While the surge of ICE agents first deployed to the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area in December has receded, Minnesota’s authors and publishers haven’t slowed their efforts to support and spotlight the state’s immigrant community.
Last week, on Thursday, February 26, the Loft literary center and Milkweed Editions, which are both housed inside the Open Book complex in Minneapolis, co-sponsored a group reading called Minnesota Writers Respond, featuring eight authors including Sarah Ghazal Ali, Michael Kleber-Diggs, and Curtis Sittenfeld.
The event, organized and hosted by Jessica Nordell at Open Book, was also a fundraiser for the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, raising $3,000. (Donors also had the option of donating directly to the Immigrant Law Center via the event landing page.)
“This is a night to be in community, to begin to process what’s happened, to push back against the tsunami of disinformation, and most of all, to be together,” Nordell said in a statement.
Also this past weekend, a delegation of international writers representing PEN America, in partnership with Lerner Publishing Group, Milkweed Editions, and Graywolf Press, conducted public conversations in Minneapolis and St. Paul, focusing on the role of writers amid the deployment of ICE and ongoing protests.
The first event took place on Friday, February 27, at St. Paul’s Eastside Freedom Library, and featured Kao Kalia Yang, who is Hmong American and immigrated to the US when she was six years old. The second event, a Saturday evening panel on February 28, billed as “Bread, Borders, and Belonging,” took place at Open Book and featured Padma Lakshmi, who immigrated to the U.S. from India when she was four years old.
A release stated that the conversations are designed to “explore how literature has served as witness and refuge as well as igniting resistance—a recognition that writers and the creative community are essential to the fight against authoritarian tactics.”
Authors step up and out
On Saturday, February 28, more than two dozen bookstores hosted close to 60 authors for Authors for Minnesota Day, during which authors gave out signed copies of their books in return for a donation to the Immigrant Law Center or the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota’s Rapid Response Fund.
Jess Lourey, who organized the event and appeared at Inkwell Booksellers in Minneapolis, told PW afterwards that "the response blew us away: 26 bookstores across the state saw record turnout, with readers hopping between locations, discovering new favorites, and meeting nearly 60 generous authors who donated their time and books to support the Immigrant Law Center and the Women’s Foundation." The event raised $60,000 for the two organizations.
Lourey added, “I was in tears several times throughout the day seeing how many people in our community want to support small businesses and immigrant rights.”
Shannon Gibney, who appeared at Black Garnet in St. Paul, described the day as “lots of people coming out to support the cause, buy books, and connect with local authors and indie bookstores.” Gibney estimates that she gave away close to 25 copies of her books.
Margi Preus appeared at Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul, and gave away 20 signed copies of Shadow on the Mountain, a YA historical novel about a Norwegian teenager who joins the resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II.
“There were so many people, we ended up asking people to record their donations themselves,” she told PW. “And lots of books being sold—at least it looked that way to me.”
Preus said that she told her fellow authors that if there was such a crowd in a bookstore in Duluth, Minn., where Preus lives, it had to be because the author was famous. “Then I caught sight of Kate DiCamillo—who was trying hard not to be noticed—so of course I had to add, oh, well I guess there is someone famous here after all.”
