Nonfiction
Nonfiction writers from Minnesota.
Aimée Bissonette
Aimée Bissonette was born in Pennsylvania, the sixth of seven children. Growing up, she moved many times (she attended eight different schools before graduating from high school!), which led to a love of travel and storytelling. Bissonette loves dogs, sports, history, and anything outdoors. Her picture books include North Woods Girl, Miss Colfax’s Light, and…
Steve Buechler
Steve Buechler had a 31-year career as a professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where he taught sociology and published on women’s movements, critical sociology, and social movement theory. On the eve of his retirement, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. He was successfully treated with chemotherapy, radiation, and a double cord blood stem…
John Coy
John Coy is the author of young adult novels, the 4 for 4 middle-grade series, and nonfiction and fiction picture books including Night Driving, Two Old Potatoes and Me, Hoop Genius, Game Changer, Their Great Gift, and My Mighty Journey: A Waterfall’s Story. He has received numerous awards for his work including a Marion Vannett…
David Mura
David Mura is a poet, memoirist, essayist, novelist, and playwright. He’s written two memoirs, Where the Body Meets Memory and Turning Japanese, which won the Oakland PEN Josephine Miles Book Award and was a New York Times Notable Book. His novel, Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire, was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award,…
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…