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Staci Drouillard
On January 28, the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library announced the finalists in all nine categories for the 2023 Minnesota Book Awards, and Grand Marais author Staci Drouillard’s Seven Aunts was one of four books nominated in the Memoir & Creative Nonfiction category.
Who were the aunts? A brief description from the book gives the reader a glimpse of these fascinating women.
“These are the aunties: Faye, who lived in California, and Lila, who lived just down the street; Doreen, who took on the bullies taunting her “mixed-blood” brothers and sisters; Gloria, who raised six children (no thanks to all of her “stupid husbands”); Betty, who left a marriage of indenture to a misogynistic southerner to find love and acceptance with a Norwegian logger; and Carol and Diane, who broke the warped molds of their own upbringing.”
Staci is also the author of Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe. Staci was awarded the Hamlin Garland Prize in Popular History by the Midwestern History Association for Walking the Old Road, which also won the North Eastern Minnesota Book Award for nonfiction, and was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award.
When she isn’t writing, Staci works for WTIP radio as the Legacy Projects Coordinator.
Education Minnesota sponsors the Minnesota Book awards.
The panel that decided the finalists comprises 27 judges from around the state – writers, teachers, librarians, booksellers, and others from the literary community.
Award winners will be announced at the 2023 Minnesota Book Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, May 2, at Ordway Center for Performing Arts.
The Minnesota Book Awards is a year-long program of The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library that connects readers and writers throughout the state with the stories of our neighbors. The process begins in the fall with book submissions and continues through winter with two rounds of judging. Winners are announced at the Minnesota Book Awards Ceremony each spring.
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