Nonfiction

Nonfiction writers from Minnesota.

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Joe Friedrichs

Journalist and writer Joe Friedrichs lives near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. His books, Last Entry Point: Stories of Danger and Death in the Boundary Waters and Her Island: The Story of Quetico’s Longest Serving Interior Ranger, focus on in-depth storytelling from the canoe-country wilderness. An environmental and outdoor writer, he…

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Pamela Hill Nettleton

Pamela Hill Nettleton is an award-winning writer, editor, playwright, and author. She holds a doctorate in communication and women’s studies and teaches at the University of St. Thomas. Nettleton has 26 books in publication including a biography of Shakespeare and Students Write the Darnedest Things. More than 300 of her essays and features have appeared…

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Nate Patrin

Nate Patrin is a St. Paul resident and cultural critic specializing in popular music. Since the late 1990s, his work has appeared in sites and publications including Pitchfork, Stereogum, Spin, Red Bull Music Academy, The Shfl, and City Pages. He is the author of two books: Bring That Beat Back: How Sampling Built Hip-Hop and…

Captured at Project for Pride in Living on 25 Oct, 2022 by Alex Carroll Photography.

Emily Strasser

Emily Strasser’s first book, Half-Life of a Secret, is a deeply researched memoir that traces her journey to reckon with the toxic legacies of her grandfather’s work building nuclear weapons in the atomic city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Strasser’s work has appeared in Catapult, Ploughshares, Guernica, Colorado Review, The Bitter Southerner, Bulletin of the Atomic…

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Pete Kero

Pete Kero is an author, speaker, and environmental engineer. His work focuses on the intersection of people, industry, and the environment. Kero was the visionary behind the award-winning Redhead Mountain Bike Park in Chisholm, Minnesota which has been featured in Outside magazine and the nation-wide documentary film Biketown. His book, Minescapes: Reclaiming Minnesota’s Mined Lands,…

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Mary K. Tennis

After a childhood marked by culinary curiosity and travel, Mary Tennis began writing about food in 2001 as a regular columnist in Duluth’s Ripsaw newspaper. Exploring local restaurants and food personalities, Tennis honed a creative voice and a conversational tone over the course of several years. She has also written and performed poetry, musician bios,…

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Jody Lulich

Jody Lulich is a professor of veterinary internal medicine at the University of Minnesota. He is a renowned educator and clinician, has published over 400 scientific manuscripts, and was contributing editor for four medical books. Lulich was winner of the 2015-16 Loft Mentor Series in creative nonfiction. His book, In the Company of Grace: a…

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John Rosengren

John Rosengren is a freelance journalist and Pulitzer nominee who’s written for The Atlantic, GQ, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, and The Washington Post Magazine, among others. He’s authored 10 books, including Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes, the definitive biography of the Jewish Hall of Famer, and the novel A Clean Heart. His work…

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Mary Jo Hoffman

Mary Jo Hoffman is an artist and photographer known for her work in capturing the beauty of nature. She is recognized for her project titled “STILL,” where she photographed various elements of nature on a daily basis. This project often involved close-up images of flowers, plants, and other natural objects, showcasing the intricate details of…

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Ben Orlin

Ben Orlin has written four books, including Math with Bad Drawings and Math for English Majors. He describes himself as a “professional apologist for mathematics,” the word “apologist” holding both in the classical sense (an advocate for a worldview) and in the modern sense (someone doing PR for a widely despised client). His writing and…