Featured Writers
Varla Ventura
Varla Ventura is an author, traveler, rotten botanist, and lover of the strange. She has written several books on bizarre and freaky things, from paranormal women’s history to werewolves and banshees to plants that smell like death. She is a committed supernaturalist, folklorist, and seeker of those shadowy things that…
Keenan Jones
Keenan Jones, an author in Plymouth, Minnesota, grew up in Gary, Indiana and south suburban Chicago. Coming from a family of educators, pastors, athletes, and musicians, he shifted to education after a college basketball injury, working as an elementary teacher before returning to writing. Jones believes literacy can inspire youth…
Paula Cisewski
Paula Cisewski’s fourth poetry collection, Quitter, won the Diode Editions Book Prize. She is also the author of The Threatened Everything, Ghost Fargo (Nightboat Poetry Prize winner, selected by Franz Wright), Upon Arrival, and several chapbooks, including the lyric prose Misplaced Sinister. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from…
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Virginia Wright-Peterson
Virginia Wright-Peterson specializes in revealing untold narratives, especially the hidden stories of women. Her 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. Her first…
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…
Cathy Wurzer
Cathy Wurzer is one of Minnesota’s most recognizable broadcast journalists who has spent her career behind a microphone and in front of television cameras with time carved out to write books and produce documentaries. A multiple Emmy Award winning journalist, Wurzer is the co-host of “Almanac” on Twin Cities Public Television. On weekdays, she is…
신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin
신 선 영 辛善英 Sun Yung Shin’s third book of poetry Unbearable Splendor won the 2017 Minnesota Book Award for poetry. She is the Korean-born author of four books of poetry including most recently The Wet Hex in 2022 and is the editor of three acclaimed anthologies of essays including A Good Time for the…
Mike Wohnoutka
Mike Wohnoutka is the author and illustrator of Little Puppy and the Big Green Monster and Dad’s First Day, both Minnesota Book Award finalists. He has illustrated more than 20 other children’s books, including Moo! winner of the 2014 Minnesota Book Award and the Star of the North Picture Book Award. Ever since he can…
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…
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…
Julie Gard
Julie Gard’s prose poetry collections include Scrap: On Louise Nevelson and Home Studies, which was a finalist for a 2016 Minnesota Book Award. Her chapbooks are Obscura: The Daguerreotype Series and Russia in 17 Objects. Gard’s poems, stories, and essays have appeared in Gertrude, Fourth River, Clackamas Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, Ekphrasis, and Blackbox…
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.) We will contact you after we’ve reviewed your application.
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 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. (Street addresses will not be listed.)
- You must meet the Eligibility Criteria. Before applying, read the Eligibility Criteria to see if you are eligible for listing. You will be accepted at the discretion of the Minnesota Center for the Book.