Nonfiction
Nonfiction writers from Minnesota.
Sally Franson
Sally Franson is the author of A Lady’s Guide to Selling Out, named a “New and Notable” by Entertainment Weekly and shortlisted for a Minnesota Book Award. Her short stories, essays, reportage, and humor pieces have appeared in The Guardian, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Best American Travel Writing, PopSugar, The Progressive, Signature Reads, Word Riot, Witness, and…
Frank Bures
Frank Bures is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in Harper’s, The Atlantic, Outside, and other publications. He is the author of Pushing the River: An Epic Battle, a Lost History, a Near Death, and Other True Canoeing Stories and The Geography of Madness, which was selected by Newsweek as one of the best…
Ryan Berg
Ryan Berg is a writer, activist, and teaching artist at the Shipman Agency’s Work Room. His debut book, No House to Call My Home: Love, Family and Other Transgressions, won the 2016 Minnesota Book Award for General Nonfiction, the 2016 NCCD Media for a Just Society Award, and was listed as a Top 10 LGBTQ…
Karen Babine
Karen Babine is the author of All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer and Water and What We Know: Following the Roots of a Northern Life, both winners of the Minnesota Book Award for Memoir/Creative Nonfiction. She also edits Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction…
James Dawes
James Dawes is the author of The Novel of Human Rights; Evil Men, winner of the International Human Rights Book Award; That the World May Know: Bearing Witness to Atrocity, Independent Publisher Book Award Finalist; and The Language of War. He has written for or appeared as the feature guest on media outlets ranging from…
Jack El-Hai
Jack El-Hai, a writer of literary nonfiction and creative nonfiction, covers long-lost history — frequently the history of science, medicine, and crime. He leads workshops and gives presentations on research and writing techniques, the craft of creative nonfiction, and freelance writing as a career. A winner of two Minnesota Book Awards, El-Hai holds an MFA…
Tony Dierckins
Tony Dierckins, Duluth author and Saint Paul native, has written or co-written more than two dozen books. His regional history books include Crossing the Canal: An Illustrated History of Duluth’s Aerial Bridge and Lost Duluth: Landmarks, Industries, Buildings, Homes, and the Neighborhoods in Which They Stood (both finalists for the Minnesota Book Award). His work…
Thomas Fisher
Thomas Fisher is a Professor in the School of Architecture, Director of the Minnesota Design Center, and former Dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota. A graduate of Cornell University in architecture and Case Western Reserve University in intellectual history, he was the Editorial Director of Progressive Architecture magazine and was…
Shannon Gibney
Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, activist, and the author of See No Color, a young adult novel that won the 2016 Minnesota Book Award in Young Peoples’ Literature. Gibney is faculty in English at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, where she teaches critical and creative writing, journalism, and African Diasporic topics. A Bush Artist…
Cary J. Griffith
Cary Griffith was born and raised in the rampant verdure of the Upper Midwest and spent many hours wading the clear waters of Indian Creek. During his sophomore year in college he read Hemingway’s short story “Big Two-Hearted River” and was spellbound by Nick’s camping trip and fly fishing the Big Two-Hearted. The experience led…