Minnesota

WRITERS

DIRECTORY

Featured Writers

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…

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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,…

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Ty Chapman

Ty Chapman is the author of Sarah Rising, Looking For Happy, and A Door Made for Me (written with Tyler Merritt). Chapman’s forthcoming publications include multiple children’s books and a poetry collection through Button Poetry. He was a 2022 Center for Arts + Social Justice Fellow – an award that…

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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…

Nonfiction
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Atina Diffley

Atina Diffley is an organic farmer-educator and author of the 2012 award-winning memoir, Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works. From 1985 to 2008, she and her husband Martin ran an urban-edge, organic vegetable farm. In 1989, the 5th-generation Diffley family land was lost to suburban development. They started over on new land, but faced…

Memoir/Creative Nonfiction
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Allen Eskens

Allen Eskens is the bestselling author of The Life We Bury, The Guise of Another, The Heavens May Fall, The Deep Dark Descending, and The Shadows We Hide. He is the recipient of the Barry Award, Minnesota Book Award, Rosebud Award (Left Coast Crime), and Silver Falchion Award and has been a finalist for the…

Literary Fiction - Mystery/Thriller
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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…

Memoir/Creative Nonfiction - Nonfiction
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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…

Nonfiction
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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…

Literary Fiction - Memoir/Creative Nonfiction - Nonfiction - Young Adult
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Peter Geye

Peter Geye is the author of four novels – Northernmost, Safe from the Sea, The Lighthouse Road, which was a World Book Night selection, and Wintering, which won the Minnesota Book Award and was a Midwest Booksellers Choice award winner. He holds an MFA from the University of New Orleans and a Ph.D. from Western Michigan…

Literary Fiction
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Brian Freeman

Brian Freeman is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 20 psychological thrillers, including the Duluth-based Jonathan Stride series. His novel Spilled Blood won the award for Best Hardcover Novel in the Thriller Awards, and his Midwestern mystery The Deep, Deep Snow was a 2021 Minnesota Book Award winner and…

Mystery/Thriller

The Minnesota Writers Directory is a project of The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library as the Minnesota Center for the Book. The Library of Congress designated The Friends as Minnesota’s Center in 2012, and in that role The Friends promotes reading, literacy, and libraries throughout Minnesota. Learn more >>

How To Get Listed on the Directory

Thanks for your interest! If you live in Minnesota and you meet the Directory Eligibility Criteria, you can apply to be listed. (Before applying, read the Eligibility Criteria to see if you are eligible for listing.) We will contact you after we’ve reviewed your application.

Criteria for all applicants

  • You must live and work in Minnesota. If you live in Minnesota for part of the year, outline your availability in your application. You will be accepted at the discretion of the Minnesota Center for the Book.
  • You must provide an email address for your profile. (This will not be listed on the website, but it will be used to create a unique contact form linked to your email address.)
  • Your county will be listed in the directory. (Addresses will not be listed.)

Review Eligibility Criteria

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