Kim Todd, author of Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s “Girl Stunt Reporters”
General Nonfiction Category, sponsored by The Duchess Harris Collection
Each week leading up to the 34th annual Minnesota Book Awards Ceremony, we are featuring exclusive interviews with our 36 finalists. You can also watch the authors in conversation with their fellow category finalists here.
Would you tell us one or two things about your finalist book that you are particularly proud of, and why?
When I tell people what my book is about, they tend to be astonished that they have never heard of these investigative journalists and this whole decade of women doing amazing things. I’m proud that, as a result of Sensational, more people will know about these writers (and maybe be inspired to try their own bold experiments).
What do you hope that your audience learns or takes away from your book?
I hope that readers will question when a book or style of writing is dismissed as “frivolous,” “trivial,” “unserious” or not quite literature. Why do we draw the lines where we do and who does it benefit? I also hope readers come away with the sense that while writing can be a solitary endeavor, strong communities help it flourish, whether that means Victoria Earle Matthews raising money to publish Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching book, or Elizabeth Jordan using her position as an editor at the World to hire female reporters at good wages.
What advice would you give to an aspiring writer with an interest in your category?
Follow your curiosity. Write to answer your own burning questions rather than what you think you should be writing. My books have all come from yielding (sometimes after a lot of internal resistance) to an idea that would not leave me alone rather than choosing what might be a more logical topic.
Tell us something about yourself that is not widely known.
I once tried—and failed—to hike the Pacific Crest Trail through Washington State. I was thwarted by a late spring and poor planning, but still saw bears, ate wild blueberries, and covered hundreds of miles in what was one of the best experiences of my life.
Minnesota enjoys a reputation as a place that values literature and reading. If this sentiment rings true for you, what about our home state makes it such a welcoming and conducive place for writers?
The financial support for writers here is unparalleled—state arts board grants, McKnight Fellowships, residency opportunities at the Anderson Center and the Tofte Lake Center. Writers are given what they most need: time and space to create.
Since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, virtually everything about our lives has changed in some way. Has COVID-19 (and its fallout) impacted your writing habits and preferences? Has the unique zeitgeist of the past two years influenced your writing output in any other ways that you can pinpoint?
I was lucky that my children were old enough to need little supervision, even when schools went online, and my job allowed me to work remotely, so I was able finish up the writing, editing, and proofreading of Sensational in spring 2020. Intense quiet was good for that, but I can’t wait to get out and talk to strangers face-to-face again and interact with the wider world. That is writing fuel, and there isn’t any substitute that I can find in my attic, even with all the online research at my disposal.
Kim Todd is the award-winning author of several books, including Tinkering with Eden: A Natural History of Exotic Species in America, winner of the PEN/Jerard Award and the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. She is a member of the MFA faculty at the University of Minnesota.