Literary Fiction
Literary Fiction writers from Minnesota.
Mélina Mangal
Mélina Mangal’s work has been published by Milkweed Editions, Coffee House Press, W.W. Norton, and Carolina Wren Press. She is the author of five biographies for youth, including The Vast Wonder of the World: Biologist Ernest Everett Just, winner of the Carter G. Woodson Award. Her latest book, Jayden’s Impossible Garden, won the first Strive/Free…
Raki Kopernik
Raki Kopernik is a first generation American, queer, Jewish writer. She is the author of The Things You Left and The Memory House, both Minnesota Book Award finalists, and The Other Body chapbook. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and has been shortlisted and nominated for several other awards, including the Pushcart Prize for…
Nancy Hedin
Nancy J. Hedin completed her MFA at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her novel, Bend was named Debut Novel of the Year by the Golden Crown Literary Society and one of twenty-five books to read for Pride month by Barnes and Noble. Her second novel, Stray was released in 2019 and was a finalist…
Forrest Peterson
Forrest Peterson is the author of three novels, most recently The Swineherd’s Angel. He received a B.A. in history from Bethel University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and a M.A. in journalism and mass communication from the University of Minnesota. He was a newspaper reporter and editor for 20 years and state of Minnesota public information…
Terry Hokenson
Terry Hokenson grew up in southeast Texas and central Minnesota and worked as a carpenter and an attorney. An avid year-round camper, he lives in Minneapolis and is active in the Minneapolis Friends Meeting (Quaker). He has one grown daughter.
Judy McConnell
Judy McConnell’s writing career took off after retirement at age 70. Since then she has published three books: two memoirs about growing up in Minneapolis in the forties and fifties and a novel that depicts the rise of the local feminist movement during the national upheaval of the sixties and seventies. Her novel has been…
Tracy Youngblom
Tracy Youngblom has been living and writing in the Twin Cities for 30 years. She earned an M.A. in English from the University of St. Thomas and an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College. She has published widely in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction; individual poems, stories, and essays have appeared in journals such as…
Gene Stark
Gene Stark writes fiction, non-fiction, historical fiction, poetry, and has written a children’s book. His writing is local, rural, and outdoors-oriented. Minnesota and local interest predominate his writing. Stark’s audience is comprised of the folks who live and work in Flyover Country. He has been a teacher, farmer, and a grower and propagator of native…
Carol Masters
Carol Masters is the author of Dear Descendent, poems; the biography You Can’t Do That: Mary Davidov, Nonviolent Revolutionary (finalist for the 2010 Midwest Independent Publishers Award), and The Peace Terrorist, short stories (1994 winner of MN Voices Project). She has been part of a Loft Mentor series and a Loft-McKnight winner. Her poems and…
Barton Sutter
Bart Sutter is the only writer to win the Minnesota Book Award in three different categories: poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. Among other honors, he has won a Bush Foundation Fellowship, a Jerome Foundation Travel & Study Grant (Sweden), a Loft-McKnight Award, and the Bassine Citation from the Academy of American Poets. In 2006, he…