Presenting Authors
Authors at the FestivalReadings, talks, conversations, panels, activities, and more Featured Authors Click each author’s name for more information. Books by all authors will be available for purchase and signing. … Read More
The Twin Cities Book Festival is a project of Rain Taxi, which champions aesthetically adventurous literature through publications, events, and service to the literary community.
2:30pm, Veterans Gallery
National Book Award–winning writer Will Alexander presents his debut cozy science fiction novel, Sunward. This queer space opera is a story of found family that follows a planetary courier who trains adolescent androids in a solar system grappling with interplanetary conflict after a devastating explosion on Earth’s moon.
William Alexander writes unrealisms for readers of all ages. His work has won the National Book Award, the Eleanor Cameron Award, the Librarian Favorites Award, the Teacher Favorites Award, two CBC Best Children’s Book of the Year Awards, and two Junior Library Guild Selections. As a small child he honestly thought that his Cuban American family came from the lost island of Atlantis. Visit him at willalex.net.
10–10:30am, Children's Corner (located in the Head House)Click here for full event details
Based on a true story, Leaf Town Forever is the gentle tale of a town created by children with vivid imaginations. The timeless and universal saga, written in haiku, reminds both kids and adults that some dreams are worth protecting.
Betsy Bowen is author and illustrator of many children’s books, including Plant a Pocket of Prairie and The Lost Forest, both published by the University of Minnesota Press. She lives in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Visit her at woodcut.com.
11:00am, Red Cap Room
In Taylor’s Version, the poet and literary scholar Stephanie Burt offers an insightful and heartfelt critical appreciation of Taylor Swift, her body of work, and the community that her art has fostered. Drawing from her 2024 Harvard course, Taylor Swift and Her World, as well as from her years as a Swiftie, Burt examines Swift’s particular form of genius—not the destructive genius of tortured poets, but the collaborative and joyful genius of an artist who has mastered her craft.
Stephanie Burt is a poet, literary critic, professor, and author of numerous books. Her essay collection Close Calls with Nonsense (Graywolf Press, 2009) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
11:30am, Veterans Gallery
A sparkly American bookstore whisperer clashes with the grumpy British owner of the shop she’s trying to save in Love Walked In, a winning opposites-attract romance for book lovers.
Sarah Chamberlain is a writer, editor, and cookbook translator whose articles have appeared in VICE, The Guardian (UK), Food52, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. When she’s not writing witty, sexy contemporary romance, she enjoys making dinner for her friends and family, watching Cary Grant movies, and setting records as an amateur competitive powerlifter. Originally from Northern California, she lives in London. Visit her at sarahichamberlain.com.
10:00am, Red Cap Room
Click here for full event details
Acclaimed, mega-bestselling author Eoin Colfer, named "a master storyteller" by School Library Journal, returns to the world of Juniper Lane with Firefox Moon. Juniper takes off on a summertime quest in a story sure to delight young readers all year round.
Eoin Colfer is the bestselling author of the children's fantasy series Artemis Fowl. His other notable works include The Dog Who Lost His Bark, illustrated by P.J. Lynch, and the novels Half Moon Investigations, Airman, and The Supernaturalist. The recipient of many awards, he lives in Ireland. Visit him at eoincolfer.com.
2:00pm, Red Cap Room
Click here for full event details
King of the Neuro Verse is a powerful, joyful novel in verse about a Black teen with ADHD who finds self-expression and first love during one epic summer school season.
Idris Goodwin is an award-winning neurodivergent storyteller, playwright, and breakbeat poet. He is the author of the picture book Your House Is Not Just a House, as well as over sixty original plays, ranging from his hip-hop–inspired breakbeat series to historical dramas to works for young audiences. A dedicated mentor to emerging writers, Goodwin serves as associate professor of dramatic writing at Arizona State University. Visit him at idrisgoodwin.com.
12:30pm, Veterans Gallery
Click here for full event details
Bestselling author Shannon Hale is back with a new middle grade graphic novel, Dream On, a story about hope, friendship, and heartfelt wishes about a young girl getting lost in the shuffle of her life.
Shannon Hale is the New York Times best-selling author of over 40 books, which have sold 15 million copies in North America and been translated into dozens of languages worldwide. Her novels for young readers include The Goose Girl, Book of a Thousand Days, and Newbery Honor recipient Princess Academy. With LeUyen Pham, she created her best-selling graphic novel memoirs Real Friends, Best Friends, and Friends Forever, and the Kitty-Corn picture book series. Shannon co-writes graphic novels with her husband Dean Hale, like the Eisner-nominee Rapunzel's Revenge (with Nathan Hale) and Diana, Princess of the Amazons (with Victoria Ying) as well as the best-selling chapter book series The Princess in Black (with LeUyen Pham). She lives in Utah with their four children and two ridiculous cats. Visit her at shannonhale.com.
3:00pm, Red Cap Room
The Phoebe Variations is a coming-of-age novel about girls, mothers, and finding one's way in the world. On the cusp of high school, Phoebe’s adoptive mother insists she meet with her biological parents—and the result is a revelation that derails her life.
Jane Hamilton is the author of seven critically acclaimed and bestselling novels, including The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World, both of which were Oprah's Book Club selections. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Allure, Elle, and various anthologies. She's married to an apple farmer and lives in Wisconsin.
3:30pm, Veterans Gallery
Keetje Kuipers’s fourth collection features love poems bold with the embodied, earthy, and startlingly sensual. Queer, complicated, and almost always compromised, the poems in Lonely Women Make Good Lovers lean into the painful tendernesses of unbridgeable distance.
Keetje Kuipers is the author of Beautiful in the Mouth (2010), The Keys to the Jail (2014), All Its Charms (2019), and her newest, Lonely Women Make Good Lovers, winner of the Isabella Gardner Award. Her poetry and prose have appeared in The New York Times, American Poetry Review, Yale Review, VQR, Poetry, and over a hundred other magazines. Kuipers is currently the Editor of Poetry Northwest, and teaches at universities and conferences around the world. Her home is in Missoula, MT. Visit her at keetjekuipers.com.
2:00pm, Red Cap Room
Click here for full event details
In her debut novel, Sunlight Playing Over a Mountain, Selina Li Bi introduces a captivating style, lacing lyrical prose with fragments of Chinese mythology to build a fantastical atmosphere around the sobering narrative of an imperfect mother-daughter relationship where a teenage girl struggles to hold things together in an unstable single-parent home.
Selina Li Bi was born to immigrant parents from the Philippines. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University Moorhead and is also a certified Creativity Coach. Her work has appeared in Nonwhite and Woman: 131 Micro Essays on Being in the World, riksha: Asian American Creative Arts in Action, Cricket, among others. Visit her at selinalibi.com.
12:30pm, Veterans Gallery
Click here for full event details
Angelica was the girl who could do it all—until suddenly, she couldn’t. Burnout hit hard. Now, after some very low moments, she’s ready to get her life back together, thanks to her friends, and one very surprising source of comfort: a bear.
Trung Le Nguyen is an award-winning Vietnamese American cartoonist, artist, and writer. His first original graphic novel, The Magic Fish, was published in 2020. He has contributed work both as an author and as an artist for a variety of comics publishers, including DC Comics, Oni Press, Boom! Studios, Image Comics, and Marvel. Trung has been nominated for an Eisner, a prize at Angoulême (France), a GLAAD award, and has won two Harvey Awards and a Romics (Italy). He currently lives in Minneapolis and raises a small flock of very spoiled hens. Visit him at trungles.com.
1:00pm, Red Cap Room
As night falls on Asgard there is one who does not dream. Loki, a trickster of epic proportions, has much to think on. He hearkens back to his challenge to the wolf Fenrir to break the strongest Dwarf-made chains. He remembers Thjazi, the jotunn in monstrous eagle form, and his pursuit of the apples of youth. And he worries he has fallen out of favor with his blood brother, Odin. Can he use his cunning and wiles to worm his way back in? Or, feeling spurned, will Loki choose to burn it all down?
George O’Connor is an author, illustrator and cartoonist. Above all, George is a Greek mythology buff and a classic superhero comics fan, and he's out to remind us how much our pantheon of superheroes (Superman, Batman, the X-Men, etc.) owes to mankind's original superheroes: the Greek pantheon. Now he has brought his attention to Olympians, an ongoing series retelling the classic Greek myths in comics form. In addition to his graphic novel career, O'Connor has published several children's picture books, including the New York Times best-selling Kapow!, Sally and the Some-Thing, If I Had a Raptor, and If I Had a Triceratops. George lives in Brooklyn, NY with five terrible cats and one Olympian goddess. Visit him at georgeoconnorbooks.com.
1:30pm, Veterans Gallery
With the stark, poetic voice that garnered her collection Anatomy. Monotony. cult status in Norway and abroad, the writer–performance artist offers a vision of sexuality and alienation unlike any other. Coming. Apart. is Poppy’s first collection of short fiction, and her second to be published in English. Beautifully translated from the original Norwegian by Dr. May-Brit Akerholt, her stories explore moments of labyrinthine intimacy with a cold intensity that proves impossible to forget.
Edy Poppy grew up on a farm in Bø, Telemark, Norway. She moved to Montpellier when she was seventeen and spent several years in France before moving to London where she worked with art, fashion, film and writing. In 2005 she published her first novel Anatomy. Monotony., which was translated into Italian, Finnish, German, Polish, and English. It won the contest for best love story by Gyldendal. Poppy has lived in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Lipari, Reykjavik, and Rio, and now calls Australia home.
1:00pm, Red Cap Room
In the third installment of this kid-friendly manga series, Sew Totally Nala, Kawaii fashion-loving Nala is about to have the best summer ever as she attends a special fashion camp in the city, but she wonders if her designs will measure up to the other students. A squirrel named Timothy visits to help her, and together, Nala and Timothy rise to a fun summer challenge that will remind readers how good it feels to believe in themselves.
Misako Rocks! is a Japanese manga comic artist who’s published several manga books all over the world, including No Such Thing and Bounce Back, which was selected to be on the list of 2021 Best Graphic Novels For Children by the American Library Association. Visit her at misakorocks.com.
10–10:30am, Children's Corner (located in the Head House)Click here for full event details
Based on a true story, Leaf Town Forever is the gentle tale of a town created by children with vivid imaginations. The timeless and universal saga, written in haiku, reminds both kids and adults that some dreams are worth protecting.
Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a nonprofit publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, and a founding member of Poems While You Wait. She is author of five novels, including Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey, as well as the poetry collection Where Are the Snows. She lives in Chicago and teaches at DePaul University. Visit her at kathleenrooney.com.
Beth Rooney is a visual journalist based in Oak Park, Illinois. A writer and photographer, she is drawn to stories that explore our place in the world and show how individual circumstances reflect larger truths.
2:30pm, Veterans Gallery
Mother-daughter duo Alice and Fern have no idea what they’re stepping into when they move into Pine Lake Apartments—a former sanatorium now home to an eccentric cast of neighbors and more than a few ghosts. For the fiercely private Alice, Pine Lake seems like the perfect place to keep a low profile—until the day Fern stumbles upon a dead body in the dumpster. Determined to solve the mystery herself, Fern begins unraveling long-buried secrets that implicate every resident and even summon a few unexpected guests from beyond the grave.
Amber Sparks is the author of the short story collections And I Do Not Forgive You and The Unfinished World. Happy People Don’t Live Here is her first novel. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, Slate, and elsewhere. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, daughter, and cats. Visit her at ambernoellesparks.com.
2:00pm, Red Cap Room
Click here for full event details
Noche is a Lechuza by night, an ethereal jet-black owl who guides the dead to the after. Except now, Noche cannot bring herself to escort her dead girlfriend, whose soul is fading the harder Noche holds on—an aching romance about first and second loves and finding the strength to let go.
Vanessa L. Torres is a Mexican American author, an adventure seeker, and a mom to a flashlight-under-the-covers-reader. She is a thirty-year veteran of the fire service and is equally proud to call her herself an author. Her debut young adult novel, The Turning Pointe, released in 2022. When she’s not writing, she balances her time between anything outdoors, and spending time with her family close to home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
10:30am, Veterans Gallery
Click here for full event details
Peace Is a Shy Thing is the first literary biography of Tim O'Brien, the preeminent American writer of the Vietnam War and one of the best writers of his generation, with never-before-seen materials and interviews.
Alex Vernon graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (the only literature major in his class of over a thousand), served in combat as a tank platoon leader in the Persian Gulf War, and earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The recipient of an Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Book Award and a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship, he is the M.E. & Ima Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of English at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. Visit him at alex-vernon.squarespace.com.
1:00–2:00pm, Activity Hub (located in the Head House).
Holes in My Underwear
Whether you’re pondering life’s big questions or wondering about the origin of the pink blob fish, Holes in My Underwear has something for everyone. Each poem was hand-selected by real kids. Who knows—you might even discover some more hidden meanings woven into the very fabric of the stitches.
Matt Sprouts and the Search for the Chompy Wompers
In this third installment of the New York Times bestselling series, Matt Sprouts navigates the ups and downs of buying into a collectible toy hype—and learns valuable lessons about friendship, responsibility, and the complexities of making tough choices. Educator and social media sensation Matt Eicheldinger weaves a hilarious and funny narrative with charming cartoon illustrations that's perfect for young readers.
Matt Eicheldinger, a New York Times bestselling author, wasn't always a writer. He spent most of his childhood playing soccer, reading comics, and trying his best to stay out of trouble. Matt lives in Bloomington with his wife and two children and tries to create new adventures with them whenever possible. When he's not writing, you can find him telling students stories in the classroom or trail running along the Minnesota River Bottoms.
3:00–4:00pm, Activity Hub (located in the Head House).
Stephanie Hansen’s first book, True North Cabin Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from a North Woods Table, transported readers to her family outpost near Ely, Minnesota to savor meals for the cabin months of May through September. Now, Volume Two: Seasonal Recipes from a Cozy Kitchen broadens the invitation to include Hansen’s Twin Cities home as well as her Ely lodging during the balance of the year, commemorating “the cozy months” of October through April with friends and family and—of course—excellent food.
Stephanie Hansen is the author of True North Cabin Cookbook, the Regional Emmy Award-winning host of Taste Buds with Stephanie, and the brand amplifier and social commentator behind the Weekly Dish radio show StephaniesDish.com and Dishing with Stephanie’s Dish podcast. She lives in Golden Valley.
1:00–4:00pm, Activity Hub (located in the Head House).
God's creation has entered its second work week, the eighth day. A new entity is forming in the garden, and the Snake, once the garden's manager, is filled with unease. Will this next-gen creature disrupt the established order? It falls upon Eden's first couple to intervene with their Maker before His latest creation makes them redundant. Yet, they must be cautious, for interfering with the creative process is a perilous game. In brushy black-and-white, Andy Hartzell has rendered into cartoon form the illuminated scriptures of "The People of the Eighth Day," an ancient gnostic sect. Or maybe he just made the story up. Either way, Monday is a provocative metaphysical slapstick comic, a fable for our unstable age.
Andy Hartzell's first graphic novel, Fox Bunny Funny, was a New York Times holiday pick. He has contributed to many anthologies, including No Straight Lines (Eisner nomination) and Qu33r (Ignatz Award), and he received an Xeric award for his first comic, Bread & Circuses. He makes his personal paradise in Oakland, CA, where his partner Ron tends the garden, and his boxador Louis tears it up again. He works as an interaction designer and creative strategist when he's not making comics.
10:00am–4:00pm, Activity Hub (located in the Head House).
This interactive thriller follows a brilliant, brave teenage girl as she races across Washington, D.C. to decode the clues her father left behind, which may just be the key to saving the country from a devastating tragedy. In this non-stop thrill ride, readers can test their own codebreaking skills alongside Mia, lending an exciting interactive element to this page-turning thriller packed with action, romance, and life-changing revelations.
Jay Martel is the pen name of husband and wife writing team Andy Bennett and Katy Helbacka. They’ve spent the past twenty years collaborating on everything from theatrical productions to escape rooms to their son, Theo. They live in northern Minnesota where the winters are cold, long, and the perfect excuse to stay inside and write novels together.
2:00–4:00pm, Activity Hub (located in the Head House).
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!
Minnesota author and teacher Bill Meissner has published five collections of poetry, including The Mapmaker’s Dream and American Compass, three novel including Spirits in the Grass, which won the Midwest Book Award, and The Wonders of the Little World, and four short story collections, including Hitting into the Wind and The Road to Cosmos.
12:00–1:00pm, Activity Hub (located in the Head House).
When a curious kitten encounters its young owner’s string ball craft project, an amazing adventure ensues: The kitten squeezes inside the ball and begins to roll . . . right out the open front door. Yikes! Kitten and ball encounter playful pups, pecking birds, a baby in a carriage, and one very slippery slide. Whee!
Chris Monroe, a graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, is the author-illustrator of twelve picture books and a collection of comics; her weekly comic strip Violet Days was in print for over 22 years. Chris has also illustrated picture books for other authors, including Jane Yolen and Kevin Kling, and her artwork has been shown everywhere from dimly lit hallways to major magazine covers and museums. Her book Monkey with a Tool Belt was adapted into the Netflix series Chico Bon Bon: Monkey With A Tool Belt.
10:00am–4:00pm, Activity Hub (located in the Head House).
This new graphic novel from rising star Ursula Murray Husted is a gorgeously illustrated glimpse into the forgotten history of Renaissance Italy. Both funny and empowering, the story follows an ambitious young girl's quest to become an apprentice to the famed artist Sandro Botticelli, plumbing her courage, smarts, and skill on every page.
Ursula Murray Husted is a lifelong artist, former professor, and advocate for the arts and education; her previous graphic novel is A Cat Story. Husted has taught comics classes and art history workshops in settings ranging from pre-K to graduate university seminars; she received her PhD from the University of Minnesota, her MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and her BFA from Marshall University. She lives in Minneapolis.
2:00–3:00pm, Activity Hub (located in the Head House).
In the third installment of this kid-friendly manga series, Sew Totally Nala, Kawaii fashion-loving Nala is about to have the best summer ever as she attends a special fashion camp in the city, but she wonders if her designs will measure up to the other students. A squirrel named Timothy visits to help her, and together, Nala and Timothy rise to a fun summer challenge that will remind readers how good it feels to believe in themselves.
Misako Rocks! is a Japanese manga comic artist who’s published several manga books all over the world, including No Such Thing and Bounce Back, which was selected to be on the list of 2021 Best Graphic Novels For Children by the American Library Association. Visit her at misakorocks.com.
12:00pm, Red Cap Room
Upon the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd comes an account of leadership, justice, and race by Medaria "Rondo" Arradondo, the first Black police chief of Minneapolis. Chief Rondo is Rondo’s firsthand account of the events before, during, and after the killing of George Floyd, offering insights into his leadership and the impact on American policing. Discussing the challenges of working against the “blue wall” that shielded police from accountability, the book aims to inspire all leaders pursuing justice within flawed systems.
Jennifer Amie is a born-and-raised South Minneapolis native. A writer with deep roots as both a magazine journalist and a staff writer for educational institutions, she specializes in the worlds of art, culture, nature, science, and people who are catalysts of change. She received a BA from Reed College and an MA in journalism from the University of Minnesota, and currently resides in Portland, Oregon.
12:00pm, Red Cap Room
Upon the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd comes an account of leadership, justice, and race by Medaria "Rondo" Arradondo, the first Black police chief of Minneapolis. Chief Rondo is Rondo’s firsthand account of the events before, during, and after the killing of George Floyd, offering insights into his leadership and the impact on American policing. Discussing the challenges of working against the “blue wall” that shielded police from accountability, the book aims to inspire all leaders pursuing justice within flawed systems.
Chief Medaria “Rondo” Arradondo was appointed as Minneapolis’s first Black Chief of Police in 2017. He gained national recognition for his role in leading Black and Blue through the George Floyd crisis, securing justice and implementing reforms while enhancing transparency. He remains active in the community as a Minneapolis Public Housing Commissioner and Executive Board Member of Fentanyl Free Communities. Also a consultant, Rondo advises a range of clients, including major corporations and organizations, on leadership and social justice.
11:00am, Riverview Room
A historical coming-of-age novel that feels relevant to our worldtoday, Scattergood offers even readers familiar with World War II a fascinating new glimpse of history far from the battlefields of Europe and the shores of New York. H.M. Bouwman presents a raw and unapologetic snapshot of a girl battling her own shortcomings and the random nature of life.
H.M. Bouwman is the author of many middle-grade novels for kids, including the fantasy novels A Crack in the Sea, A Tear in the Ocean, and Gossamer Summer, and the Owen and Eleanor chapter book series. Her books have made the “best of” Kirkus list and have beena Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, a Kid’s Indie Next Pick;,and a VOYA top shelf selection. Bouwman holdsa PhD in colonial and early American literature andteaches literature and creative writing at the University of St. Thomas. In her free time, she’s raised two quirky kids and has practiced a traditional Korean martial art for over 25 years.
11:30am, Riverview Room
A work of World War II history that reads like a thriller, A Light in the Northern Sea: Denmark's Incredible Rescue of Their Jewish Citizens During WWII is an inspiring chronicle that examines why, unlike the rest of Western Europe, these accomplishments were so uniquely managed by the Danish people, even in the face of Nazi occupation and Hitler's growing fixation on the Final Solution.
Tim Brady is an award-winning writer whose works include Twelve Desperate Miles and A Death in San Pietro. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has written a number of PBS documentaries and helped develop the series Liberty! The American Revolution, winner of the Peabody Award. He lives in St. Paul.
2:30pm, Riverview Room
In this collection, award-winning writer Frank Bures tells true stories as varied as the waters, weather, and rhythms of a canoe trip. From the terror of two kayakers who barely escaped the 2011 Pagami Creek Fire in the Boundary Waters to two young campers who experienced a supernatural scare in Canada’s Quetico Provincial Park in the 1970s to the author’s own miraculous rescue, Bures shares varied takes on what happens when you push the river.
Frank Bures is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in Harper’s, Outside, The Atlantic, and many other publications. His stories have been included in The Best American Travel Writing anthologies. He lives in Minneapolis.
2:00pm, Riverview Room
After the frightening results of the 2016 election, Paula Cisewski adopted a new writing practice and coping mechanism: She would invite a friend over for tea and a tarot reading. Later she would share with them the first draft of a poem inspired by the cards, the conversation, and whatever of the world had leaked in. The practice made space for meaningful communication in an uncertain time.
Paula Cisewski is the author of six books of poetry, including Ceremonies for No Repair, Quitter (Diode Editions Book Prize winner), The Threatened Everything, Ghost Fargo (Nightboat Poetry Prize winner, selected by Franz Wright), Upon Arrival, and several chapbooks. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and other organizations. Cisewski lives in Minneapolis and is a founding co-publisher, co-editor, and book designer for Beauty School Editions.
12:00pm, Riverview Room
When Lexie’s fiancé runs off with her so-called best friend on her birthday, her carefully crafted fairy-tale life shatters. To distract herself, she throws herself into her unusual job: matchmaking psychopaths (a specialty her clients are blissfully unaware of). But the loneliness is crushing. So when a new client named Aidan insists they’re soulmates, and another intnamed Rebecca seems perfect to fill the best-friend-shaped hole in her life, Lexie can’t help but find the attention comforting. But as threatening packages arrive at her door and her fiancé mysteriously disappears, she must confront a terrifying question: did she inadvertently match herself with a killer?
Tasha Coryell, who holds an MFA and PhD from the University of Alabama, is the author of the novel Love Letters to a Serial Killer and the story collection Hungry People, and has published stories, essays, and poems a multitude of journals. She lives in St. Paul with her husband and son; in her free time, Tasha can be found running, cross-stitching, and watching copious amounts of television.
11:00am–12:00pm, Children's Corner(located in the Head House).
When eager Clay asks his elisi (grandmother) for help to be named star of the week at school, he’s surprised by her answer: No one person is more important than his family and his community. But is Clay still important at all? This contemplative exploration of community, individualism, and responsibility—accentuated with traditional beadwork in the art—is a moving invitation to consider an indigenous perspective of one’s place in the world and how we all light up our sky, together.
Art Coulson, a writer of Cherokee, English, and Dutch descent, comes from a family of storytellers in all three traditions. A Navy brat, Art traveled the world, attending fourteen schools on three continents before graduating high school. Art served as the first executive director of the Wilma Mankiller Foundation in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma after an award-winning twenty-five-year career in journalism. A 2023 McKnight Fellow in Children’s Literature, Art is the author of twenty books, including Chasing Bigfoot, The Reluctant Storyteller, and Look, Grandma! Ni, Elisi!, which was named a best STEM children’s book by the National Science Teaching Association.
1:30pm, Riverview Room
In their lively and timely book, The Fear Knot, psychologist Natashia Swalve and journalism professor Ruth DeFoster lead readers through the history and psychology behind our most visible and sensational cultural fears, beginning with the most personal—fear within our bodies—and moving outward to the home, our country, and finally to our broadest society-level fears.
Ruth DeFoster, PhD, is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Minnesota, where she also directs Undergraduate Studies for the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her research on terrorism, mass shootings, gun violence, tragedy, and identity has been published in many academic books and journals; her first book, Terrorizing the Masses: Identity, Mass Shootings, and the Media Construction of Terror examines twenty years of media coverage of terrorism and mass shootings in the United States. She has written for many publications, including MinnPost, Star Tribune, and Minnesota Women’s Press.
12:00pm, Riverview Room
Relocating with her 5-year-old son to a new city after an ugly divorce, Melissa Burke isn't looking for a new relationship. But then she meets Thomas Danver, a charming widower, dedicated father, one of the most respected pediatricians in the city―and an exonerated murderer. Thomas's first wife went missing three years ago, presumed dead, and Thomas was eventually cleared of her murder in an investigation that became a local media sensation. Attracted to Thomas and also fascinated by the case, Melissa finds herself swept into an obsessive, whirlwind romance, but when she receives a chilling, anonymous threat―or perhaps it's a warning―she begins to question how much she truly knows about the man she's falling in love with. Is he really innocent?
Andrew DeYoung is the author of The Temps, a speculative novel about the end of the world, and The Day He Never Came Home. He lives with his wife and children in the Twin Cities.
11:00am, Riverview Room
Holes in My Underwear
Whether you’re pondering life’s big questions or wondering about the origin of the pink blob fish, Holes in My Underwear has something for everyone. Each poem was hand-selected by real kids. Who knows—you might even discover some more hidden meanings woven into the very fabric of the stitches.
Matt Sprouts and the Search for the Chompy Wompers
In this third installment of the New York Times bestselling series, Matt Sprouts navigates the ups and downs of buying into a collectible toy hype—and learns valuable lessons about friendship, responsibility, and the complexities of making tough choices. Educator and social media sensation Matt Eicheldinger weaves a hilarious and funny narrative with charming cartoon illustrations that's perfect for young readers.
Matt Eicheldinger, a New York Times bestselling author, wasn't always a writer. He spent most of his childhood playing soccer, reading comics, and trying his best to stay out of trouble. Matt lives in Bloomington with his wife and two children and tries to create new adventures with them whenever possible. When he's not writing, you can find him telling students stories in the classroom or trail running along the Minnesota River Bottoms.
3:00pm, Red Cap Room
In the span of a year, Dolores Moore has become a thirty-five-year-old orphan, and after the funeral of the last living member of her family, she has never felt more lost and alone—except, that is, for a Greek chorus of deceased relatives whose voices follow her around giving unsolicited advice and opinions. And they’re only amplifying Dorrie’s doubts about keeping the deathbed promise she made to return to her birthplace in Colombia.
Anika Fajardo was born in Colombia and raised in Minnesota. She is the award-winning author of Magical Realism for Non-Believers, What If a Fish, and Meet Me Halfway, and lives with her family in Minneapolis.
3:30pm, Riverview Room
Cyan Magenta Yellow Black lovingly summons the Twin Cities in December 1993, before the internet changed everything. In his early thirties, Duane Einwald already has his own ad agency, and he’s about to be married to the woman he loves. But when his idealism sharpens into something far more toxic, his fiancée breaks off their engagement and his partners force him out. While he’s on the adult version of a time out, he meets two new friends who are fleeing much deeper hurts. What unfolds is a testament to the power of friendship—and to the ways seemingly small acts of kindness and connection can transform us.
Kevin Fenton is the author of Merit Badges, which won the AWP Prize for the Novel and the Friends of the American Writers Award, and Leaving Rollingstone, which Patricia Hampl called “the most important memoir to come out of the Midwest (or anywhere) in years.” He works as an advertising writer and creative director; in that capacity, he’s published essays in design quarterlies and magazines. He got a slightly better education than he deserved at Beloit College, the University of Minnesota Law School, and the University of Minnesota MFA program. He lives in St Paul with his wife Ellen and his greyhound Evie.
3:00pm, Riverview Room
In this striking debut memoir, Lundquist investigates the “beard” trope in literature, culture, and her own romantic life as she revisits her relationship with her husband twenty years after their divorce. The straight woman who unwittingly marries a gay man is either a laughingstock or a fool (or both) in the popular imagination, yet reality—much like desire—is more complicated. A tour de force of empathy and vivid prose, Beard reckons honestly with the harm done to both husband and wife by churches that required rigid performances of gender and sexuality. In contrast, Lundquist learns to let go of brittle certainties as she embraces what her first marriage taught her about risk and redemption.
Kelly Foster Lundquist teaches writing at North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. A 2013 Milton postgraduate fellow at Image Journal and Kenyon Review writers’ alum, Lundquist has published work in numerous journals; though she remains a PhD dropout, she has an MFA in creative writing from Seattle Pacific University and an MA in English from Mississippi College. Lundquist lives in a little red house by the Mississippi River with her spouse and daughter.
3:30pm, Veterans Gallery
Sarah Green’s The Deletions is a spiritual and psychological reckoning with ecological grief, infertility grief, and the loss of a marriage. These poems live at the intersection of ode and elegy, simultaneously observing and reflecting upon multiple kinds of love. With a tone that ranges from poignant to stoic and from playful to irreverent, the speaker sifts through generational layers of divorce, revisiting the violence of teen girlhood and ultimately rediscovering her own resilience.
Sarah Green is the author of the previous collection Earth Science and the editor of Welcome to the Neighborhood: An Anthology of American Coexistence. A Pushcart Prize winner whose work appears in the Paris Review, Copper Nickel, Pleiades, FIELD, and elsewhere, she is an Assistant Professor of English at St. Cloud State University.
11:00am–12:00pm, Children's Corner
(located in the Head House).
In Rings of Heartwood, twelve poems about woodland, wetland, and prairie dwellers explore different kinds of growth. A tadpole grows legs and lungs and transforms into a frog. A fern unfurls from fiddlehead to frond. A spotted fawn hides in dappled sunlight, but after winter it will never sport spots again. Molly Beth Griffin’s playful yet meditative lines paired with scientific facts invite readers into the life cycles of plants, amphibians, crustaceans, birds, reptiles, and insects, while Claudia McGehee’s vivid scratchboard and watercolor illustrations offer whimsically detailed naturescapes. In words and art, Rings of Heartwood encourages readers of all ages to appreciate the challenge of change and feel a deep kinship with the natural world.
Molly Beth Griffin is the author of many picture books including Ten Beautiful Things, Just Us, and Rhoda’s Rock Hunt. She has also published an award-winning young adult novel, Silhouette of a Sparrow, two chapbooks of poetry, and a series of beginning readers. Molly is a graduate of Hamline University’s MFA Program in Writing for Children and Young Adults and has been teaching writing for children at the Loft Literary Center for over 15 years. She lives in South Minneapolis with her partner and their two children, where she enjoys walking around lakes, taking photos of birds, eating pastries, watching mysteries, and waiting for the mail.
12:00pm, Red Cap Room
Just after turning forty, Steve Grove left his job in Silicon Valley to move to his home state of Minnesota with his wife and fellow tech exec Mary and their one-year-old twins. Gone from the Midwest for two decades, Grove returned home with fresh eyes. Yearning to put down new roots, he traded his career as a Google executive for a position in state government with Governor Tim Walz. But this story of reinvention takes on new urgency when crisis strikes, as the coronavirus pandemic and the tragic murder of George Floyd unfolds just miles from his newfound home, thrusting Grove’s work into an unexpected spotlight. Tasked with enormous responsibilities, including navigating deep divisions in a state long proud of its exceptionalism, Grove discovers new insights about himself and his community; experiencing the political, geographic, and racial divisions in his home state leads him to learn about what also binds us together.
Steve Grove is CEO and publisher of the Minnesota Star Tribune; prior to that, he was Minnesota’s commissioner of employment and economic development. Before moving back to his home state of Minnesota, Grove built a career in Silicon Valley as an executive at Google and YouTube, most recently as the founding director of the Google News Lab and previously as YouTube’s first head of news and politics. A graduate of Claremont McKenna College with a master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy School, Grove has written for several national publications and has served as an advisor to the White House and State Department on counterterrorism strategy. Steve and his wife Mary are the cofounders of Silicon North Stars, a nonprofit that helps underserved youth find career pathways in technology. They are the proud parents of eight-year-old twins, a yellow lab, and two farm cats.
1:00pm, Riverview Room
This charming and eccentric book invites readers to embrace the impulse to wonder, the practice of noticing, and the deep inclination toward joy—no matter life’s difficulties. Through short, sparkling true stories, the author reveals how the good world is everywhere, waiting to be seen, savored, and celebrated daily.
Peg Guilfoyle is the author of The Guthrie Theater: Images, History, and Inside Stories, which won a Midwest Book Award and an Independent Publishers Award, and Offstage Voices: Life in Twin Cities Theater. Her commentary and essays have appeared in the Minnesota Star Tribune, the Minnesota Women’s Press, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, on Minnesota Public Radio, and in numerous other publications. A popular presenter and speaker, Peg has also been a stage and production manager and the producer of many corporate and organizational histories, including Honor Bright: A Century of Scouting in Northern Star Council, which won a Minnesota Book Award.
11:30am, Riverview Room
Veteran journalists and midwesterners Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty reveal humanity’s relationship with this incredible land, offering a deep, compassionate analysis of the difficult decisions as well as opportunities facing agricultural and Indigenous communities. Sea of Grass is a vivid portrait of a miraculous ecosystem that makes clear why the future of this region is of essential concern far beyond the heartland.
Dave Hage oversaw environmental and health reporting at the Minneapolis Star Tribune for a dozen years, editing projects that won a Pulitzer Prize and an Edward R. Murrow Award, among other honors. His previous books include No Retreat, No Surrender: Labor’s War at Hormel and Reforming Welfare by Rewarding Work. A Minneapolis native, he lives in St. Paul with his wife.
12:00pm, Riverview Room
Sociology professor Matthew Larkin is barely holding on. After the death of his toddler son, his wife divorced him, his teenage daughter abandoned him, and he lost a job he loved. Landing a rare tenure track position at a small college in southern Minnesota, he’s trying to cope with the disaster his life has become. He is offered a chance at redemption—if he can figure out the right thing to do.
Toni Halleen worked for many years as an employment law attorney and now runs the law firm Schaefer Halleen; also an avid improviser, she used her stage experience to develop and teach “Think on the Spot” skills to hundreds of professionals. Toni’s debut novel, The Surrogate, was published in 2021; her short fiction has been published in many publications and she has authored an award-winning musical titled Soulless, Bloodsucking Lawyers. A resident of Minneapolis, she holds a B.A. in Women’s Studies from Mount Holyoke College and a J.D. from the University of Minnesota.
2:30pm, Riverview Room
In the tradition of Bill Bryson and Paul Theroux, Greater Minnesota is half travelogue, half history, and fully delightful in its exploration of new places and people. This book follows Hicks around Minnesota as he ventures to the North Shore, the Iron Range, the Southwest, and even Up North in the dead of winter. As he travels the back roads of the state, Hicks visits the Mayo Clinic, the SPAM Museum, and the US Hockey Hall of Fame, and bears witness to ancient petroglyphs, a lost forest, and the humble start of the Mississippi River—among many other places both surprising and intriguing.
Patrick Hicks grew up in Stillwater, Minnesota, and is an Irish American novelist, poet, and essayist. After living in Europe for many years, he now lives in the Midwest where he is the Writer-in-Residence at Augustana University as well as a faculty member in the MFA program at the University of Nevada Reno at Lake Tahoe. He is the author of ten other books, including The Commandant of Lubizec and Across the Lake.
12:00pm, Riverview Room
There are two things that Rushmore McKenzie hates to turn down—a request from a friend and a challenge. Both of them show up in his wife's nightclub in the person of Angela Bjork, who has come to request his help. McKenzie, once a homicide detective, is now a retired millionaire, but occasionally he will do some unofficial private detective work for friends. Over the years, he's hunted down a stolen Stradivarius, the hoard of 1930s gangster, and a stolen, apparently cursed, artifact, but McKenzie never imagined a case like this: An exceedingly rare dinosaur skull has been stolen.
David Housewright is a 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 recent novel Man in the Water). Also a winner of the Edgar Award, Housewright is a past president of the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA). He lives in St. Paul.
2:00pm, Riverview Room
In the tradition of Montaigne’s Essais and Anne Carson’s Short Talks, MC Hyland’s poem-essays weave together the conceptual and the material, leaving a trace of thought-in-flight. Originating from a moment (pre- and mid-pandemic) when Hyland taught canonical British literature as a contingent university worker, the essays in The Dead and the Living and the Bridge take up the topics of grief, gender, art materials, capitalism, and close reading.
MC Hyland is the author of over a dozen poetry chapbooks/artist books and two previous full-length books of poems, THE END and Neveragainland. Holding MFAs in book arts and creative writing from the University of Alabama and a PhD in English literature from NYU, MC is also a teacher, scholar, artist, and founding editor of DoubleCross Press, a poetry micropress. She lives in St. Paul, MN with her partner, Jeff, and cat, Dakota.
11:00am–12:00pm, Children's Corner (located in the Head House).
The barbershop is a sound booth, an art gallery, a playground, a classroom, and so much more. It’s a place for artistry and comradery and, most importantly, community. Come spend the day feeling all the style and wisdom and joy at the ’shop in this upbeat picture book celebration of the spaces and places that bring communities together.
Keenan Jones spent his childhood in northwest Indiana (Gary) and south suburban Chicago (University Park), and currently resides in Plymouth, Minnesota. He comes from a family of educators, pastors, athletes, and musicians. After suffering a career-ending injury while playing college basketball, Keenan switched paths to pursue a career in education, serving as an elementary school teacher before returning to his passion of writing.
2:00pm, Riverview Room
Mubanga Kalimamukwento's hybrid poetry an essay collection, Another Mother Does Not Come When Yours Dies, is a kaleidoscope of emotions: at once self-excavation and epitaph, exhumation, and burial song. In this new work, the award-winning writer deftly navigates the aftermath of devastating personal losses, inviting readers to reflect on their own experiences of loss and the enduring impact of familial bonds.
Mubanga Kalimamukwento is a Zambian poet whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals and won the 2022 Tusculum Review Poetry Chapbook Prize, selected by Carmen Giménez. Her 2024 story collection Obligations to the Wounded won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, the CLMP Firecracker Award, and the Minnesota Book Award for fiction. Kalimamukwento lives in Minnesota.
12:00pm, Riverview Room
A woman fights her own mind and memory to understand how she got here: the passenger seat of a car speeding away from a murder scene. In this riveting, dual-timeline psychological thriller, nothing is as it seems.
Rebecca Kanner is a graduate of the St. Paul Civilian Police Academy and a member of Sisters in Crime. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction writing from Washington University in St. Louis and teaches writing at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Her previous novel, Esther, was chosen by Library Journal as one of the best fiction books of the year.
10:30am, Riverview Room
Traveling through Europe after learning of her ex-girlfriend's suicide, the narrator of No One’s Leaving meets an array of people, including a tarot reader, a gay farmer, an expat trans woman, and a French lesbian with a dreamy pit bull, discovering new love and friendship while remembering the struggles of her past relationship. The story weaves between the narrator's present-day adventures and her coming-of-age experiences—but is sewn together by existential conversations with the ghost of her ex.
Raki Kopernik, a first generation American, queer, Jewish writer, is the author of The Things You Left and The Memory House, both Minnesota Book Award finalists. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and has been shortlisted and nominated for several other awards, including the Pushcart Prize for Fiction and the Pen Faulkner Award in Fiction. She teaches creative writing at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and at Augsburg University.
10:30–11:00am, Children's Corner
(located in the Head House).
Click here for full event details
The key to drawing a tree—or anything, for that matter—is to understand your subject. How do you get to know a tree? Use all your senses!
David LaRochelle has been writing and illustrating award-winning children’s books for over thirty years. His books have won numerous awards, including the SCBWI Golden Kite Honor Award, the American Library Association's Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, and four Minnesota Book Awards. A former elementary school teacher, David enjoys solving puzzles, geocaching, and carving creative pumpkins. He lives in White Bear Lake.
3:00pm, Riverview Room
In a memoir composed of interrelated essays, Bronson Lemer explores companionship through the lens of a queer veteran, focusing on the difficulty of forming true connections with others. Lemer’s distinct take on the veteran’s story boldly engages the intersection of military narratives and queer culture, including the fears of long-term health damage caused by military service and the ways in which intimate relationships can lead to loss of self. Taken together, the essays in this memoir illustrate how one queer veteran managed to carve out a path that led him, however awkwardly at times, closer to the person he wanted to be.
Bronson Lemer is the author of The Last Deployment: How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq, and has had work published in Guernica, Creative Nonfiction, and other publications. A McKnight Writing Fellow, he lives in St. Paul.
3:30pm, Riverview Room
Blending elements of Norse saga with a fine-grained examination of rural Midwestern life at the start of the pandemic, Ashes to Ashes moves between characters and perspectives, exploring the stories we tell about family, community, and our larger histories. A feat of narrative daring and luminous empathy, this is Thomas Maltman at his most inventive and compassionate.
Thomas Maltman’s first novel, The Night Birds, won an Alex Award, a Spur Award, and the Friends of American Writers Literary Award, and was chosen as an “Outstanding Book for the College Bound” by the American Library Association in 2009; his books since then have continued to earn widespread acclaim, including an All Iowa Reads selection in 2014. Maltman teaches at Normandale Community College and lives in the Twin Cities area with his wife, a Lutheran pastor, and three daughters.
12:00–12:30pm, Children's Corner(located in the Head House).
James Boggs was a worker from rural Alabama in the segregated South. Grace Lee Boggs was a philosopher from urban Rhode Island and New York City. Both found their life’s work, and each other, in Detroit. James and Grace were drawn to civil rights—and fought alongside others for fair housing, jobs, food, labor unions, urban gardens, and more to make the world a better place for all. Authors Sun Yung Shin and Mélina Mangal present the lives and ideas of James and Grace in an inspiring collection of paired poems with bold mixed-media artwork by debut picture book illustrator Leslie Barlow.
Mélina Mangal writes picture books, biographies, and short stories that focus on connections with nature and culture. She is the author of The Vast Wonder of the World: Biologist Ernest Everett Just, winner of the Carter G. Woodson Award, Jayden’s Impossible Garden, named One of the Best Children's Books of the Year by Bank Street Center for Children’s Literature, among other books, including the nature-based board book series Outside Our Window. A resident of the Twin Cities, she loves spending time outdoors with her family and her job as a school library media teacher.
11:30am, Riverview Room
Veteran journalists and midwesterners Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty reveal humanity’s relationship with this incredible land, offering a deep, compassionate analysis of the difficult decisions as well as opportunities facing agricultural and Indigenous communities. Sea of Grass is a vivid portrait of a miraculous ecosystem that makes clear why the future of this region is of essential concern far beyond the heartland.
Josephine Marcotty is an award-winning environmental journalist who has spent her life in the Midwest. She was a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she covered complex, science-based topics. Sea of Grass is a natural expansion of her reporting on the vanishing prairie and the consequences of intensive agriculture. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband.
12:00pm, Riverview Room
As a former police officer and a psychic detective, Max Summerlin and Jonah Kendrick are an unlikely pair of private investigators, but they specialize in finding people who don’t want to be found. When a man hires them to find his missing girlfriend without a past or even a name, Max and Jonah realize their newest client may present their hardest challenge yet. The latest thriller in Mindy Mejia’s USA Today bestselling Iowa Mysteries series, The Whisper Place takes readers from an 80’s-inspired bakery to a horrifying house at the edge of the woods as Max and Jonah unearth the truth and put themselves directly in the path of terror in the process.
Mindy Mejia is a CPA and a graduate of the Hamline University MFA program. 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 To Catch a Storm.
12:00pm, Riverview Room
Ben Packard was just a boy when his older brother disappeared. As a child, Ben Packard watched his older brother walk out the back door of their grandparents' house and into the cold night, never to be seen again. Decades later, Deputy Packard finds himself with too much time on his hands while a shooting has him on leave and under investigation, and all he can do is dwell on the past. For the first time in years, new information about his brother has surfaced that may lead Ben to the location of a body.
Joshua Moehling is the USA Today bestselling author of the Ben Packard series. The first book, And There He Kept Her, was a Barnes & Noble monthly Mystery/Thriller pick and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBTQ+ Mystery. His second novel, Where the Dead Sleep, was described as “a well-paced whodunit” and “devastating” by The New York Times. Joshua lives in Minneapolis.
10:30–11:00am, Children's Corner
(located in the Head House).
Click here for full event details
The key to drawing a tree—or anything, for that matter—is to understand your subject. How do you get to know a tree? Use all your senses!
Colleen Muske, the writer and illustrator of Linden: The Story of a Tree, has been an artist most of her life. She has studied at Minneapolis Community College, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and dozens of workshops, conferences, and private artists’ studios. After taking her first children’s book illustration class, Colleen knew that children’s books were her calling. Colleen lives in Stillwater, Minnesota.
3:30pm, Riverview Room
As two Lakota boys huddle in a boxcar on the run from a government agent sent to take the younger boy to an Indian boarding school, a complex drama of intersecting lives unfolds. Alive with a rich tapestry of characters, Kent Nerburn’s riveting new road novel, set during the drought-stricken summer of 1950, is at once an exploration of the hidden corners of the human heart and a moving study of the way the land shapes the people who live, love, dream, and die upon it.
Kent Nerburn is the award-winning Minnesota author of Neither Wolf nor Dog, The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo, The Wolf at Twilight, and more. A Minneapolis native and a longtime resident of Bemidji, MN, he has recently moved to St. Paul.
1:00pm, Riverview Room
Held contemplates our collective experiences of loss in an age of climate change and mass extinctions, as well as more personal tragedies. Each essay in this book describes a remarkable instance of symbiotic mutualism: beavers and willow trees, for example, together turn deserts to verdant wetlands. To read Held is to be reminded of one’s humanity and of our interconnectedness with the world that surrounds us.
Kathryn Nuernberger is the author of the essay collection The Witch of Eye and the poetry collections RUE, The End of Pink, and Rag & Bone. Her first lyric essay collection, Brief Interviews with the Romantic Past, won the Journal Non/Fiction Award; other awards include the James Laughlin Prize from the Academy of American Poets, an NEA fellowship, and notable essays in the Best American series. She is a Professor of Creative Writing in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota.
1:00pm, Red Cap Room
It’s the start of a new school year for Tyler, and with it comes brand-new problems: new bullies, new rules, and new understandings about his body. In the gym locker room, Tyler notices how his body’s soft curves contrast with the thin and muscular frames of the other boys, and on TV, it seems like someone who looks like Tyler never gets the girl. But is being thin the same thing as being healthy? When his dad forces the Page family to start dieting, Tyler discovers the difference between building a body that conforms to society’s expectations and one that actually feels good to live in.
Tyler Page, an Eisner-nominated cartoonist and educator, has worked with national and international clients and publishers in addition to publishing graphic novels of his own. His book Raised on Ritalin was called “essential reading for medical students and those involved in helping address the challenges of ADHD" by the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Tyler lives in Minneapolis with his wife, author/illustrator Cori Doerrfeld, and their two very blonde children.
1:30pm, Riverview Room
From the easily disproved to the wildly speculative to straight-up hucksterism, Pseudoscience is a romp through much more than crackpot ideas—it’s a light-hearted look into why we insist on believing in things such as Bigfoot, astrology, and the existence of aliens. A mix of history, pop culture, and good old-fashioned science, Pseudoscience sheds a little light on why we all love to believe in things we know aren’t true.
Nate Pedersen is a librarian, historian, and freelance journalist with over 400 publications in print and online, including in The Guardian, The Believer, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Art of Manliness.
11:00am–12:00pm, Children's Corner(located in the Head House).
Dr. Kate Pelham Newcomb was a doctor in rural northern Wisconsin during the early 1900s, a time when very few women practiced medicine. Because the nearest hospital was over two hours away and the snowy roads were often impassable, “Dr. Kate” frequently traveled many miles by snowmobile or snowplow to reach her patients; sometimes she even went by foot, which led to her nickname "Angel on Snowshoes." This picture book celebrates a woman who defied gender expectations and dedicated her life to helping the farthest reaches of her community.
Margi Preus has written a bazillion plays and a bunch of books, including the Newbery Honor book Heart of a Samurai, the Minnesota Book Award-winning West of the Moon, and the Midwest Booksellers’ Choice award-winning Enchantment Lake mystery series. Her books have been honored as ALA/ALSC Notables, landed on the New York Times bestseller list, featured on NPR, and selected as community reads.
11:00am–12:00pm, Children's Corner (located in the Head House).
In this reassuring and sweet picture book, a timid bear named Willow chases after her dreams and discovers that being brave can lead to wonderful surprises. Willow and the Wildflowers is an encouraging tale for any child who is learning to overcome a challenge.
Matthew Schufman, an author, graphic designer, musician, and art teacher who works creatively with hundreds of students every week, is also the author of the picture book Fraser the Forest Ranger. Matthew’s work has been featured in The New York Times as well as on Netflix and HBO. He enjoys camping and taking long hikes through the forest, and lives with his wife Lauren and a Corgi named Archie in St. Paul.
10:30am, Riverview Room
Analog Days is a snapshot of a circle of friends living through the sorrows and joys of a particular inflection point in history. Amid the ever-present news cycles that cover a world shifting around them, they fall back on film, friendship, and art as the last bastions of meaning in their fragmented lives.
Damion Searls is a renowned translator of the fiction of Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse and dozens of other modern classics from German, French, Norwegian, and Dutch. A Guggenheim, Cullman Center, and two-time NEA fellow, he is also the author of the nonfiction books The Inkblots and The Philosophy of Translation and the poetry chapbook The Mariner’s Mirror.
11:00am–12:00pm, Children's Corner (located in the Head House).
Told through poetic letters, this inventive collaboration from Newbery Honor winner Joyce Sidman and Caldecott Honor artist Melissa Sweet reveals the everyday conversations between “big” and “little” objects in our ecosystem.
Joyce Sidman is today’s foremost nature poet for children. Accolades for her books include a Newbery Honor Medal, a Sibert Medal, two Caldecott Honors, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Award, the Claudia Lewis Award, and many best books lists; for her acclaimed body of work, she won the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. She lives in Wayzata, MN.
1:30pm, Veterans Gallery
In her second story collection, bestselling fiction writer Curtis Sittenfeld lays bare the moments when long-held beliefs are overturned. In “The Patron Saints of Middle Age,” for example, a woman visits two friends she hasn’t seen since her divorce; in “A for Alone,” a married artist embarks on a creative project intended to disprove the so-called Mike Pence Rule. Sittenfeld also gives readers of her beloved novel Prep a window into the world of her character Lee Fiora decades later in “Lost but Not Forgotten,” in which Lee attends an alumni reunion at her boarding school.
Curtis Sittenfeld’s New York Times bestselling books have been translated into thirty languages and twice selected as Reese’s Book Club picks; they include the novels Prep, American Wife, Eligible, Rodham, and Romantic Comedy, as well as the story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It. Sittenfeld’s stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Best American Short Stories, of which she was the 2020 guest editor. She lives with her family in Minneapolis.
12:00–12:30pm, Children's Corner (located in the Head House).
In 1945, just after the end of World War II, Captain Orval Amdahl brought home a Japanese sword as a souvenir of war. Sixty-eight years later, he gave it back. Returning the Sword: How a Japanese Sword of War Became a Symbol of Friendship and Peace is a powerful story of war, peace, and reconciliation.
Caren Stelson is the author of Sachiko: A Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivor’s Story and A Bowl of Peace, a picture book of Sachiko Yasui’s story, as well as other works for children and young adults. Caren has had a long career in education as a teacher, writer-in-residence, and freelance writer, but after receiving her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Hamline University in 2009, she decided it was time to write the stories that needed her attention. Caren and her husband Kim have two adult children and two young grandchildren, and make their home in Minneapolis.
10:30am, Riverview Room
Walter Simmering is searching for love and purpose in a city he doesn’t realize is fading away—San Francisco in 1993, at the height of the AIDS epidemic and the dawn of the tech revolution. Out of college, out of the closet, and transplanted from the Midwest, Walter is irresistibly drawn from his shell when he meets Cary Menuhin and Sasha Stravinsky, a dynamic couple who live blithely beyond the boundaries of gender and sexuality. As the three embark on adventures, their friendship evolves in unexpected ways. Tradowsky’s debut captures the essence of ’90s queer culture and the complex lives of people seeking a fulfilling way of life.
Christopher Tradowsky is a writer, artist, and art historian. He was awarded the 2023 J. Michael Samuel Prize from the Lambda Literary Foundation. Midnight at the Cinema Palace is his first book. He lives in St. Paul.
11:30am, Veterans Gallery
Bridget Jones’s Diary meets What We Do in the Shadows in this bitingly funny supernatural romance about a vampire finding herself and falling in love during the Christmas season.
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, while drinking too much coffee and trying not to crack up. With varying degrees of success, she manages to exercise and have hobbies; past hobbies include painting, clarinet, and being a lawyer. Sam is also the author of Siri, Who Am I? and Errands & Espionage.
3:00pm, Red Cap Room
After a near-stranger dies in their small town, a tightknit group of friends can no longer ignore their long-dormant desires and unfulfilled dreams. Richly textured and big-hearted, this exhilarating debut is an unforgettable story of the alchemy of love and loyalty that makes friends Like Family.
A fifty-one-year-old debut novelist, Erin O. White is also an essayist and the author of the memoir Give Up For You. After growing up in Colorado and living for twenty years in western Massachusetts, she now lives with her wife and daughters in Minneapolis.