come around and it is starting to display evidence of pedigree. A couple of this year's nominees have already achieved some book award form: "Red Sings from Treetops," by Joyce Sidman, won a US Caldecott Honor award for children's literature this month, and "The Book of Night Women," a novel by Marlon James, has been nominated for the weighty US National Book Critics Circle award. READ MORE...
What the Inkslinger meant to say…
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 – Well, well, well. Yes, it's great to be a finalist on any book award list, but I've also discovered it's also great to actually bring that award home. Last Saturday I sat in a hotel ballroom with 700 people attending the 21st Annual Minnesota Book Awards. My book, The Compassionate Carnivore, was a finalist in the General Nonfiction category. After 48 books were submitted in this category, four were chosen as finalists, and I made that list, which was enough for me. READ MORE...
Macaroni Was There (at the MNBA gala)
Sunday, April 26, 2009 - I haven’t been to the Minnesota Book Awards since they were dropped by the Humanities Commission, taken over by the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library, and turned into a celebrity event. But last year I worked with Margaret Hasse on the design and production of her book Milk & Tides, and when the book was nominated for an award the publisher, Norton Stillman, generously arranged for [me] to attend. READ MORE...
Alison McGhee's Blog
Welcome to Randomness - Alison McGhee is an associate professor of creative writing at Metropolitan State University, where she coordinates the creative writing program. She is also on the faculty of Hamline University's
MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. She is a four-time winner of the Minnesota Book Awards and a Pulitzer Prize nominee. Visit Alison's Blog...
KNOCKOUT LITERARY MAGAZINE BLOG: Minnesota Book Awards Nominee Readings, A Funny Blog, Old English Words, and Sad News About Bill Holm
FEBRUARY 27, 2009 – OK, this is going to have to be a quick entry: First thing, the Minnesota Book Awards folks just announced their finalists for poetry, and a pair of them are regular Knockout contributors: Todd Boss and Tim Nolan. In addition, two other fine MN writers, Heid Erdrich and Margaret Hasse, were nominated as well. All four are pretty fantastic (mr. bombastic), if you know what I'm saying. READ MORE...The Authorship Game By Steven Alm
Over coffee this morning, I met a very charming woman who wants to write a memoir and advised her, as I do everyone who wants to try her hand at the game, to do the following eight things to find a path to success, including entering the Minnesota Book Awards. READ MORE…
Book Award Tragic: Minnesota Book Awards Finalists - Very Tasty
Reflections and Dissenting Views of a Self-Confessed Book Award Tragic. Blogging The World's Literary Prize Scene. Covering 200 Hundred Awards.February 1, 2009 – The dedicated Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library, have issued the finalists list for this year's Minnesota Book Awards. For those of you from outside the USA, Minnesota is the 12th biggest state in the country with a population of about 5 million. In the early running this year is a book that certainly has a chance in Tragic's "best book title of the year" competition; how can anyone go past a book entitled: The Compassionate Carnivore: Or, How to Keep Animals Happy, Save Old MacDonald’s Farm, Reduce Your Hoofprint, and Still Eat Meat (Da Capo Press/Perseus Books Group) by Catherine Friend. Gorgeous. READ MORE...
BookAwardsOnline.com
Whether you are looking for Pulitzer Prize results, the Booker, Caldecott, Newbery, British, or National book award information, "Book Awards Online" is the right place to find the best of the best! Fiction, non-fiction, biography, history, crime, mystery, politics, science fiction, poetry and even romance are covered! BAO is a gateway to 250 Book Awards results and information. Included is a page about the Minnesota Book Awards, with a nice slideshow widget. READ MORE...
The Outfit Asks, "Hey, You Talkin' to Me?"
The Outfit is a collective of Chicago crime writers which includes: Sean Chercover, Barbara D'Amato, Michael Allen Dymmoch, Kevin Guilfoile, Libby Hellmann, Sara Paretsky and Marcus Sakey. Click here for an excerpt from a conversation for the PWA (Private Eye Writers of America) newsletter between authors Kent Krueger and Libby Hellmann.
Reviews and Other Opinions
Thriller instinct
By Perrin Ireland, Bos