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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Thomas Maltman
Thomas Maltman’s essays, poetry, and fiction have been published in many literary journals. He has an MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato. His first novel, The Night Birds, won an Alex Award, a Spur Award, and the Friends of American Writers Literary Award. In 2009 the American Library Association chose The Night Birds as an…
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…
Dore Kiesselbach
Dore Kiesselbach earned his B.A. from Oberlin College, MFA from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and J.D. from New York University. He has published two collections of poetry – Albatross and Salt Pier. His work has appeared in many magazines including FIELD, Poetry, AGNI, and The Poetry Review. His honors include the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize,…
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…
Stephanie Wilbur Ash
Stephanie Wilbur Ash is the author of The Annie Year, a novel about a rural woman CPA who has an extra-marital affair with the new vocational teacher in town. A former editor at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Ash was one of the literary/musical comedians behind the Lit 6 Project (loud, drunken, funny, connected stories told in Midwest…
Kelly Barnhill
Kelly Barnhill is the author of four novels, most recently The Girl Who Drank the Moon, winner of the Newbery Medal. The Witch’s Boy received four starred reviews and was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Awards. Barnhill has been awarded writing fellowships from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and The McKnight…
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.…
Pamela Carter Joern
Pamela Carter Joern is an award-winning author of three books and numerous journal publications. In Reach won the 2015 Nebraska Book Award for Fiction (short story) and was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. The Plain Sense of Things was a Midwestern Booksellers Association Connections Pick, and The Floor of the Sky received a…
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.