Nonfiction
Nonfiction writers from Minnesota.
Kao Kalia Yang
Kao Kalia Yang is an award-winning Hmong-American writer. She is the author of the memoirs: The Latehomecomer, The Song Poet, and Somewhere in the Unknown World. Her children’s books include: A Map Into the World, The Shared Room, and The Most Beautiful Thing. She co-edited the ground-breaking collection What God is Honored Here?: Writings on…
Virginia Wright-Peterson
Virginia Wright-Peterson specializes in revealing untold narratives, especially the hidden stories of women. Her most recent book, A Woman’s War, Too reveals the roles taken by women from Minnesota during WWII, when they served in all branches of the military, and in industry, the home, and the community. Their heroism has not been adequately recognized.…
Patricia Kirkpatrick
Patricia Kirkpatrick received the Lindquist & Vennum Poetry Prize for Odessa and was awarded a 2013 Minnesota Book Award. Her awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Bush Foundation, Jerome Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Loft, and Minnesota State Arts Board. She has taught writing at many colleges, including the University of…
Elizabeth Verdick
Elizabeth Verdick writes a mix of nonfiction and fiction for children. Her main reading audience is toddlers and preschoolers. She has also written nonfiction for elementary-age kids. Verdick is a graduate of Hamline University’s MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults, and she has taught picture-book writing classes and done manuscript critiques to…
Beth Dooley
Beth Dooley has been writing about the Northern Heartland for over 20 years. She is the author of six books, including Minnesota Book Award finalist In Winter’s Kitchen. Her column, “Seasonal Kitchen,” appears weekly in the Star Tribune, and she contributes regularly to Minnesota Public Radio’s “Appetites.” Dooley is the co-author with Sean Sherman of…
Jon Lurie
Jon Lurie is the author of the memoir Canoeing with José and coauthor, with Clyde Bellecourt, of The Thunder Before the Storm, a Minnesota Book Award finalist. Lurie has worked as a wilderness guide, a teen mentor at a Native American journalism program, and an editor at the Anchorage Press and The Rake. A graduate of…
Caren B. Stelson
Caren Stelson is a Minneapolis writer for children and young adults, with a passion for nonfiction. Her work explores stories that struggle with issues of war and peace. Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story is such a book, revealing the horrors of nuclear war and Sachiko Yasui’s long arc toward peace. Stelson visited Nagasaki, Japan…
Heid E. Erdrich
Heid E. Erdrich is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum for Archaic Media. Her non-fiction memoir-in-recipes, Original Local, was a 2014 City Pages Top Food Book. She co-edited the anthology of Native American women’s writings Sister Nations and is editor of New Poets of Native Nations.…
Gwen Nell Westerman
Gwen Westerman is an award-winning writer and visual artist who lives in southern Minnesota, as did her Dakota ancestors. Her roots are deep in the landscape of the tallgrass prairie and reveal themselves in her writing through the languages and traditions of her family. She is an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and…
Bruce White
Bruce White is a historian and anthropologist who lives in St. Paul. He writes books and articles on early Minnesota and Midwestern history. Through his company Turnstone Historical Research, he consults and does research for Indian tribes and government agencies. He testified in federal court in the landmark 1994 Mille Lacs treaty hunting and fishing…