WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE
September 19 – October 6, 2021
Sarah Stonich
Sarah Stonich’s first novel, These Granite Islands was a Barnes & Noble Great New Writers pick, translated to a dozen languages and awarded numerous prizes. Her second, The Ice Chorus was also a critical success, though she is best known for the Northern trilogy, beginning with Vacationland, continuing with Laurentian Divide, winner of the ’19 Minnesota Book Award. That novel was read on air by Jim Fleming as a WPRI’s Chapter A Day selection. Sarah’s memoir Shelter: Off The Grid In The Mostly Magnetic North won a NEMBA award for memoir. Her Fishing With Ray Anne trilogy debuted with Fishing! in March ’20.
Second in that series, Reeling, will launch in October, ’21. Sarah’s novels have been chosen as community reads in a dozen states and provinces. She is a frequent speaker at libraries, universities and festivals, as well as writer-in-residence at such programs as The Ragdale Foundation IL, Gibraltor Pointe; Art OMI; Anderson Center; The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Ireland, and Hawthornden Castle, Scotland, among others. The recipient of a Loft McKnight Award and four MN State Arts Board fellowships, she also reviews fiction and non-fiction for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and other newspapers, as well as editing for The Loft’s Manuscript Assessment program. Sarah lives in a repurposed flour mill on the Mississippi River with her partner; her son, and their boxer puppy, Fergal.
Artist Statement
Place is as important to me as the characters populating my stories. We are all sums of our pasts: our relationships, the landscapes we are imprinted with; the families and societies that raised and nurtured us – or didn’t. I’m a slow writer, needing to understand my characters in their entirety before committing them to the page. If they don’t ring true and full, readers might forget them. Success for me is not how many copies are sold, but that my characters and their stories are remembered.
Community Event
