Memoir / Creative Nonfiction
Memoir and/or Creative Nonfiction writers from Minnesota.
Ayaan Adan
Ayaan Adan is a UX designer, organizer, and author of Daughters of Arraweelo: Stories of Somali Women. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota where she earned a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology. Her design philosophy centers a human-centered approach that values collaboration and quality. Adan is an avid writer and storyteller. She…
Maya Washington
Maya Washington is an award-winning multi-hyphenate artist: writer, poet, director, narrative and documentary filmmaker (writer/director/producer), actress, creative director, visualist (photography), and arts educator. Her award-winning film, Through the Banks of the Red Cedar, about her father, Vikings football legend Gene Washington, premiered on PBS in 2022. Her memoir, Through the Banks of the Red Cedar:…
Emma Nadler
Emma Nadler is an author, speaker, and psychotherapist. In her private practice, she helps people better understand and tolerate emotions, build deeper relationships, and find meaning in life’s challenges. She is passionate about transforming her own experiences as a parent of a child with disabilities into empathy, compassion, humor, and stories. Her memoir, The Unlikely…
Andrea Gilats
Andrea Gilats, Ph.D., is the author of two books published by the University of Minnesota Press, Radical Endurance: Growing Old in an Age of Longevity and After Effects: A Memoir of Complicated Grief, winner of an Honorable Mention from the Forward Indies 2023 Book Awards. She is also the author of Restoring Flexibility: A Yoga-Based…
Heidi Barr
Heidi Barr is a writer and wellness coach whose work is founded on a commitment to cultivating ways of being that are life-giving and sustainable for people, communities, and the planet. She is the author of two works of creative nonfiction: Woodland Manitou and What Comes Next; two poetry collections: Slouching toward Radiance and Cold…
Mairead Small Staid
Mairead Small Staid is the author of The Traces. Born and raised in Massachusetts, she is a graduate of Pomona College and the University of Michigan, where she won Hopwood Awards in poetry and nonfiction. She has received fellowships from MacDowell, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Phillips Exeter Academy, where she was the 2017-2018…
Jennifer Fernjack
Jennifer Fernjack is an author and keynote speaker. Raised in Cloquet, MN, she currently resides in Spring Park, MN. She received her B.A. degree from the University of Minnesota Duluth and an MBA from the University of St. Thomas. Through a medical scare in 2016, she learned that courage doesn’t need to be the absence…
Michael Tisserand
Michael Tisserand’s books include the Eisner Award-winning biography Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White, an exploration of the “Krazy Kat” cartoonist and his life on the American color line. Other books include the ASCAP-Deems Taylor-winning The Kingdom of Zydeco, the Hurricane Katrina memoir Sugarcane Academy, and My Father When Young, a self-published…
Ranae Lenor Hanson
In her writing, Ranae Lenor Hanson weaves a path through the landscapes and communities of Minnesota that have informed her life and vision. In northern Minnesota, she learned an earth-based ethic like that of the Ojibwe people on whose land she grew up. After earning a Ph.D. in cross-cultural education, she taught writing and global…
Amy Sullivan
Amy C. Sullivan, Ph.D., teaches women’s history, children’s history, and the history of medicine, especially where the intersection of race, class, and gender influence these histories. She uses oral history, narrative writing, digital projects, and a robust public history mindset in her scholarship. In her writing, she strives to connect narrators’ experiences in order to…