Novelist and screenwriter Sarah Stonich was born in Duluth, Minnesota. She moved to the Twin Cities in 1986, where she has worked in the literary community as a columnist, editor, and freelance writer. Her essays and short fiction have been published in Zyzzyva, Columbia Journal, and Minnesota Monthly. City Secrets: New York and many other magazines. Stonich has been a featured author at festivals and writer's conferences such as the San Miguel Allende Literary Conference, and the Aspen Writers Institute. She reviews books for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and other newspapers. She is also an editor and brander at WordStalkers. She has been a writer in residence at Hawthornden International Writer's Programme in Scotland; Ragdale Foundation in Chicago IL: The Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland; The Michael King Writer's Center in Auckland, New Zealand; Art Omi in NY and Ucross in Wyoming, among others. Most recently Sarah has begun adapting her novels to television series and feature length scripts. She is married to musician Jon Ware and lives in Minneapolis. Stonich's first novel, These Granite Islands, was originally published by Little Brownin 2001 and was translated into eleven languages, it won a Loft McKnight award, a Minnesota State Arts Board Award and the Friends of American Writers Award in addition to being a Barnes&Noble 'Discover Great New Writers pick'. It was most recently reissued by The University Of Minnesota Press. Sarah's Northern trilogy is set in the Iron Range of Minnesota. "My settings tend to be the towns in the rural north where industry and recreation compete. This small town dynamic challenges characters who are 'townies' and tourists; young and old; mining advocates and environmentalists; sometimes pitting neighbor against neighbor, and always posing a delicate balance at this 'end of the road' community where land use issues are a constant.
Awards and honors
2018: Minnesota Book Award 2018: Northeastern Minnesota Book Award 2011: Northeastern Minnesota Book Award 2004; 2013; 2018: Minnesota State Arts Board Career Development Grant. 2002: Shortlisted for Grand Prix Lectrices d’Elle for French translation of These Granite Islands 2000: Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship 1999: Loft McKnight Fellowship for Fiction
Partial bibliography
These Granite Islands The Ice Chorus Shelter Vacationland Laurentian Divide Fishing!
Reviews
Reviewing Vacationland, Kirkus Reviews said: "Each chapter renders a story complete, and the stories together weave a deeply mined narrative of place and people, elegiac yet life-affirming.”
