Each day leading up to the 2019 Minnesota Book Awards Ceremony, we’ll be featuring an exclusive interview with one of our 36 finalists. Learn more about these incredible local writers and gear up to see the winners announced live in person April 6.
Interview with Kelly Barnhill, author of Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories
Category: Genre Fiction, sponsored by Macalester College
How does if feel to be a Minnesota Book Award finalist?
It is a lovely feeling. I know that the committee members spend an extraordinary amount of time reading and thinking and discussing, and I know how much seriousness and care they dedicate to this endeavor. Just having my book in those conversations means the world to me.
Tell us something about your finalist book that you want readers to know.
My book is a strange assortment of curiosities and horrors, stitched together by a thread of my own making. In each story, I press against the fabric of the known world and try to scratch my way through. They aren’t safe stories by any means, and they certainly aren’t for everyone.
Let us know a little bit about your writing life. What brought you to a writing career and how did you become a published author?
I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life, and have been fired from almost all of them. By becoming an author, I’ve finally found work that can’t fire me, so I’ve been doing it ever since. I do enjoy this work, as it allows me to ask big questions and seek beauty – and even better, it allows me to be invited into schools to talk about stories and ideas and the answers at the center of the universe. If there is a job on earth more awesome than talking to a bunch of fourth graders about the meaning of life, I sure haven’t found it.
Minnesota is often ranked highly as a state that values literature and reading. In your experience, what is it about our state that makes it such a welcoming place for writers and book creators?
As Prince once said, “It’s so cold, it keeps the bad people out.” I’m not sure if I totally agree with that, but there is something to be said about the quietness of mind and spirit that comes during winter. Also, Minnesota has long committed itself to the care and support of both art and education. Artists can make a living here, and have neighbors who support what they do and value the life of the mind.
What is something you are good at that few people know about?
I can put up a tent in less than five minutes, and can make an insanely good pot of vegetable stew on an open campfire. I’m also an impressively good canoeist.
What do you love about libraries?
Everything, everything, everything. Ideas have weight and words have mass, which means that a library bends both space and time. It has its own weather system and gravity. Sound works differently there, as does your own wandering mind. I write in libraries all the time. My writing is better because of them.
About Kelly Barnhill
Kelly Barnhill lives in Minnesota with her husband and three children. She is the author of four novels and one short story collection. Her novel, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, was the winner of the 2017 John Newbery Medal for the year’s most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. She is also the winner of the World Fantasy Award, the Parents’ Choice Gold Award, and the Texas Library Association Bluebonnet Award, and has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the NCTE Charlotte Huck Award, the SFWA Andre Norton Award, and the PEN/USA literary prize.
