Minnesota Nonfiction
Minnesota Nonfiction writers from Minnesota.
Gary Heyn
Gary Heyn is a former corporate executive who has refocused his research and analytic skills to genealogy, history, and writing with an emphasis on the former residents of the Grand Duchy of Posen. After two trips to the region, he was excited to find a wealth of documentation available and frustrated that the history of…
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:…
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…
Danny Spewak
Danny Spewak is a journalist, writer, and author with a decade of experience in local broadcast television, including stations in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Buffalo, NY, and mid-Missouri. His first book, From the Gridiron to the Battlefield: Minnesota’s March to a College Football Title and into World War II, was a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book…
Kim Heikkila
Kim Heikkila, Ph.D., is a historian who believes in the power of deep listening and artful storytelling to build bridges between the head and the heart. Her award-winning writing has been published in historical journals and literary magazines. Her most recent book, Booth Girls: Pregnancy, Adoption, and the Secrets We Kept, uses history, biography, memoir,…
Steve Cwodzinski
Steve Cwodzinski’s first book, Beyond the Lesson Plan, is a compilation of motivational stories based on his life experiences and his career as a high school American Government and American History teacher. Cwodzinski got the inspiration for his book from the 12,000 students he taught, and learned from, during his 33 year career. During his…
Kandice Kay Magnan
Kandice Magnan grew up on a small dairy farm in central Minnesota. Surviving domestic violence, raising her four young children as a single mother, and recognizing the destruction her own choices were causing, she discovered Jesus. Allowing Jesus to guide her decisions, she was able to experience a transformed life of victor instead of victim.…
Gary Kaunonen
Gary Kaunonen, Ph.D., is a historian of culture, labor, and immigration and a documentary filmmaker based in Willmar, Minnesota. His work includes the 2018 Hognander Minnesota History Award winner, Fanned Flames: A History of the 1916 Minnesota Iron Ore Strike, and two award-winning books about Michigan, Challenge Accepted: A Finnish Immigrant Response to Industrial America…
Staci Drouillard
Staci Lola Drouillard lives and works in her hometown of Grand Marais, Minnesota, on the North Shore of Lake Superior. A Grand Portage tribal descendant, she has degrees from the University of Minnesota. Her first book, Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe was awarded the Hamlin…