Nonfiction

Nonfiction writers from Minnesota.

Monica Liu, Professor of Justice & Society Studies, stands for a portrait outside on the St. Paul campus on August 16, 2022.

Monica Liu

Monica Liu received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California – San Diego. She is currently Assistant Professor of Justice and Society Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Her work examines global internet dating and cross-border marriages between women from China and men from Western countries. Her research has been…

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Teresa Wilhelm Waldof

Teresa Waldof is the world’s leading expert on the Ames Project section of the Manhattan Project. Her book, Wilhelm’s Way: The Inspiring Story of the Iowa Chemist Who Saved the Manhattan Project, was winner of the 2023 Minnesota Book Award for General Nonfiction. An expert in building collaborative, high-performance teams, Waldof is a dynamic speaker…

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Allison Blevins

Allison Blevins is a queer disabled writer and the author of Cataloguing Pain; Handbook for the Newly Disabled, A Lyric Memoir; and Slowly/Suddenly. She is also the author of the chapbooks Chorus for the Kill, Susurration, Letters to Joan, and A Season for Speaking, part of the Robin Becker Series. Blevins is the Founder and…

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Ayaan Adan

Ayaan Adan is a UX designer, organizer, and author of Daughters of Arraweelo: Stories of Somali Women. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota where she earned a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology. Her design philosophy centers a human-centered approach that values collaboration and quality. Adan is an avid writer and storyteller. She…

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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:…

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Holly Day

Holly Day has worked as a freelance writer for over 30 years, with more than 7,000 published articles, poems, and short stories and 40 books and chapbooks, including the nonfiction books Music Theory for Dummies, Music Composition for Dummies, Walking Twin Cities, Stillwater Minnesota: A Brief History, and History Lover’s Guide to Minneapolis. Her work…

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Karen Latchana Kenney

Karen Latchana Kenney is an Indian-Irish author and editor, born near the equator in Guyana, and raised far north in Minnesota. She’s lived in New Amsterdam, Toronto, Minneapolis, Dublin, Maynooth, Oregon, and Rhode Island, and visited many more places on far-flung adventures. She first got lost in books as a child and hoped one day…

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Loren Niemi

Loren Niemi is a author/poet and professional storyteller whose life work has been creating, collecting, performing, teaching, and writing about what it means to be human. His collection of non-traditional “ghost” stories, What Haunts Us, won the 2020 Midwest Book Award for Sci-Fi/Horror/Fantasy/Paranormal fiction. His most recent book, A Breviary for the Lost, is a…

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Lee Ann Landstrom

Lee Ann Landstrom has been an interpretive naturalist and environmental educator since 1980. She is retired from the directorship (27-years) of Eastman Nature Center with the Three Rivers Park District. She was also a youth class instructor at the Science Museum of Minnesota in Saint Paul for nearly 20 years. Landstrom has a B.A. in…

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Heidi Barr

Heidi Barr is a writer and wellness coach whose work is founded on a commitment to cultivating ways of being that are life-giving and sustainable for people, communities, and the planet. She is the author of two works of creative nonfiction: Woodland Manitou and What Comes Next; two poetry collections: Slouching toward Radiance and Cold…