Kao Kalia Yang screwed up the premise of this story with her answer to my very first question.
I was writing about four local writers who, somehow, managed to each have three books coming out this year.
“Actually, it’s four books,” said Yang, who does, indeed, have a quartet of 2024 offerings.
She’s just wrapping up publicity tours for the first three (memoir ”Where Rivers Part” and two books for young people, “Caged” and “The Rock in My Throat,” with middle grade novel “The Diamond Explorer” coming in September). And, in her spare time, she gave the commencement address and received an honorary degree from her alma mater, Carleton College.
“It’s partly a coincidence,” said Yang, who hadn’t had a book out since 2021. “But I don’t really believe in coincidence, so it was meant to happen this way.”

Marcie R. Rendon, who just published a poetry collection, “Anishinaabe Songs for a New Millennium,” and has a mystery, “Where They Last Saw Her,” and a children’s book, “Stitches of Tradition,” coming this fall, has a theory about all this productivity: “An alien ship landed and zapped us.”
She’s kidding, of course. Truthfully, one thing Rendon and Yang have in common is that they don’t sleep much, which is true of two other 2024 Minnesota Triple Threats: Ty Chapman, whose poetry collection “Tartarus” is already in stores and who’ll release two children’s books, “James Finds the Beat” and “Stokes: The Brief Career of the NBA’s First Black Superstar” (co-written with fellow Minneapolis writer John Coy) in October.
Also, Kate DiCamillo’s “Ferris” and “Orris and Timble: The Beginning” are out now and her “The Hotel Balzaar” lands in October.