Four Minnesota poets have been named recipients of this year's McKnight Award for poetry and spoken word, and a fifth writer will receive the McKnight Award for children's literature.
Poet Mark Doty, who served as poetry judge, selected Mark Conway of Avon, and Amy McCann, Jude Nutter and Matt Rasmussen of Minneapolis for the award, which brings each writer $25,000.
Justin Chanda, an editor at Simon and Schuster, chose Lauren Stringer of Minneapolis for the children's literature prize.
Conway is the author of several collections of poetry, including "Dreaming Man, Face Down," which won the 2009 American Poetry Journal Book Prize. His work has appeared in the Paris Review, Ploughshares, the Kenyon Review, and elsewhere.
McCann has published poetry in the Laurel Review, Third Coast, and elsewhere; she teaches at Northwestern College and has worked at Milkweed Editions.
Nutter was born in England and grew up in Germany; her poems have appeared in many journals, and her third collection, "I Wish I Had a Heart Like Yours, Walt Whitman," won a Minnesota Book Award and was named poetry book of the year by ForeWord Review.
Rasmusson is a former Bush Fellow for Literature. His work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Water-Stone Review, and many other publications. He's a founding editor of Birds, LLC, an independent poetry press.
Stringer is an artist, author and theatrical designer. She has illustrated many picture books, and both wrote and illustrated "Winter is the Warmest Season," a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award.
