Diversity was a theme for the 2024 Minnesota Book Awards, announced Tuesday evening at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul during a program emceed by Nur-D, presented by Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, sponsored by Education Minnesota.
Here are the winners:
Children’s literature (sponsored by Red Balloon Bookshop)
“Beneath” by Cori Doerrfeld (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers/Hachette Book Group): Finn is in a horrible mood, but they agree to go for a hike with Grandpa. Throughout their walk, they see strong trees with networks of roots underneath, still water with schools of fish swimming below, and an expectant bird with eggs nestled under her. Grandpa explains that sometimes beneath a person who seems like they won’t understand is someone feeling the exact same way. Doerrfeld is the award-winning author/illustrator of many children’s books, including “The Rabbit Listened,” a Minnesota Book Award winner. She received her undergrad degree in studio art from St. Olaf College and her post-baccalaureate from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
General nonfiction (Loren & Christine Danielson)
“Lessons on the Road to Peace” by John Noltner (self-published): In the fall of 2020, Noltner and his wife, Karen, sold their Minnesota home and hit the road to live small, listen deeply, and learn about who we are as a country. Over the next 900 days, they drove 93,000 miles across America and gathered hundreds of stories with one goal: in a divided world, to rediscover what connects us. Noltner is an award-winning photographer and author and the founder and executive director of A Peace of My Mind, a nonprofit that uses storytelling and art to bridge divides and build community. He has produced projects for national magazines, Fortune 500 companies and nonprofit organizations.
Genre fiction (Macalester College)
“Ink Blood Sister Scribe” by Emma Törzs (William Morrow/HarperCollins Publishers): Two estranged half-sisters tasked with guarding their family’s library of magical books must work together to unravel a deadly secret at the heart of their collection. In the process, they uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined. Törzs is a writer, occasional translator and teacher at Macalester College. Her fiction has been honored with an NEA fellowship in prose, a World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction, and an O. Henry Prize. Her stories have been published in journals such as Ploughshares, Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, and American Short Fiction.
Memoir & creative nonfiction (Bradshaw Celebration of Life Centers)
“Half-Life of a Secret: Reckoning with a Hidden History” by Emily Strasser (University Press of Kentucky): In 1942, the U.S. government constructed a 60,000-acre planned community in rural Tennessee. Oak Ridge attracted more than 70,000 people eager for high-paying wartime jobs, who didn’t know it was one of three secret cities constructed by the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb. Strasser exposes the toxic legacy that forever polluted her family, a community, the nation and the world. Strasser’s award-winning essays have appeared in Ploughshares, Colorado Review, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and elsewhere. She earned her master of fine arts in creative writing from the University of Minnesota.
Middle-grade literature (Education Minnesota)
“Shannon in the Spotlight” by Kalena Miller (Delacorte Press/Penguin Random House): Shannon Carter never considered herself much of a theater person. As a 12-year-old with obsessive-compulsive disorder, she depends on routine. But when she braves the audition, she discovers that center stage is the one place where she doesn’t feel anxious. As opening night approaches, Shannon feels pressure to save her friendships, manage her family and to follow the old theater adage: The show must go on. Miller is also the author of “The Night No One Had Sex,” a Minnesota Book Award winner. She received her master of fine arts in creative writing at Hamline University.
Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction (Annette and John Whaley)
“Making the Carry: The Lives of John and Tchi-Ki-Wis Linklater” by Timothy Cochrane (University of Minnesota Press): John Linklater, of Anishinaabeg, Cree, and Scottish ancestry, and his wife, Tchi-Ki-Wis, of the Lac La Croix First Nation, lived in the canoe and border country of Ontario and Minnesota from the 1870s until the 1930s. This illustrated biography follows the couple as they navigate great changes in their homeland along the U.S.–Canada border in the early 20th century. Cochrane was superintendent at Grand Portage National Monument for 20 years, where he worked closely with the Grand Portage Band of Anishinaabeg and the tribal council. His books include “A Good Boat Speaks for Itself: Isle Royale Fishermen and Their Boats” and “Gichi Bitobig, Grand Marais: Early Accounts of the Anishinaabeg and the North Shore Fur Trade” and “Minong: The Good Place — Ojibwe and Isle Royale.”
Novel & short story (Minnesota Humanities Center)
(Mariner Books)
“A Council of Dolls” by Mona Susan Power (Mariner Books/HarperCollins Publishers): From mid-century Chicago to the ancestral lands of the Dakota people, to the bleak and brutal Indian boarding schools, this is the story of three women, told in part through the stories of the dolls they carried. The novel is ultimately hopeful and shines a light on the echoing damage wrought by Indian boarding schools, and the historical massacres of Indigenous people. Power is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. She is the author of three previously published works of fiction, “The Grass Dance,” “Sacred Wilderness” and “Roofwalker.” Power is a graduate of Harvard and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Poetry (Wellington Management)
“Wail Song: or wading in the water at the end of the world” by Chaun Webster (Black Ocean): A multi-form long poem that offers an extended contemplation on being that lays bare how the construction of the human and the animal both rely on black abjection. Readers find themselves in the belly of the whale, and in that darkness, “Wail Song” asks readers how deep they are willing to wade in the water with blackness. Webster is a poet and graphic designer whose work is attempting to put pressure on the spatial and temporal limitations of writing. Webster’s debut poetry book, “Gentry!fication: or the scene of the crime,” received the 2019 Minnesota Book Award.
Young adult literature (Minnesota Humanities Center)
“The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be” by Shannon Gibney (Dutton Books/Penguin Random House): This novel is woven from the author’s true story of growing up as the adopted Black daughter of white parents and the fictional story of Erin Powers, the name Gibney was given at birth by the white woman who gave her up for adoption. It is a tale of two girls on different timelines occasionally bridged by a mysterious portal and their shared search for a complete picture of their origins. Gibney is an author and university professor. Her novel “See No Color”, drawn from her life as a transracial adoptee, was hailed by Kirkus as “an exceptionally accomplished debut” and by Publishers Weekly as “an unflinching look at the complexities of racial identity.” Her sophomore novel, “Dream Country”, received five starred reviews and earned her a second Minnesota Book Award.
Special awards
Hognander Minnesota History Award (Hognander Family Foundation)
“Minescapes: Reclaiming Minnesota’s Mined Lands” by Pete Kero (Minnesota Historical Society Press): These stories from Minnesota’s Iron Range highlight the challenges of competing needs on lands that offer opportunities for both mining and recreation. Kero explores the record that is written on Minnesota’s mined lands – and the value systems of each generation that created, touched, and lived among these landscapes. His narratives reveal ways in which the mining industry and Iron Range residents coexist and support each other today, just as they have for more than a century. Kero is an environmental engineer practicing at Barr Engineering Co. in Hibbing, Minn. For more than 25 years, he has consulted with public agencies, mining companies, and communities who are reclaiming and repurposing the mining landscape of the Midwest.
Book artist award (Lerner Publishing Group)
Vesna Kittelson (previously announced): Kittelson’s “Letters to AmeriKa” is based on a decades-long imaginary conversation between Kittelson and American “culture.” As described by the artist, “the dialogue has been about everything, but especially my trying to understand the meaning of democracy and (absence of) justice for immigrants.”
Kay Sexton Award
Bao Phi (previously announced): Phi is an author, artist, arts administrator, activist, and grass-roots organizer who has been a leader in Minnesota’s literary community for more than 25 years. He has been a featured poetry performer, children’s book reader and guest workshop leader in hundreds of organizations in Minnesota and across the United States, from colleges to community centers, to prisons, to homeless centers, and has sat on numerous panels where he’s advocated for equity for artists from underrepresented communities.
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