After the in-person event (and of course the award ceremony) had to be canceled due to COVID-19, the folks at the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library got to work figuring out how to still share these great stories and let the authors share a bit about their journeys.

This past week, I joined my fellow finalists in Memoir & Creative Nonfiction Karen Babine (All the Wild Hungers), Anika Fajardo (Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of Finding Family), and Raki Kopernik (The Memory House) in a virtual discussion of craft and experience, hosted by last year’s MN Book Award Recipient Wing Young Huie, (Chinese-Ness: The Meanings of Identity and the Nature of Belonging).

It was a fantastic opportunity to meet my fellow finalists, and was really fun to get all these writers together to discuss the process. Thanks to the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library for hosting the event, and Wing for moderating.

The awards ceremony at 7pm CST on Tuesday, April 28 will now be a live-streamed virtual event that you can watch here or by clicking the link below.