Literary Fiction
Literary Fiction writers from Minnesota.

Aimée Bissonette
Aimée Bissonette was born in Pennsylvania, the sixth of seven children. Growing up, she moved many times (she attended eight different schools before graduating from high school!), which led to a love of travel and storytelling. Bissonette loves dogs, sports, history, and anything outdoors. Her picture books include North Woods Girl, Miss Colfax’s Light, and…

Gretchen Anthony
Gretchen Anthony is the award-winning author of The Kids Are Gonna Ask, recipient of the 2021 Alex Award from the American Library Association. Her debut novel, Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners, was a Midwestern Connections Pick and a best books pick by Amazon, BookBub, PopSugar, and the New York Post. Her work has been featured…

Mary Casanova
Once a can’t-sit-still reader, Mary Casanova now writes stories that matter and books readers can’t put down. She is the author of numerous award-winning books, from picture books (One-Dog Canoe) to books and book-inspired movies for American Girl (Grace); from middle grade adventure novels (Wolf Shadows and The Klipfish Code) as well as historical fiction…

Brian Malloy
Brian Malloy’s novels have been a Book Sense pick, a New York Times New and Notable title, an Oprah selection for best LGBT books of 2021, an Apple Books best new release selection, a 2021 Publishers Marketplace buzz book, and a Booklist editors’ choice. Other honors include the Minnesota Book Award, the American Library Association’s…

Marcie Rendon
Marcie Rendon, citizen of the White Earth Nation. Rendon received the McKnight Foundation 2020 Distinguished Artist Award and was listed in the Oprah Daily 2020 list of “31 Native American Authors to Read Right Now.” Girl Gone Missing, Rendon’s second Cash Blackbear mystery series novel, was nominated for the Mystery Writers of America – G.P.…

David Mura
David Mura is a poet, memoirist, essayist, novelist, and playwright. He’s written two memoirs, Where the Body Meets Memory and Turning Japanese, which won the Oakland PEN Josephine Miles Book Award and was a New York Times Notable Book. His novel, Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire, was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award,…

Sally Franson
Sally Franson is the author of A Lady’s Guide to Selling Out, named a “New and Notable” by Entertainment Weekly and shortlisted for a Minnesota Book Award. Her short stories, essays, reportage, and humor pieces have appeared in The Guardian, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Best American Travel Writing, PopSugar, The Progressive, Signature Reads, Word Riot, Witness, and…

Sheila O’Connor
Sheila O’Connor’s work includes Where No Gods Came, Tokens of Grace, and Evidence of V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, and Fictions. She has received the Michigan Prize for Literary Fiction, Minnesota Book Award, International Reading Award, and Midwest Booksellers Award among others. A multi-genre writer, O’Connor’s stories, poems, and essays have been published in…

Marlon James
Marlon James was born in Jamaica in 1970. His novel A Brief History of Seven Killings won the 2015 Man Booker Prize, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for fiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction, and a Minnesota Book Award. James also wrote The Book of Night Women, which won the 2010 Dayton…

William Kent Krueger
William Kent Krueger is the author of the New York Times bestselling Cork O’Connor mystery series, set in the great Northwoods of Minnesota. He is a five-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award. Among his many other accolades is the Edgar Award for Best Novel for his 2013 release Ordinary Grace. He lives in Saint…