Sun Yung Shin accepts the 2026 Kay Sexton Award at the 38th Annual Minnesota Book Awards.
The Minnesota Historical Society was well represented at the 38th Annual Minnesota Book Awards on May 6 at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul, with four authors honored in multiple categories. Hosted by the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library and sponsored by Education Minnesota, this ceremony celebrates the state’s vibrant and exceptional literary community, bringing hundreds of readers, authors, illustrators, educators, librarians, and publishers together “for one incredible evening to honor stories of Minnesotans that connect us all,” in the words of the Friends.
MNHS Press’s 2024 title It Took Courage: Eliza Winston’s Quest for Freedom by Christopher P. Lehman was honored with the Hognander Minnesota History Award. Sponsored by the Hognander Family Foundation, the award recognizes the author of the most outstanding scholarly work related to Minnesota history published during the preceding two years. Christopher is a professor of Ethnic Studies at St. Cloud State University. His work has appeared in Minnesota History magazine, and in 2020 he won the Minnesota Book Award in Nonfiction for Slavery’s Reach: Southern Slaveholders in the North Star State.
Of the four titles nominated for the Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction, two were published by MNHS Press: The War at Home: Minnesota during the Great War, 1914-1920 by Greg Gaut and Enmity and Empathy: Japanese Americans in Minnesota during World War II by Ka F. Wong. The latter book won, and in accepting the award for the author, MNHS Press managing editor Shannon Pennefeather noted that the book shined a light on the little-known history of Japanese Americans released from incarceration camps during the Second World War through the sponsorship of Minnesota citizens, to become college students, translators, nurses, small business owners, and more. Ka is a professor of Asian Studies at St. Olaf University in Northfield.
This year’s Kay Sexton Award honoree was Sun Yung Shin, the editor of two MNHS Press anthologies, including the bestselling A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota and What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories about Food and Family, among other titles. In her comments, Sun Yung thanked her editor at MNHS Press, Ann Regan, the recipient of last year’s Kay Sexton Award.
Michael Risku
“Michael Risku’s utterly readable Following the Fish offers a delightfully comprehensive look at commercial fishing along Lake Superior’s North Shore. Readers will smell the herring smoking and look into the lined faces of the weather-beaten men who scoured the big lake for their catch. Risku casts his net far, collecting a vast haul of history and geography while chronicling an all-but-vanished lifestyle.” —Curt Brown, author of Minnesota 1918: When Flu, Fire, and War Ravaged the State and So Terrible a Storm: A Tale of Fury on Lake Superior
“Through a personal connection to the history of Lake Superior’s commercial fishing culture, Michael Risku gracefully weaves the story of the industry from its earliest days through the present, from Duluth to the Canadian border. A must-read for fans of Minnesota’s North Shore.” —Lee Radzak, author of The View from Split Rock: A Lighthouse Keeper’s Life
Pub date: 5/12/2026.
Carolyn Olson, Pearl's Garden, "Area Voices: Duluth painter Carolyn Olson creates ‘narrative artist’ journey," KAXE 91.7
Tara Perron, Our Sacred Land of Phežúta, "A story of Phežúta," Sahan Journal
Michael Risku, Following the Fish, "Walleye: The history of Minnesota’s favorite fish," MinnPost
Patty Wetterling, Dear Jacob, "Jacob Wetterling's story told in new documentary," St. Cloud Times
Sarah Peterson, Dish and Tell, "A new cookbook dishes up recipes (and stories)," Pioneer Press
Zongxee Lee, Natalie Hoidal, Alex Crum; photography by Lindsey Miller
On May 5, Magers and Quinn Booksellers in Minneapolis hosted the book launch for Tshuaj Ntsuab: A Compendium of Hmong Medicinal Plants. The event was co-sponsored by the Hmong Museum. The authors were joined in dialogue with family members, including May Lee (center; photo by Mitch Lee of Hmong TV's Organic Living). May Lee's story runs throughout the book, and her smiling face graces the cover. An enthusiastic and appreciative crowd celebrated the publication of this first of its kind volume, whose title means "green medicine." Including color photos throughout, the book is a combination of field guide, plant identification, family memoir, and cookbook.
During her early years in Laos, May Lee trained as a niam tshuaj, a plant-based healer and keeper of herbal plants, a role customarily handed down from mother to eldest daughter. When she fled to Thailand and then the United States in 1980, May brought preserved cuttings, which she eventually cultivated in Minnesota. She passed along her knowledge to daughters Zongxee and Mhonpaj, who likewise became herbalists and farmers.
Tshuaj Ntsuab grew out of a five-year collaboration between the Lee family, University of Minnesota Extension, and Dr. Ya Yang’s laboratory at the University of Minnesota. The team used DNA sequencing to identify each of the herbs and reviewed published works to better understand what scientists know about these plants. The result is a valuable reference that preserves traditional knowledge for members of the Hmong community and beyond.
On May 21, from 6:30 to 7:30 PM, at the Minnesota History Center's Community Room, join the Minnesota Historical Society’s Inclusion and Community Engagement team for the latest installment of Booked on Thursdays. This month's selection is the 2021 MNHS Press anthology What We Hunger for: Refugee and Immigrant Stories about Food and Family edited by Sun Yung Shin.
In this volume, fourteen authors from refugee and immigrant families write about their complicated, poignant, funny, difficult, joyful, and ongoing relationships to food, cooking, and eating. Contributors include Valérie Déus, V. V. Ganeshananthan, Roy G. Guzmán, Lina Jamoul, Simi Kang, May Lee-Yang, Ifrah Mansour, Ánh-Hoa Thị Nguyễn, Zarlasht Niaz, Junauda Petrus-Nasah, Kou B. Thao, Michael Torres, Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay, and Senah Yeboah-Sampong.
Booked on Thursdays is free and open to the public, but advance registration is requested. If you would like to request a free copy of the book, please email engagement@mnhs.org after you register. Limited copies are available upon request.
It may be spring still, but we are already looking ahead to fall! Our seasonal catalog is now posted on our homepage as a pdf download. Get a sneak peak at new books by Mark Dayton, Molly Beth Griffin and Jennifer A. Bell, Ka Choua Vue, Crystal Schlueter, Hampton Smith, and more. The front cover features Jonathan Thunder's artwork from Blue Bearies by Brenda J. Child (Bine), forthcoming in September. This much-anticipated sequel to the bestselling Bowwow Powwow continues the adventures of Windy Girl and Itchy Boy.
Also publishing in September is former senator and two-term governor Mark Dayton's memoir, Perseverance. US Senator Tina Smith offers this advance praise: "Mark Dayton gives us a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at a political life defined by contradictions, challenges, and ultimately great meaning. I was delighted by his insider take on national events as well as funny and charming tales about Minnesota politics that made me laugh out loud. The story of how this Midwestern populist fearlessly challenged the status quo, delivered for the people, and won Minnesota’s heart is a must-read.”
State Senator Karin Housley writes, "I served in the legislature while Mark Dayton was governor, and while our political philosophies couldn’t be more different, our friendship has always been a point of pride for me. In Perseverance, Mark brings the same humor and humility to the page that he brought to the capitol. From family stories to the grit of a political career, this is a fascinating read that reminds us there is always more to a person than their party platform.”
Print copies of the MNHS Press fall 2026 catalog go out in the mail this month. Check out what is new, recent, and bestselling on our list. Fall releases are available for pre-order on the MNHS Museum Shop site.
On the opening day of Minnesota’s fishing season in 1965, the Minnesota Legislature selected walleye as the state’s official fish. While walleyes are neither the state’s biggest fish nor its most abundant, they are consistently ranked as Minnesotans’ favorite.
On March 3, 1991, Line 3 of the Lakehead Pipeline Company burst near Grand Rapids, Minnesota. An estimated 1.7 million gallons of oil spilled into the nearby Prairie River and surrounding wetlands, making it the largest inland oil spill in US history.
Meg Gorzycki
"This book brings me home. Remember the Main clarifies some of the mythology that has grown up around the Main Club, the gay bar in my hometown of Superior, Wisconsin, and its owner, Bob Jansen. Author Meg Gorzycki places LGBTQ+ activism in the Northland squarely in the context of the feminist, civil rights, and anti-violence movements that she calls 'boomer activism.' Remember the Main is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, and the role LGBTQ people played in the civil rights and AIDS movements of the 1980s and 1990s." —Jim Berg, editor, scholar, native of Superior, Wisconsin, and former dean of Lake Superior College
"Meg Gorzycki’s Remember the Main is both history and rallying cry; impossible to read without being struck by myriad resonances with our political moment. It is a history that prizes locality, and demonstrates how the bravery of a single individual can inspire a community, and how the bravery of a small but vital community can help advance a national cause." —Christopher Tradowsky, author of Midnight at the Cinema Palace
"In Remember the Main, Meg Gorzycki illuminates a powerful and often overlooked chapter of LGBTQ history, tracing how a single bar in the Northland became a lifeline, a political engine, and a home for those pushed to the margins. Set against the early decades of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the rural Midwest, the book reveals how grassroots organizing and mutual aid emerged in places too often left out of the historical record. Weaving oral history with narrative precision, she captures a generation that refused invisibility, transforming isolation into community and grief into action. A reminder that real change often begins exactly where the Main Club did: in a room where people gathered, listened, and refused to disappear." —Ryan Berg, author of No House to Call My Home and program manager, ConneQT Host Home Program at Avenues for Youth
Pub date: 6/9/2026. Book launch: 6/13/2026, 4:00 PM, the Main Club, Superior, WI
Enmity and Empathyby Ka F. Wong
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Slavery's Reachby Christopher P. Lehman
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A Good Time for the Truthedited by Sun Yung Shin
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