OUR STORIES | Ancestry Books is coming to North Minneapolis!

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On Thursday January 23rd my partner, Verna Wong, and I signed a lease on a storefront located at 2205 Lowry Avenue N. Minneapolis to be used for our bookstore, Ancestry Books. We had for several years been dreaming of opening up a space that would engage the literary arts with a particular focus on indigenous authors and authors of color.TCDP NOTE: Chaun will be teaching a class for us in April – watch for it! And you can contribute to Ancestry Books on Kickstarter. Based on many of our interactions over the past few months the prospect and direction of Ancestry Books has come both as a shock and a breath of fresh air. It is shocking in light of how difficult it is to keep any independent bookstore open in our present environment of Amazon, of e-books, of the behemoths of Barnes and Noble and Half Price Books. And if those “challenges” weren’t enough, we are deciding to have the selection in our bookstore center on authors of color and indigenous authors, which to some seems like a sure fire way to only stay open for a year!On the flipside there has been an immense energy surrounding what Ancestry Books will mean to the community of North Minneapolis, and the Twin Cities more broadly. Continue Reading

COMMUNITY VOICES | Minnesota Book Awards need to be fixed

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Several weeks ago, the finalists for the 26th annual Minnesota Book Awards were released. As with most other years, I wonder if this is going to be a year when the pattern is broken. But it’s not.What is that pattern? There have been only two books of adult fiction nominated over the last decade that could be considered science fiction, fantasy or more broadly non-realistic: Alicia Conroy’s nontraditional short story collection Lives of Mapmakers in 2007, and Lois McMaster Bujold’s high fantasy novel Paladin of Souls in 2004.That’s it. And that’s a problem.It’s a problem because the Minnesota Book Awards presents a skewed version of  the literary culture in the state, and goes forth with events, celebrations and resources (such as grants to bring MBA winners to libraries) that ignore any books that aren’t in the here-and-now. Continue Reading

B.J. Novak In Conversation with Kerri Miller at the Fitzgerald Theater: What happens when Hollywood comes to Minnesota

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The crowd wasn’t large but it was palpably excited to see B.J. Novak In Conversation with Kerri Miller at the Fitzgerald Theater on Wednesday, February 26. I loved Novak’s newly released first book of shorts called One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories and was prepared for an evening of mutual admiration. Novak tweeted earlier in the day about being excited to perform “in the shadow of Garrison Keillor” and walked out in a blazer and jeans, delightfully similar to what Miller was wearing. I wrote down “adorable and respectable” of Novak, and that’s about where my comfort with the evening ended.First, know that Novak’s book is very sharp—the stories, while hilariously funny at times, are frequently unsettling and embedded with the small moments of dissatisfaction in life. He even includes discussion questions at certain points for good measure. Continue Reading

Exploring African American History Month – the government docs approach

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Maya Angelou tells us that “history, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” And so, whether or not we slow down to think, we as a people set aside occasions – a day, a week, a month – to commemorate a the stories of the people, events, eras or movements that shape our nation’s history. Continue Reading

Laos in the House: Catching up with Catzie

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Catzie Vilayphonh was key figure in bringing the groundbreaking National Lao American Writers Summit to Minneapolis in 2010, and has been a frequent visitor to college campuses across Minnesota over the last decade. She is a Lao American writer and performer normally based in Philadelphia, where she is a member of the acclaimed spoken word duo Yellow Rage. She broke ground as the first Lao woman to appear on Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam in 2001. She has performed across the country with acclaimed figures such as Sarah Jones, Beau Sia and I Was Born with Two Tongues. She also writes for a variety of magazines and literary journals. Continue Reading

ARTS REVIEW | Revolver at the Ritz: 12 Experiments: “Like Wits but weirder”

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Saturday night the literati hung out at Revolver at the Ritz: 12 Experiments. It was a high brow variety show with 12 chapters, otherwise know by the non-literati as skits. I overheard an usher describe the show as “like Wits but weirder” and I have to say, I can’t come up with an better description myself. I enjoyed it thoroughly – but I was an English major; worse yet I have arty graduate degrees. So I was probably the laser market. Continue Reading