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Laurie Hertzel is senior editor for books at the Star Tribune, where she has worked since 1996. She is the author of "News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist," winner of a Minnesota Book Award.
Posts about Minnesota Book Awards
Minnesota Book Awards to cross the river again!
Posted by: Laurie Hertzel Updated: June 14, 2013 - 11:11 AM
Union Depot, St. Paul. Star Tribune photo by Elizabeth Flores.
After years of holding the Minnesota Book Awards spring gala event in downtown St. Paul, this year the organizers hauled the whole thing--books, authors, trophies, wineglasses, and all--across the river to downtown Minneapolis. The Hilton was a fine venue, and it made perfect sense to hold the event in Minneapolis. After all, while the big sponsor is the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, it really is a state-wide event.
But yesterday they announced that books, authors, trophies, and wineglasses will pack up and move back across the river for the 2014 event.
And why not? Look at the gorgeous venue they nabbed: The newly refurbished historic Union Depot in St. Paul's Lowertown. It'll also be a wee bit earlier in the spring than in years past, so mark your calendars: 7 p.m., April 5.
Minnesota Book Awards cross the river and lighten up.
Posted by: Laurie Hertzel Updated: April 14, 2013 - 6:47 AM
At the Minnesota Book Awards gala.
If you've never been to a Minnesota Book Awards gala celebration, you really should go, at least once. It's not just that it's fun to get gussied up and go downtown, and it's not just that it's fun to wander around and bump into the writers whose books you've read and loved--it's fun to see the celebration, the hoo-ha, the big to-do all centered around writing, and writers, and the written word. That's really something.
This year's celebration marked the 25th anniversary of the awards, so there was a little something special going on. They moved the gala from downtown St. Paul to the big city of Minneapolis. They showed a little film with funny and charming snippets from winners from years past--Jon Hassler, and Robert Bly, and Carol Connolly, and memoirist Patricia Hampl (who described memoir as, "Enough about me, what do you think about me?").
Louise Erdrich and Jonathan Odell were two of the finalists in fiction. Or, wait--maybe it's Jonathan Odell and Louise Erdrich?
The emcee was writer and comedian Lorna Landvik, who said she agreed to host the event only if the St. Paul Friends of the Library waived all of her past and future overdue book fines, and only if the Highland Park branch library expunged from her record the fact that she had once checked out "Fifty Shades of Gray." "I only read the first paragraph," she said.
She also proposed a drinking game, in which every time someone at the podium said the word "book," everyone in the room would toss back a drink. And she also had a supply of party favors that, when she pulled a string, showered forth a little burst of confetti. It was that kind of evening.
Lorna Landvik and Louise Erdrich embrace after Erdrich receives the Minnesota Book Award for fiction.
The first winner of the evening was Louise Erdrich, who won in the Novel & Short Story category for "The Round House." It had already won a National Book Award, but Erdrich looked as delighted by the Minnesota Book Award as she surely did for the bigger prize. She thanked the crowd in Ojibway, and then she recited a limerick her father had written, which began, "There once was a girl from Max Bass..." ("When my father was bored at work, he wrote limericks," Erdrich said, adding that he had written one for every town in the state.)
There were poignant moments to offset the humor of the evening. Erdrich admitted that there had been hard times while she was working on "The Round House," and she thanked her youngest daughter: "Your smile and your hugs and your good cheer got me through those hard times," she said.
Geoff Herbach, with finalist Margi Preus.
Geoff Herbach, who won in Young People's Literature, seemed genuinely surprised and thrilled when his name was called. He talked about his son, who had been an avid reader as a child but who, when he reached his teen years, "stopped reading. Which scared me," Herbach said. "So I wrote the book for him, and for his friends, who had also stopped reading."
He was the first writer--but not the last--to thank the Loft Literary Center for helping him get established as an author. "If it weren't for the Loft, if it weren't for Hamline University, if it weren't for Minnesota State at Mankato, I would not be a writer," Herbach said.
The poetry award, which was won by Patricia Kirkpatrick, was announced by two-time winner Michael Dennis Browne, who, instead of giving a speech, recited "To Be of Use," a poem by Marge Piercy, which ends with these lines:
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
There was more. There was much more. David Treuer, who won for nonfiction, sending a letter to be read (he lives in California part of the year), a letter funny and wise; picture-book author David LaRochelle thanking his illustrator, because a picture book without pictures would be boring, indeed; book artist Jana Pullman confessing that books are her passion--or, perhaps, obsession. Minnesota Book winner Gwen Westerman addressed the room in Dakota; Kay Sexton Award winner Robert Hedin noted how Minnesota had grown from being seen as a "literary backwater" to a place that the rest of the country looked to--"Well, first let's see how they do it in Minnesota."
Mystery writer David Housewright, who competed against two other writers and himself in the genre fiction category, lamented that it was the book he wrote alone rather than the book he co-wrote with his wife that took the prize. He said he would give the award to his wife, "and not just because of what promises to be an awkward ride home."
The enthusiastic table of the evening award, Landvik decided, went to the table where memoirist Atina Diffley sat. When Diffley's name was called (for "Turn Here Sweet Corn") the table whooped and screamed. Diffley herself grinned broadly as she mounted the stage. And then, when it was over, they all smooshed in close for a happy group picture.
Atina Diffley and her happy fan base.
Now don't you wish you'd been there yourself?
Robert Hedin is this year's Kay Sexton Award winner.
Posted by: Laurie Hertzel Updated: March 7, 2013 - 12:24 PM
Robert Hedin.
Poet and translator Robert Hedin, the founding director of the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Red Wing, Minn., is this year's Kay Sexton Award winner.
Hedin is the author, translator or editor of more than 20 books of poetry and prose. He has received two Minnesota Book Awards and has been the co-editor of the Great River Review since 1997. The Anderson Center, a rertreat for writers and artists, also hosts a number of literary events each year, including an annual celebration of children's books held each fall.
The award goes to a Minnesotan who has devoted a lifetime to books, reading and the written word.
Hedin will receive the award on April 13, at the 25th annual Minnesota Book Awards gala event in downtown Minneapolis.
Poets united!
Posted by: Laurie Hertzel Updated: February 15, 2013 - 11:25 AM
You might think that the Minnesota Book Awards is a cut-throat affair, with finalists eyeballing each other balefully when they happen to meet, dissing each other's work, hiding their rivals' books in bookstores....
No, no! This is Minnesota! And this is writers we're talking about!
The four finalists for poetry--Dore Kiesselbach, Todd Boss, Jim Johnson and Patricia Kirkpatrick--have banded together to give readings across the Twin Cities during the weeks leading up to the awards ceremony in April. (Johnson, who lives in Duluth, might not make it for every appearance; the other poets will read his work in his absence.)
Here are the dates:
7 p.m. March 14, SubText Bookstore, 165 Western Av. N., St. Paul (the former Common Good Books space).
7 p.m. March 18, Barnes and Noble Roseville, HarMar Mall.
7 p.m. April 8, Common Good Books, 38 S. Snelling Av., St. Paul (the current Common Good Books space).
Come listen to them read, and then root and whoop for the winner on April 13 at the 25th annual Minnesota Book Awards gala event at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Minneapolis.
Pub quiz will test your literacy, raise money for annual book awards
Posted by: Laurie Hertzel Updated: January 29, 2013 - 3:17 PM
Pubs and writers go together like ham and cheese, like fish and chips, like Brendan Behan and a pint of plain. Now the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library are hosting "Plots & Pints: A Pub Quiz for the Minnesota literature," a fun time that is also a fund-raiser for the annual Minnesota Book Awards.
The quiz, which also honors the awards' 25th anniversary, will take place at 7 p.m. Thrusday, Feb. 21, at O'Gara's Bar & Grill, 164 N. Snelling Av., St. Paul.
The host, fittingly, will be Jeff Kamin, last year's Minnesota Book Awards emcee and the moderator of the roving hipster bookclub Books and Bars.
Teams of up to four members will answer questions about Minnesota's literary history in seven categories: geography, crime, music, Minnesota Book Awards, 1988 (the year the awards were established), politics and, for those who like their books illustrated, there will be a visual round.
The entry fee is $200 per team, with $160 of that tax-deductable; participants will receive a snack and a pint and there will be prizes for the top scoring teams.
To register your team, call the Friends of the Library at 651-222-3242 or register online at http://plotsandpints.eventbrite.com
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