Literary Fiction
Literary Fiction writers from Minnesota.
R.W. Holmen
R. W. Holmen is a former trial attorney with an eye for history and a heart for social justice. A Wretched Man remembers Paul the Apostle, and Wormwood and Gall (a Midwest Book Award finalist) fictionalizes Mark, the author of the first gospel. Queer Clergy (a Minnesota Book Award finalist) recounts the struggle for queer…
Carter T. Meland
Carter Meland is a writer of Irish, Norwegian, and White Earth Anishinaabe heritage. He takes writing seriously, but tries to do so with good humor. By day he teaches students in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth about the wicked smart, moving, and profound things that Native writers have to say about the…
Steve McEllistrem
Steve McEllistrem has been a writer and editor for more than 25 years. He is the author of the Susquehanna Virus series (The Devereaux Dilemma, The Devereaux Disaster, The Devereaux Decision, and The Devereaux Deity) as well as the stand-alone novels, The Man Who Found His Moniker, Emerging Man, and Hound of God. He has…
Kathleen Novak
Kathleen Novak is a poet and writer who grew up on the iron mining range of northern Minnesota, the granddaughter of Italian and Croatian immigrants. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, she is the author of the highly praised novels Rare Birds, a NEMBA nominee released in 2017, and Do Not Find Me, which…
David Oppegaard
David Oppegaard is the author of Claw Heart Mountain, The Town Built on Sorrow, The Firebug of Balrog County, The Suicide Collectors, And the Hills Opened Up, and Wormwood, Nevada. He is also the author of the novella Breakneck Cove. Oppegaard’s work is a blend of horror, literary fiction, science fiction, and dark fantasy. He…
Kaethe Schwehn
Kaethe Schwehn is the author of the post-apocalyptic novel The Rending and the Nest, the poetry collection Tanka & Me, and a memoir, Tailings. Her poems and prose can be found in journals such as Crazyhorse, Pleiades, jubilat, Witness, Minnesota Review, and the anthology Fiction on a Stick. She has been the recipient of a…
Heather A. Slomski
Heather Slomski is the author of The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award and a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. She received her MFA from Western Michigan University and held the Axton Fellow in Fiction at the University of Louisville. A recipient of a Minnesota State Artist Initiative…
Sarah Stonich
Beginning with Vacationland, Stonich’s Northern Trilogy continued in September 2018 with the release of Laurentian Divide, winner of the Minnesota Book Award. Both have been chosen as community reads in a dozen cities. These Granite Islands was a Barnes & Noble Great New Writers pick with multiple translations, as was The Ice Chorus. Her Fishing…
Rachel L. Coyne
Rachel Coyne, a novelist and poet, is a graduate of the Perpich Center for Arts in Minnesota and Macalester College. She is a devotee of Pablo Neruda, a lover of Don Williams songs, and collects vintage editions of Jane Eyre. Her published works include the novels The Patron Saint of Lost Comfort Lake and Whiskey…
Beth Dooley
Beth Dooley has been writing about the Northern Heartland for over 20 years. She is the author of six books, including Minnesota Book Award finalist In Winter’s Kitchen. Her column, “Seasonal Kitchen,” appears weekly in the Star Tribune, and she contributes regularly to Minnesota Public Radio’s “Appetites.” Dooley is the co-author with Sean Sherman of…