Friday, October 18, 2024
Opening Night Reception
Saturday, October 19, 2024
BOOK FAIR
YOUTH & COMICS STAGE
Time
Event
10:05 am
Start your day at the TCBF with a celebration of four new children’s picture books! In Goat’s Boat Won’t Float, Kim A. Larson delivers a laugh-out-loud story about a friendship of opposites between a goat and turkey. Cozy up with the busy animals of Acorn Village in A Cozy Winter Day, a new book written and illustrated by Eliza Wheeler. I Hear a Búho by Raquel MacKay is a rhyming story (with text in English and Spanish!) that explores the benefits of being still and listening. And Shannon Gibney’s new book, We Miss You, George Floyd, tells the story of a girl in Minneapolis who makes art about protest and resistance after hearing of an unfolding tragedy in her neighborhood. This showcase is ideal for kids ages 4-8 but parents, we’ve got Stroller Parking ready for you if you’re bringing younger kids too!
Shannon Gibney is an award-winning author of books of all kinds—from novels to anthologies to essays to picture books—but the through-line in all her work is telling stories that may have previously gone untold. A Bush Artist and McKnight Writing Fellow, Gibney teaches at Minneapolis College, where she was named Educator of the Year in 2023. She lives with her two children in Minneapolis.
Kim A. Larson writes in a variety of genres for the youngest to the oldest of readers, and besides her debut picture book, Goat’s Boat Won’t Float, has published poems and short stories in regional anthologies. When she’s not writing, you may find Kim working in her garden or playing Sequence with her husband.
Raquel MacKay resides in Iowa City, Iowa, and teaches English-language learners from many cultural backgrounds. She also teaches Spanish at a little school that she started for young kids in her community, La Escuelita.
Eliza Wheeler grew up in the northwoods of Wisconsin, has lived beside the hills of Los Angeles, and now resides near a lake in Minneapolis. She is the author-illustrator of three picture books including the New York Times bestseller Miss Maple’s Seeds, and the illustrator of many more, including the Newbery Honor book Doll Bones by Holly Black. She has received numerous awards for her work, including a Sendak Fellowship Award.
10:45 am
Join children’s book creators Ty Chapman, John Coy, and Chris Park for a tour through the magic of picture book collaboration! You’ll see how Ty and John worked together to write the new picture book biography Stokes: The Brief Career of the NBA’s First Black Superstar, and how Chris illustrated John’s story So Cold!, which makes its public debut at the Twin Cities Book Festival. Don’t be surprised to hear about another book Chris illustrated, Touch the Sky, and another one that John wrote, The Secret of Fall—both of which were published earlier this year.
Ty Chapman is the author of several children’s books, including Sarah Rising, and the recent poetry collection Tartarus; with Ari Tison he edited the poetry anthology All Power to the People (another collaboration!). He was recently named a Cave Canem fellow and holds an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
John Coy is the author of numerous books for children, from littles to teens. He has received many honors for his work, including a Marion Vannett Ridgway Award for best debut picture book, a Charlotte Zolotow Honor, the Burr/Warzalla Award for Distinguished Achievement in Children’s Literature, and the Kerlan Award. John lives by the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.
Chris Park co-authored and illustrated his debut picture book, Little Sock, and its sequel, Little Sock Makes a Friend. He lives in Minnesota and loves spending time being a goofy dad with his two boys, skateboarding around the neighborhood during the day, and going for peaceful walks in the middle of the night.
11:30 am
Join authors Heather Murphy Capps, Erin Soderberg Downing, and Pete Hautman as they discuss themes of resilience and overcoming obstacles in their latest middle-grade novels. Through the journeys of their young protagonists—a kid who doesn’t fit in at school learning to stand up for himself with the help of his dog, a daughter going on a challenging hiking trip with her mom to heal after family upheaval, and a young baseball player navigating racial tensions on and off the field—these books reveal the courage it takes to confront personal, family, and social challenges and rise above them.
Heather Murphy Capps is an award-winning author of middle-grade books about history, social justice, science, and magic. As a biracial parent and an education equity activist, Heather is passionate about creating diversity in publishing. Her critically acclaimed debut novel Indigo and Ida made Booklist’s 2023 “Top 10 First Novels for Youth,” and was a finalist in the Jane Addams 2024 Children’s Book Awards; her latest book, The Rule of Three, is headed for similar acclaim, with a starred review in School Library Journal saying, “This book belongs in all middle school libraries.” A native Minnesotan, Heather now lives in Virginia. https://heathermurphycapps.com/
Erin Soderberg Downing has written more than 50 books for kids, tweens, and young adults, including several popular series for young readers: The Great Peach Experiment, Puppy Pirates, and The Quirks. Her bestselling middle grade novel Controlled Burn, a 2023 Northeastern Minnesota Book Award winner, is now joined by another heartfelt tale of family adventure, Just Keep Walking. Erin loves reading, swimming, exploring the woods, traveling with her family, and walking around Minneapolis lakes with her fluffy and mischievous dogs, Wally and Nutmeg. https://www.erinsoderberg.com/
Pete Hautman is the author of many books for young adults and adults, including the National Book Award–winning Godless, the Klaatu Diskos trilogy, Otherwood, winner of an Edgar Award, and Eden West. His just released book Answers to Dog, will have animal lovers cheering as it explores a friendship like no other and offers a realistic look at rural life, even as it sometimes tells its story from a dog’s perspective. Pete divides his time between Wisconsin and Minnesota. http://www.petehautman.com/
12:15 pm
This year’s TCBF keynote features award-winning author Kao Kalia Yang discussing her banner year of not one, not two, not three, but FOUR new books in 2024, each of which offers a unique exploration of family, community, and the Hmong American experience. With books for young, middle grade, and adult readers in the mix, Yang’s profound storytelling is sure to resonate with festivalgoers of all ages. Join us for a riveting talk with one of Minnesota’s most cherished authors!
Kao Kalia Yang, a Hmong American writer, broke onto the literary scene with her 2005 memoir The Latehomecomer. Since then, her work has earned numerous honors, including a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship, an Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and four Minnesota Book Awards. Yang lives in Minnesota with her family and teaches and speaks across the nation. Yang’s four books released in 2024 are The Diamond Explorer, her first middle grade novel; Where Rivers Part, a memoir of her mother; and two picture books, Caged and The Rock in My Throat.
1:15 pm
Join four amazing Minnesota authors as they present their new novels for middle grade readers! Juliana Brandt and Nina Hamza will keep you on the edge of your seat with gripping stories, one a horror tale about an abandoned manor, the other a whodunit about a TP’d house. Abby Cooper and Alison McGhee bring heartfelt tales of growing up that highlight the challenges and rewards of childhood, weaving in themes of friendship, loss, and navigating difficult emotions. Don’t miss this lineup of thrilling and thought-provoking novels. (Ages 8 and up)
Juliana Brandt is an author and kindergarten teacher with a passion for storytelling that guides her in both of her jobs. She lives in her home state of Minnesota, and her writing is heavily influenced by travels around the country and a decade living in the south. When not working, she is usually exploring the great outdoors. Her middle grade novels include The Wolf of Cape Fen, A Wilder Magic, Monsters in the Mist, and her newest, Exit Nowhere.
Abby Cooper lives in Minnesota with her husband, son, and miniature poodle. A former teacher and school librarian, her favorite things in the world (besides writing) are getting and giving book recommendations and sharing her love of reading with others. Before her latest book, True Colors, she published three other middle grade novels: Friend or Fiction, Sticks & Stones (a Minnesota Book Award finalist), and Bubbles.
Nina Hamza is a writer and physician who lives in Minnesota but grew up in South India and Saudi Arabia; she struggles with math, calculating time zones, and parking. She is the author of the acclaimed debut Ahmed Aziz's Epic Year and now Samira’s (Worst) Best Summer. Her favorite part of being a writer has been meeting kids who learned something from her books that she hadn't even intended.
Alison McGhee writes books for all ages in all forms, from novels to poems to picture books to memoir. Her most popular books include the novel Shadow Baby, a Today Show Book Club pick and Pulitzer Prize nominee; the Geisel Award winner Bink and Gollie (co-written with Kate DiCamillo); and the #1 New York Times bestselling picture book Someday. Her work has been translated into more than 20 languages and has won many fellowships and awards, and she has taught creative writing at Metropolitan State University, Vermont College, and Hamline University’s MFA program.
2:15 pm
Join illustrator Becca Farrow and author-illustrator Christopher Lincoln as they present their new graphic novels for middle-grade readers! In First Test: Protector of the Small, an adaptation of the bestselling fantasy novel by Tamora Pierce which Becca Farrow illustrated, a young girl fights against all odds to train to become a knight. Meanwhile, Christopher Lincoln’s The Night Librarian follows a pair of twins who discover a secret, magical world inside the New York Public Library, where characters from classic books can come to life. Perfect for both fantasy and graphic novel enthusiasts, this session will explore the creation of these imaginative worlds and the unique power of graphic novels to tell magical stories. (Ages 8 to 12)
Becca Farrow graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire with a BFA in illustration. She has done freelance work for several large companies including BOOM! Studios, Valiant Entertainment, IDW Publishing, Lion Forge and Marvel Entertainment.
Christopher Lincoln is the author of the Billy Bones series. He graduated from the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University and spent nearly a decade working as an animator, which he credits for teaching him how to write, because animators must move a character's body in a world of its own.
3:00 pm
YA readers, join us for this year's Young Adult Showcase, where four terrific authors will present their latest books for teens! You’ll hear about Dead Girls Talking, Megan Cooley Peterson's true-crime-inspired thriller; Freeman Ng’s Bridge Across the Sky, a historical novel-in-verse that follows a Chinese teen immigrating to the U.S. a hundred years ago; Chloe Spencer's Haunting Melody, a paranormal mystery-romance with themes of mental health and PTSD; and Anton Treuer’s Where Wolves Don’t Die, which follows a young Ojibwe boy as he grapples with identity, family loyalty, and longing for home.
Freeman Ng is a former Google software engineer who is now a full-time writer. Though he lived most of his life a twenty-minute ferry ride from Angel Island and his father entered the country through a process similar to the one described in Bridge Across the Sky (except through Seattle), he never thought about the station and its history until he heard about the poems on the walls—then he knew he had to write about them, and that this story had to be told in verse.
Megan Cooley Peterson is an author, editor, and coffee drinker. As a teenager, Megan was part of a cult-like doomsday church that didn’t like to be questioned, but she questioned anyway. She has written numerous nonfiction books for children on a wide variety of topics, including dinosaurs, sharks, urban legends, and haunted objects. She is also the author of two young adult thrillers, The Liar’s Daughter and now Dead Girls Talking. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and daughter.
Chloe Spencer is an award winning writer, indie game developer, and filmmaker. She is the author of two previous novels, Monstersona and Duality, and many shorter works of fiction. In her spare time she enjoys playing video games, trying her best at Pilates, and cuddling with her cats. She holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Oregon and an MFA in Film and Television from SCAD Atlanta.
Dr. Anton Treuer (pronounced troy-er) is Professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University and the renowned author of many books. His professional work in education, history, and Indigenous studies and long service as an officiant at Ojibwe tribal ceremonies have made him a consummate storyteller in the Ojibwe cultural tradition and a well-known public speaker. In 2018, he was named Guardian of Culture and Lifeways and recipient of the Pathfinder Award by the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums. Anton Treuer’s s first book for young adults, Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask (Young Readers Edition), won the SCBWI Golden Kite. Where Wolves Don’t Die is his first novel.
4:00 pm
Join graphic novelists Özge Samanci and Christi Furnas as they discuss their new books, which draw on personal experience to create compelling works that resonate as well as educate. In Evil Eyes Sea, Samanci tells a story of political intrigue and corruption in 1990s Turkey through the eyes of two students. Meanwhile, Christi Furnas’s Crazy Like a Fox: Adventures in Schizophrenia chronicles the complexities of navigating life with invisible struggles with a fantastical cast of animal characters. Don’t miss this engaging conversation on the power of the graphic novel format to tell stories that resonate on both intimate and universal levels. (Ages teen and up)
Christi Furnas is a queer cartoonist, illustrator, oil painter, and disability rights advocate. She has exhibited in galleries across Minnesota and in New York City, and her career includes over ten years of arts administration, teaching art workshops, and numerous speaking engagements. She lives with her partner in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Crazy Like a Fox: Adventures in Schizophrenia is her debut graphic novel.
Özge Samanci is a media artist, graphic novelist, and Associate Professor at Northwestern University. She received her Ph.D. in Digital Media from Georgia Institute of Technology; in 2017, she received the Berlin Prize, and was the Holtzbrinck Visual Arts Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.
TALKS STAGE
10:15 am
Learn how to deploy your greatest asset—yourself—as global communications strategist Maha Abouelenein rolls out 7 Rules of Self-Reliance! At this special TCBF event, Maha will discuss the book with Minnesota media personalities Kendall Mark and Brittany Arneson; their talk will range from personal anecdotes, professional encounters, and cultivating a growth mindset to achieve your dreams. Whether you're launching a business, pivoting in your career, or seeking personal fulfillment, this inspiring event is sure to help equip you with tools to thrive. Attendees will receive a free copy of Maha’s “Networking Guide for Introverts” as a bonus, while supplies last!
Maha Abouelenein, an American Egyptian with over three decades of experience in global communications, is an expert on personal branding, reputation management, and the transformational power of storytelling. A sought-after strategist and speaker, she has advised individuals and governments, start-ups and global corporate giants, and held leadership positions at Google and General Mills before becoming an entrepreneur. Maha is on the global board of directors of the Associated Press and hosts the Savvy Talk podcast. To learn more, visit digitalandsavvy.com.
11:00 am
Join us for a special launch event with Naomi Cohn, author of the newly published The Braille Encyclopedia: Brief Essays on Altered Sight, a poignant meditation on progressive vision loss and a stunning debut memoir. Through personal vignettes, historical insights, and scientific research, Cohn recounts her journey of navigating a life transformed by altered sight in micro-essays and prose poems, inviting readers to reflect on how society views disability—as well as on the possibilities of language, history, and lyric.
Naomi Cohn, a writer and artist whose work explores reclamation, is a 2023 McKnight Artist Fellow in Writing. Her past includes a childhood among Chicago academics, involvement in a guerrilla feminist art collective, and work as an encyclopedia copyeditor, community organizer, grant writer, fundraising consultant, and therapist. Raised in Chicago, she now lives on unceded Dakota territory in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
11:45 am
Join us for a first look at The Philosophy of Translation by award-winning translator and author Damion Searls. With decades of experience translating over sixty books from multiple languages, Searls offers a fresh look at the practice in his new book; drawing on a wealth of specific examples, he connects the granular work of literary translation—navigating rhythm, cultural nuances, and more—with larger questions about reading and perception. This talk will appeal to anyone fascinated by the beauty and complexity of language, and to everyone who is grateful for the essential work that translators do.
Damion Searls is a prominent translator of literature from German, Norwegian, French, and Dutch into English. His over sixty translated books include the works of Norway’s Jon Fosse, who won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as classic works by Nietzsche, Rilke, Proust, Hesse, and Thomas Mann; literary treasures by writers such as Elfriede Jelinek, Patrick Modiano and Christa Wolf; and lesser-known authors such Victoria Kielland, Saša Stanišić, and Uwe Johnson. His newest translations are Overstaying, a debut novel by Swiss playwright and visual artist Ariane Koch, and a bold new translation of Wittgenstein’s famed Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. His own writing includes works of fiction, poetry, and the acclaimed 2017 nonfiction title The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, and The Power of Seeing.
12:30 pm
Join us for a conversation with Bruna Dantas Lobato, who won the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature, as she presents her debut novel, Blue Light Hours. In this atmospheric and poignant work, adapted from a story originally published in The New Yorker, a young Brazilian woman navigates her first year in the U.S. while maintaining a fragile bond with her mother back home through the confines of video calls. Set between the contrasting worlds of a Vermont college dorm and a Brazilian apartment, Blue Light Hours explores themes of distance, care, and new beginnings.
Bruna Dantas Lobato (pronunciation audio) is a writer and translator. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, A Public Space, and The Common. She was awarded the 2023 National Book Award in Translation for The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel; her other translations of Brazilian literature include The Dark Side of Skin by Jeferson Tenório, which won an English PEN Translates Award, and Moldy Strawberries by Caio Fernando Abreu, longlisted for the PEN Translation Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize. Dantas Lobato was born and raised in Natal, Brazil, and now lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
1:15 pm
Art lovers won’t want to miss this vivid visual tour through the work of enigmatic artist Ray Johnson, known as "New York's most famous unknown artist,” by Ellen Levy, author of A Book about Ray. Through collage, correspondence art, and an irrepressible Dadaist spirit, Johnson was a pioneer in situating the everyday as art and subverting traditional art structures; his influences and peers include Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol. Levy will trace Johnson's career from his early days at Black Mountain College to his final years, exploring his playful and elusive relationship with art and poetry. Whether you’re already familiar with Johnson’s work or not, don’t miss this chance for a great introduction about a true American original.
Ellen Levy is the author of Criminal Ingenuity: Moore, Cornell, Ashbery, and the Struggle Between the Arts as well as essays on poetry, visual art, theater, and film. Currently a Visiting Associate Professor at Pratt Institute, she has also taught at Vanderbilt University and the School of Visual Arts in New York.
2:00 pm
Join us as two travelers to the Twin Cities present new novels set against historic backdrops—Victorian era London and the Gilded Age of Minneapolis. In The Company, Jon Michael Varese concocts a gothic thriller following one woman’s fight to preserve her luxuriously wallpapered home while battling unspeakable terror, while in The Mesmerist, Caroline Woods explores a true crime tale through the eyes of three very different women who must work together to stop a killer and save the truest home they've ever known. Is the truly malevolent force in these vivid and well researched historical fictions the patriarchy? Find out as these writers draw the curtain back on their work!
Jon Michael Varese is the author of numerous pieces on 19th-century literature and culture and the Director of Public Outreach for The Dickens Project, a multi-campus research consortium of the University of California. His previous supernatural thriller, The Spirit Photographer (2018), was lauded in a starred review from Booklist as “An entertaining amalgam of history and fiction, gothic and ghost story.” Jon credits his love of literature to his grandmother, whose loquat tree served as a reliable reading umbrella during the hottest days of his childhood in his native Miami; he now lives in Western Massachusetts.
Caroline Woods has loved scary stories, little-known history, and the supernatural since she was very small (and her daughters are now following in her footsteps); as a teenager, she published a book of ghost stories, Haunted Delaware. She has published two historical novels prior to The Mesmerist: Fräuelein M., a study of family secrets and hidden identities set in 1930s Berlin, and The Lunar Housewife, a suspense novel about a writer who discovers troubling secrets during the Cold War. Raised in the first state, Caroline now lives near Chicago with her husband and two daughters.
2:45 pm
In this unique live audio-visual presentation, author and podcast host Andrea Swensson will connect the dots between her two latest books, Prince and Purple Rain: 40 Years and Deeper Blues: The Life, Songs, and Salvation of Cornbread Harris—as well as her two decades of work documenting the past, present, and future of the Minnesota music scene.
Andrea Swensson, a passionate and prolific voice in Twin Cities music journalism for the past two decades, has penned thousands of articles, conducted hundreds of interviews for print and radio broadcast, created podcasts, and worked behind the scenes as a copywriter and social media producer. In addition to her two new books, she is the author of Got to Be Something Here: The Rise of the Minneapolis Sound, which won a Minnesota Book Award in 2018.
3:30 pm
In his latest book, How We Got Here, groundbreaking author David Shields argues that Melville plus Nietzsche divided by the square root of (Allan) Bloom times Žižek (squared) equals Bannon. He’ll discuss how he arrived at this equation, and what we can do about it, with Minneapolis novelist and essayist Patrick Nathan.
David Shields is the internationally bestselling author of twenty-five books, including Reality Hunger, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead, Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season, and The Very Last Interview. He has received numerous awards and fellowships for his work, and has published essays and stories in the New York Times, Harper’s, Esquire, Salon, McSweeney’s, The Believer, and the Huffington Post, among many others. The film adaptation of I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel, which Shields co-wrote and co-stars in, was released in 2017; since then Shields wrote, produced, and directed Lynch: A History, a 2019 documentary about Marshawn Lynch’s use of silence, echo, and mimicry as tools of resistance; co-wrote I’ll Show You Mine, a feature film produced by Mark and Jay Duplass and released in 2023; and wrote and directed How We Got Here.
Patrick Nathan is the author of Image Control: Art, Fascism, and the Right to Resist (2021) and Some Hell: A Novel (2018); his latest work, the novel The Future Was Color, is an exploration of postwar American decadence, reinventing the self through art, and the psychosis that lingers in a world that's seen the bomb. He lives in Minneapolis.
4:15 pm
Two Chicago novelists join us to share thoughts on writing narratives that deal with the enduring pressures of our time. In The Sound of a Thousand Stars, Rachel Robbins transports readers to the Los Alamos project; through the love story of two very different young Jewish physicists working at the site, Robbins explores the moral dilemmas of a world at war. Ben Tanzer’s new novel The Missing also follows a couple under pressure; the protagonists of The Missing must confront the harrowing reality that their daughter has disappeared, and as fissures in their marriage deepen, they must also reckon with each other. Fiction readers are sure to be riveted by this engaging double-header!
Rachel Robbins received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is now a tenured assistant professor at Malcolm X College. A visual artist and two-time Pushcart Prize-nominated writer, her paintings have materialized on public transit, children’s daycare centers, and Chicago’s Magnificent Mile.The Sound of a Thousand Stars is her debut novel, She lives in Chicago with her husband, children, and Portuguese Water Dog. The Sound of a Thousand Stars, her debut novel, is loosely based on her grandparents, who worked at Los Alamos but never spoke of their time there.
Ben Tanzer is a prose writer whose acclaimed work includes the short story collection Upstate, the science fiction novel Orphans, and the essay collections Lost in Space: A Father's Journey There and Back Again and Be Cool—a memoir (sort of). Tanzer is also a creative strategist, podcaster, writer, teacher and social worker who has been helping nonprofits, publishers, authors, and small businesses tell their stories for more than twenty years. He lives with his family in Chicago.
SHOWCASE STAGE
10:15 am
Gretchen Anthony is a speaker, humorist, and author of Tired Ladies Take a Stand. Her previous titles include The Book Haters’ Book Club and Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners. Her novel The Kids Are Gonna Ask received the 2021 Alex Award from the American Library. She lives in Minneapolis with her family, where she stays on the hunt for a good story while listening to 70’s classic rock and scouting a great Manhattan.
Alan Davis grew up in Louisiana and lives in Minnesota. His latest novel is Clouds Are the Mountains of the World. His previous collections of fiction include Rumors From the Lost World, Alone With the Owl, and So Bravely Vegetative; he co-edited Visiting Bob: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Bob Dylan and 10 editions of American Fiction.
Mark Haber was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Florida. His latest novel is Lesser Ruins. His debut novel, Reinhardt’s Garden, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His second novel, Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, was named a best book of 2022 by the New York Public Library and Literary Hub. Mark's fiction has appeared in Guernica, Southwest Review, and Air/Light, among others. Mark lives in Minneapolis.
Mubanga Kalimamukwento is a Zambian attorney and the author of the new story collection Obligations to the Wounded. Her first novel, The Mourning Bird, was listed among the top fifteen debut books of 2019 by Brittle Paper. Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in adda, Aster(ix), Overland, the Red Rock Review, Menelique, on Netflix, and elsewhere. When she’s not writing, Mubanga serves as fiction editor for Doek! and as mentor at the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.
Katrina Monroe is the author of They Drown Our Daughters, Graveyard of Lost Children, and Through the Midnight Door. A private investigator by day, she lives in Minnesota with her wife, two children, and Eddie, the ghost who haunts their bedroom closets.
11:15 am
Taiyon J. Coleman is a poet, writer, and educator whose work has been anthologized widely. She is the author of Traveling without Moving: Essays from a Black Woman Trying to Survive in America. A Cave Canem and VONA fellow, she is a 2017 recipient of a McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship in Creative Prose and is one of twelve emerging children’s writers of color selected as a recipient of the 2018–2019 Mirrors and Windows Fellowship funded by the Loft Literary Center and the Jerome Foundation in Minnesota. She is associate professor of English and women’s studies at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Anna Farro Henderson is an award-winning writer, PhD scientist, environmental policy expert, and author of Core Samples: A Climate Scientist's Experiments in Politics and Motherhood. She is a fellow at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, teaches at the Loft Literary Center, and works in climate advocacy. She lives with her family in St. Paul, where she makes daily visits to the Mississippi River.
Steve Hoffman shares one acre on Turtle Lake, in Shoreview, Minnesota, with his family, an ill-behaved puggle, and roughly 80,000 honeybees. He is a writer, tax preparer, and occasional French villager. He is the winner of the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award at the James Beard Awards, as well as an IACP Bert Greene Award for narrative culinary writing and five Association of Food Journalism awards. His new book is A Season for That: Lost and Found in the Other Southern France.
George Sorensen is the author of Hot Dish Confidential: That Year My Friends Taught Me to Cook, as well as books about writing and the book Iron Riders, a history of an army unit in Montana who tried to replace the horse with the bicycle. For years he wrote marketing communications and documentation for 3M, Nike, Boeing, and other companies. He helped launch new products to market, including PostIt Notes, and worked with NASA on the Mars Program. George lives in the Pacific Northwest.
12:15 pm
Michael Bazzett is the translator of the new book If Today Were Tomorrow, a bilingual collection of poems by Humberto Ak’abal rooted in K’iche’ Maya culture, and The Popol Vuh, the first English verse translation of the Mayan creation epic. He is the author of You Must Remember This, The Interrogation, and most recently The Echo Chamber. A longtime faculty member at The Blake School, Bazzett has received the Bechtel Prize from Teachers & Writers Collaborative and is a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. He lives in Minneapolis.
Preeti Kaur Rajpal grew up in a rural town in California’s San Joaquin Valley. She first began writing as a student at the University of California at Berkeley. Her new collection is membery, and her work can be found in Tupelo Quarterly, AGNI Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. Her recent literary honors include being named an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Literature and a McKnight Artist Fellow in Creative Writing.
Bart Sutter is the author of Cotton Grass: New and Selected Poems of the North. He received the Minnesota Book Award for poetry with The Book of Names: New and Selected Poems, for fiction with My Father's War and Other Stories, and for creative non-fiction with Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map. In 2006, he was named the first Poet Laureate of Duluth. Bart Sutter lives on a hillside overlooking Lake Superior with his wife, Dorothea Diver.
12:45 pm
Linda LeGarde Grover is a member of the Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe and a professor emeritus of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Her works reflect her scholarly research on federal policy and American Indian families. Her fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction have received the Flannery O’Connor Award, the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Wordcraft Circle Award for Fiction, and the Minnesota Book Award. Her new novel is A Song over Miskwaa Rapids.
Bill Meissner is the author of twelve books, including four books of short stories and five books of poems. His latest novel is The Wonders of the Little World, and his previous novels are Summer of Rain, Summer of Fire, and Spirits in the Grass. He has won numerous awards for his writing, including the Midwest Book Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, A Loft McKnight Award, a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction in Fiction, a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, and several PEN/NEA Syndicated Fiction Awards. He lives in Minnesota with his wife, Chris.
Patrick Nathan is the author of Image Control: Art, Fascism, and the Right to Resist (2021) and Some Hell: A Novel (2018); his latest work, the novel The Future Was Color, is an exploration of postwar American decadence, reinventing the self through art, and the psychosis that lingers in a world that's seen the bomb. He lives in Minneapolis.
Lindsay Starck is a writer, editor, and professor based in Minneapolis. She studied at Yale, Notre Dame, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of the novels Monsters We Have Made and Noah’s Wife. Her short prose and academic articles have been published widely. When she's not typing on her laptop (or taking pictures of it) she's traveling with her husband or training their dog, Cedar.
Sam Tschida (pronounced cheetah) has four kids, two frogs, one dog, and one husband. She writes romcom/mysteries and runs Smut University, an online school of writing. With varying degrees of success, she manages to exercise and have hobbies. Past hobbies include painting, clarinet, and being a lawyer. For a brief period of time, Sam tried to save the environment with her legal skills. It didn’t work out for Sam, or the environment. Sam is the author of Siri, Who Am I? and the new novel Errands and Espionage.
1:45 pm
Victoria Blanco is the author of Out of the Sierra: A Story of Rarámuri Resistance. Her writing has been published in the New York Times, Catapult, Guernica, and others. She holds her MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota. She is from El Paso, Texas, and now lives in Minneapolis with her husband and three sons.
Eric Dregni is assistant professor of English at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota, and dean of the Italian Concordia Language Village, Lago del Bosco. He is the author of several books, including In Cod We Trust: Living the Norwegian Dream, Minnesota Marvels: Roadside Attractions in the Land of Lakes, Midwest Marvels: Roadside Attractions across Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin, and most recently Never Trust a Thin Cook and Other Lessons from Italy’s Culinary Capital, all published by the University of Minnesota Press.
Michael Lee is the author of When the Band Played On: The Life of Randy Shilts, America's Trailblazing Gay Journalist. For more than twenty years, he has had a passion for storytelling that has fueled a dynamic career of LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS organizing, human services, research, writing, and teaching. He has taught graduate courses at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota for more than a decade while working as a professional grant writer. He lives in Minneapolis.
Michelle S. Phelps is associate professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the author of The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America and the coauthor of Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice. Her research has been featured in the Washington Post, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, NPR, FiveThirtyEight, The Appeal, and other media outlets, and has informed criminal justice reform efforts by the Human Rights Watch and Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety Performance Project.
2:45 pm
Sarah Ghazal Ali is the author of Theophanies, selected as the Editors' Choice for the 2022 Alice James Award. A Djanikian Scholar, Stadler Fellow, and winner of the 2022 Sewanee Review Poetry Prize, her poems and essays appear in POETRY, American Poetry Review, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. She is the poetry editor for West Branch and lives in the Bay Area, California.
Marcie R. Rendon, White Earth Ojibwe, was included on Oprah’s 2020 list of thirty-one Native American authors to read. She has written numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including the Cash Blackbear mystery series, the third volume of which, Sinister Graves, was a 2023 Minnesota Book Award Finalist. Her new book of poetry is Anishinaabe Songs for a New Millennium. In 2020, she received Minnesota’s McKnight Distinguished Artist Award, and in 2017, Rendon, with poet Diego Vazquez, received the Loft Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship for their work with incarcerated women in the county jail system.
Greg Watson is the author of Stars Unseen. His work has appeared widely in various journals and anthologies, and has been nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He is the author of nine previous collections of poetry, including The Sound of Light. He is also co-editor with Richard Broderick of The Road by Heart: Poems of Fatherhood.
3:15 pm
Gen Del Raye is a translator, fiction writer, and poet and was trained as an oceanographer. His debut book is Boundless Deep, and Other Stories. He was born and raised in Kyoto, Japan, and lives in Minneapolis. His writing has appeared in the Gettysburg Review, Poetry Northwest, Best Small Fictions 2017, and Best New Poets 2019, among others. He is the winner of the Force Majeure Flash Contest, Up North Poetry Prize, and Great Midwest Poetry Contest and was awarded a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship.
Andrew DeYoung is the author of The Temps, a speculative novel about the end of the world. He works as an editor at a children’s book publishing company, and he lives with his wife and two children in the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. The Day He Never Came Home is his first domestic thriller.
Sally Franson is the author of the novels Big In Sweden and A Lady's Guide To Selling Out, a Minnesota Book Award finalist. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, and Best American Travel Writing, among many others, and she has been featured on NPR, The Jason Show, Slate’s Working, and Literary Hub’s Fiction/Non/Fiction. A 2022 cast member of Allt för Sverige, a Swedish reality TV show about finding your roots, Sally lives with her family in Minneapolis.
Sarah C. Johns is a writer, video producer, and author of The Sirens of Soleil City. After studying in South Africa, Hungary, Israel, and Germany, she graduated from McGill University before attending film school in Sydney, Australia. She lives with her family in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Ellie Palmer is the author of Four Weekends and a Funeral and a prototypical Midwesterner who routinely apologizes to inanimate objects when she bumps into them. When she’s not writing romantic comedies featuring delightfully messy characters, she’s at home in Minnesota, eating breakfast food, watching too much reality television, and triple texting her husband about their son.
4:15 pm
Mindy Mejia is a CPA and a graduate of the Hamline University MFA program. Her debut novel, The Dragon Keeper, was published by Ashland Creek Press in 2012. She lives in the Twin Cities with her family, and is the author of Strike Me Down, Everything You Want Me to Be, Leave No Trace, and A World of Hurt.
Stephen Mack Jones is a published poet, an award-winning playwright, and a recipient of the prestigious Kresge Arts in Detroit Literary Fellowship. He was born in Lansing, Michigan, and currently lives in Farmington Hills, outside of Detroit. He worked in advertising and marketing communications for a number of years before turning to fiction. His novels include August Snow, Lives Laid Away, Dead of Winter, and Deus X.
David Housewright has won the Edgar Award and is the three-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award for his crime fiction, which includes the modern noir Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie series (starting with A Hard Ticket Home and including the new novel Man in the Water). He is a past president of the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA). He lives in St. Paul.
ACTIVITIES
Click the arrow to learn more about these activities. All activities authors will be happy to sign their books!
All Day Rain Taxi table
Photographs can be a storytelling medium. Stop by to chat with Minnesota photographer Vance Gellert and take a brief look at some of the vital stories his latest projects are telling; anyone interested in local history, national culture, or the power of images will be transported.
Vance Gellert blends his love of portraiture, his PhD in pharmacology, and his interest in healing rituals to create photographic art that sparks empathy and interpersonal connection. His exhibit BRIDGE, about the 35W bridge collapse in 2007, toured the state from 2012-2022, and is now in the hands of the Minnesota Historical Society. Gellert’s other projects include Sleeping Giant, a series about Minnesota's historic iron range that was displayed at the Minnesota State Capitol, Street Corner Talking, comprising interviews and portraits of people on street corners in Minneapolis, and US 20 Road Trip, in which he drove the longest two-lane black top in America—from Boston to the Oregon coast—in an RV, talking with folks and taking their pictures along the way. Gellert, who also holds an MFA in photography, was the co-founder and director of the Minnesota Center for Photography, which he left in 2003 to become a full-time photographer. Visit him at vancegellert.com.
10:00 am – 2:00 pm Rain Taxi table
As a writer and filmmaker, David Shields is renowned for his deployment of dialogue, collage/remix techniques, and autofictional strategies in the creation of what some call “nonfiction.” This year at the #TCBF, Shields would like to talk to YOU—to interview literary citizens in Minnesota using some of the same questions that gave rise to his latest film and book, How We Got Here (“How do you know what you believe? Is there such thing as ‘truth’? What is ‘nonfiction,’ and is it ‘true’?”). Don’t miss this chance to visit one-on-one with one of the most boundary-breaking writers of our time—and then come to his 3:30 conversation with author Patrick Nathan later today, in which we may learn some answers!
“I love language with all my heart and soul. . . . The beautiful difficulty, or the difficult beauty, of human communication and miscommunication: that’s pretty much all I ever write about.” – David Shields
David Shields is the internationally bestselling author of twenty-five books, including Reality Hunger, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead, Black Planet: Facing Race During an NBA Season, and The Very Last Interview. He has received numerous awards and fellowships for his work, and has published essays and stories in the New York Times, Harper’s, Esquire, Salon, McSweeney’s, The Believer, and the Huffington Post, among many others. The film adaptation of I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel, which Shields co-wrote and co-stars in, was released in 2017; since then Shields wrote, produced, and directed Lynch: A History, a 2019 documentary about Marshawn Lynch’s use of silence, echo, and mimicry as tools of resistance; co-wrote I’ll Show You Mine, a feature film produced by Mark and Jay Duplass an released in 2023; and wrote and directed How We Got Here, which argues that Melville plus Nietzsche divided by the square root of (Allan) Bloom times Žižek (squared) equals Bannon.
2:00 – 5:00 pm Rain Taxi table
Minnesota poet and fiction writer Bill Meissner, pictured here with his trusty 1960 manual typewriter, will be using it to type short poems for festival attendees on demand. Hear the clickety-clack as the poem emerges! Meissner is the author of five books of poetry, four short story collections, and three novels—including 2024’s The Wonders of the Little World, which he will present in the Fiction Showcase at 12:45 pm.All Day
Kids, get excited about science, technology, engineering, and math at the Twin Cities Book Festival STEM Station! Join Rima Parikh for some drop-in, hands-on activities; you’ll also encounter some awesome STEM books by local and national authors! Activities include:
Jellyfish Hand Puppets (ages 3 and up): Make a googly-eyed friend and learn about these amazing ocean creatures!- Cotton Ball Launchers (ages 6 and up): Ever wonder how a baseball or javelin flies through the air? Find out with this fun experiment in kinetic energy!
- Tangrams Etc. (ages 10 and up): Come check out these fun puzzles and math-based games that will challenge your brain’s spatial reasoning and arithmetic dexterity!
Rima Parikh is a longtime Minnesota resident dedicated to spreading the love of science. She is the founder and owner of The Thinking Spot in Wayzata, Minnesota's first and only STEM-focused bookstore.
All Day
11:30 am – 12:30 pm
Children of all ages are invited to visit with acclaimed artist Lucy Michell, illustrator of the new book The Moons, and make their own special moon friend! Play with shapes and colors to match your favorite phase of our beautiful neighbor in the sky. You’ll get to put your new moon friend on a stick to take with you—after all, we’re at the fairgrounds!
Lucy Michell is an illustrator who has published two books she collaboratively created with Chan Poling: Jack and the Ghost and The Moons. In addition to illustration, she also enjoys printmaking, ceramics, and paper-mâché, and she is a songwriter and musician who plays with the pop rock band Little Fevers as well as her Americana solo band. Visit her at lucymichellillustration.com.
12:30 – 2:00 pm
Every story is important—so come share yours with acclaimed New York Times Bestselling children’s book author Matt Eicheldinger! In his new book Sticky Notes: Memorable Lessons from Ordinary Moments, Matt has recounted some of the small moments that led him to write this “framework for teaching (and living) with compassion, joy, and patience”; drop by for a visit and he’ll show you how to reflect on your own memories and create extraordinary interactions on a single sticky note. Sticky notes provided!
Matt Eicheldinger wasn’t always a writer; he spent most of his childhood playing soccer, reading comics, and trying to stay out of trouble. Little did he know those moments would help craft his first novel, Matt Sprouts and the Curse of Ten Broken Toes. Matt lives in Minnesota with his wife and two children. When he's not writing, you can find him telling students stories in his classroom, or running along the Minnesota River.
2:00 – 3:00 pm
Join everyone’s favorite “Kitchen Pantry Scientist” Liz Lee Heinecke to explore some of the projects featured in her new book She Can STEM—projects ranging from paper airplanes to color-changing cabbage juice—and learn fun facts about some of the 50 trailblazing women in science who are featured in the book. (Ages 4 and up.)
Liz Lee Heinecke is a beloved author and science communicator who lives in Minneapolis. She has published over a dozen books, contributes regularly to science segments on TV, and shares fun science videos at KitchenPantryScientist.com.
3:00 – 4:30 pm
It’s an election year, so drop by to celebrate the joy of voting with Dr. Artika Tyner, author of the new children’s book Kwame Votes. Young readers ages 6 and up can join her to write out their commitment to vote statement, imagine what their election speech might say, and redesign the “I Voted” sticker. Actually, readers already of voting age are invited to stop by too, because you’re never too old to celebrate the joy of voting!
Dr. Artika Tyner is an award-winning author of more than two dozen books for young people and some for adults too, such as The Inclusive Leader. A civil rights attorney, sought-after speaker, and passionate educator and advocate for justice, she lives in Saint Paul and is the founder of the Planting People Growing Justice Leadership Institute.
