Minnesota Book Awards go to Mona Susan Power, Shannon Gibney and Emma Torzs

Nine of the state’s finest books of 2023 took home trophies Tuesday night at the Minnesota Book Awards.

Mona Susan Power’s “A Council of Dolls” earned the award for novel or short stories. Also longlisted for the international Carol Shields Prize, the novel shifts among the lives of three Indigenous women whose dolls provide comfort and understanding as they grapple with personal and generational trauma.

Photographer John Noltner earned the nonfiction prize for “Lessons on the Road to Peace,” a chronicle of his 93,000-mile trip (with wife Karen) across America, searching for the things that unite our divided country.

The Minnesota nonfiction prize was won by “Making the Carry: The Lives of John and Tchi-Ki-Wis Linklater.” Timothy Cochrane’s illustrated biography follows the lives of the titular couple, who lived on the Minnesota/Canada border in the early 20th century.

Emily Strasser’s “Half-Life of a Secret: Reckoning With a Hidden History” won the memoir/creative nonfiction prize. Her debut unpacks her family’s legacy, inspired by a photograph of her late grandfather, George, who helped develop the atomic bomb.

The best genre novel was Emma Törzs’ genre-busting “Ink Blood Sister Scribe.” The fantasy/thriller, chosen as a “Good Morning America” book club pick, is about sisters investigating their connection to a powerful set of supernatural books.

Chaun Webster, who previously won for his collection “Gentry!fication,” earned the poetry prize for “Wail Song: or wading in the water at the end of the world,” which asks readers “how deep they are willing to wade in the water with Blackness.”

Shannon Gibney earned her third Minnesota Book Award for “The Girl I Am, Was and Never Will Be,” an autobiographical work for young adults that combines memoir, speculation and primary documents to explore Gibney’s search for her birth mother and her own identity. Gibney previously won for “Dream Country” and “See No Color.”

Previous winner (for “The Rabbit Listened”) Cori Doerrfeld took the children’s literature prize for “Beneath,” in which a man takes his grandchild on an illuminating nature walk.

Kalena Miller is another previous winner (for “The Night No One Had Sex”) who took home another award, for middle grade title “Shannon in the Spotlight,” about a girl with autism who discovers that performing on stage feels like home for her.

Special awards were given to “Minescapes: Reclaiming Minnesota’s Mined Lands,” Pete Kero’s stories from the Iron Range, book artist Vesna Kittelson and author, artist and activist Bao Phi, who was honored for his leadership in the literary community (his picture book “A Different Pond” previously won a Minnesota Book Award). The awards are presented by the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library.