Literary Fiction
Literary Fiction writers from Minnesota.
Brian Duren
After retiring from a career in academe, Brian Duren launched a new career as an author of literary fiction. He writes novels with an introspective quality about nomadic characters who travel through time and space, always returning to what haunts them. His first novel, Whiteout, won the Independent Publisher Gold Medal for Midwestern Fiction. Peter…
Tashia Hart
Tashia Hart is an author, culinary ethnobotanist, artist, photographer, and cook. Her wild foods education started in the field and in the kitchen with a father who fishes, hunts, and harvests; a mom who cherishes plants, and a grandmother who was a career cook and baker. Hart has led foraging expeditions and developed recipes for…
Daniel J. Blackburn
Daniel Blackburn is an author, speaker, executive coach, and yoga therapist. He was an award-winning leader and executive in the natural foods industry for 28 years. Blackburn brings a wealth of experience to all aspects of his work. He grew up in the resort/restaurant industry, worked in the trades, served four years in the Marine…
Nigar Alam
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Nigar Alam spent her childhood in Turkey, Nigeria, Italy, Kenya, Indonesia, and the United States before returning to Karachi. With an MBA and CPA, she has worked in both brand management and auditing. Currently, Alam teaches at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and lives with her family in Minnesota.
Judith F. Brenner
Judith F. Brenner is an author and editor. Her debut novel, The Moments Between Dreams, won four awards, including the 2022 National Indie Excellence Award and 2023 IBPA’s Benjamin Franklin Fiction Silver Award. She’s a short story contributor to Minnesota Stories anthology. Brenner is the managing editor and publisher of Sharpeners Report. She instructs writing…
Teresa Wilhelm Waldof
Teresa Waldof is the world’s leading expert on the Ames Project section of the Manhattan Project. Her book, Wilhelm’s Way: The Inspiring Story of the Iowa Chemist Who Saved the Manhattan Project, was winner of the 2023 Minnesota Book Award for General Nonfiction. An expert in building collaborative, high-performance teams, Waldof is a dynamic speaker…
Alan Davis
Alan Davis’s So Bravely Vegetative won The Prize Americana for Fiction; Alone with the Owl and Rumors from the Lost World both won the Many Voices Project Competition. He co-edited Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan and 10 editions of American Fiction, received a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction, a…
Antonia Angress
Antonia Angress was born in Los Angeles and raised in San José, Costa Rica. She is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Minnesota MFA program, where she was a Winifred Fiction Fellow and a College of Liberal Arts Fellow. She lives in Minneapolis. Sirens & Muses is her first novel.
Kurt Johnson
Kurt Johnson, along with his daughter Ellie, wrote The Barrens, winner of the 2023 Minnesota Book Award for Novel and Short Story and a 2022 Great Group Reads selection. Johnson divides his time between Minneapolis and Ely, Minnesota.
Loren Niemi
Loren Niemi is a author/poet and professional storyteller whose life work has been creating, collecting, performing, teaching, and writing about what it means to be human. His collection of non-traditional “ghost” stories, What Haunts Us, won the 2020 Midwest Book Award for Sci-Fi/Horror/Fantasy/Paranormal fiction. His most recent book, A Breviary for the Lost, is a…