with Nicole Kronzer, Ari Tison, and Laura Zimmermann

Saturday, October 14, 2023
Youth Stage, 3:00-3:45pm

In this panel, three authors who could be your neighbors present their new YA novels! In The Roof Over Our Heads, former professional actor and improviser Nicole Kronzer tells a story about a theater-loving family who puts on an immersive, interactive play to save their historical Minnesota home. Ari Tison’s debut novel Saints of the Household is a haunting drama about an act of violence in a small Minnesota town, told in alternating points of view using vignettes and poems. And in Just Do This One Thing for Me, Minnesota Book Award winner Laura Zimmermann’s second novel, a rule-following daughter tries to hold her family together after her scammer mother disappears. Come hear these authors describe the origins of these tales, the work it took to bring them to the page, and the importance of setting. Ages 14+

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About the Authors

Nicole Kronzer is the author of the young adult novels Unscripted and The Roof Over Our Heads. Unscripted was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association and was a Minnesota Book Award Finalist. Nicole is also a high school English teacher and former professional actor. She loves to knit and run (usually not at the same time). She lives with her family in Minneapolis.

Ari Tison is a Bribri American and African descended poet and storyteller. Her poems and short works have been published in Yellow Medicine Review, The Under Review, Rock & Sling, and POETRY‘s first ever edition for children. She was the winner of the 2018 Vaunda Micheaux Nelson award for a BIPOC writer with Lerner Publishing. She is currently the annual broadside editor for Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, where she gets to collaborate with the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts to bring incarcerated voices into the world. Saints of the Household is her debut novel.

Laura Zimmermann writes books for young people, and her debut YA novel My Eyes Are Up Here (Dutton, 2020) won a Minnesota Book Award. She lives in Minneapolis, where you can sometimes find her telling true stories live on stage, or striding through the snow in search of the perfect mocha.