Ann Treacy holds her family’s past close, and features this image in her house.Her grandmother, whose story figures into Treacy’s latest fiction, is pictured dressed in white. Enter a drawing to win a copy of The Search for the Homestead Treasure here.BY ANN TREACY The Search for the Homestead Treasure is a middle-grade novel about a … More Ann Treacy: Fiction is woven of fact, history, and hard work.
In the opening prologue to her latest novel, Best to Laugh, Lorna Landvik writes: A black cocktail dress, decorated with a smattering of sequins across the neckline, hangs like an art piece on my bedroom wall. Although the integrity of the seams might be compromised, I could probably still squeeze into it, but for me the … More Extras: Best to Laugh excerpt, trailer series, and discussion guide
BY LORNA LANDVIKStand-up and improvisational comedian, public speaker, and best-selling author —–This is the fourth post in a weekly series by Lorna Landvik.#1: On destiny.#2: Why I wrote Best to Laugh, Part 1. #3: Why I wrote Best to Laugh, Part 2.—– Far more than her list of favorite designers, I’d love to read a … More Lorna Landvik: Life lessons from Joan Rivers.
BY LORNA LANDVIKStand-up and improvisational comedian, public speaker, and best-selling author —– This is the third post in a weekly series by Lorna Landvik.#1: On destiny. #2: Why I wrote Best to Laugh, Part 1. —– Several years ago on a visit to Los Angeles, I took a long, leisurely stroll down my old stomping … More Lorna Landvik: Why I wrote Best to Laugh, Part 2.
BY LORNA LANDVIKStand-up and improvisational comedian, public speaker, and best-selling author — This is the second in a weekly series by Lorna Landvik. Check out the first post, on destiny, here. — I was asked the other day why I finally decided to write about the time I spent in Hollywood doing stand-up comedy. “Why now?” … More Lorna Landvik: Why I wrote Best to Laugh, Part 1.
BY LORNA LANDVIKStand-up and improvisational comedian, public speaker, and best-selling author — This is the first in a weekly series by Lorna Landvik. — It’s a true story I often tell, about knowing that I wanted to be a writer when I learned how to read in the first grade. “See Spot jump!” “See Puff … More Lorna Landvik: Do we really "choose" our destinies—or are they written in the stars?
BY LINDA LEGARDE GROVERRecipient of the Flannery O’Connor Award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize; associate professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth Although I didn’t know it at the time, The Road Back to Sweetgrass began during a visit to an elderly Ojibwe man’s house some years ago. Invited by … More Linda LeGarde Grover on the merits of time-honored oral tradition and contemporary fictional storytelling.
The original Washington Avenue Bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, circa 1880, photographed from the north, showing the Bohemian Flats neighborhood below the bridge. The area, which is now a park, is the setting for Mary Relindes Ellis’s second novel, The Bohemian Flats. BY MARY RELINDES ELLISAuthor of The Turtle Warrior “The past is … More Mary Relindes Ellis: Why the past is critical to understanding our present.
It is no easy task to pick particular recommendations among the books you work with. We think all of the books that we have published this year are pretty fantastic. These stood out to us in different ways and for different reasons. We present them here as our first Staff Book Picks of the Year. … More 2013 Staff Book Picks, Part 1
Vidar Sundstøl in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Photographs by Shea Sundstøl. BY VIDAR SUNDSTØLAcclaimed Norwegian writer and author of the Minnesota Trilogy The last seven years of my professional life in Norway have been focused on writing or speaking about the North Shore of Lake Superior. The people, the forest, the lake, the history. However, I … More "The landscape with its special magic and the people with their stories": How Minnesota’s North Shore inspired Vidar Sundstøl’s chilling Minnesota Trilogy.
