Mélina Mangal's latest board book Ants Work Together was published on August 25th. Find it at your favorite bookstore or library, or here. 

Cristina Oxtra’s picture book, What Lolo Wants, was selected for the 2025 Asian and Pacific American Librarians Association Best of the Best Booklist. 

Congratulations to Gloria Muñoz! This Is the Year is a finalist for the International Latino Book Award in the YA fiction category.

Sarah Warren’s nonprofit Picture Book Parade will host artists at the Midtown Farmers Market on September 5th including superstar writer Marcie Rendon! Check out www.picturebookparade.com for details.

Join Dr. Artika Tyner for the Leaders are Readers Children’s Book Award Celebration. Congratulations for the big win, Derek Francis! Find out more on their website.

Come on out and meet Justice Bell Bey at a launch or book signing! Visit his website to learn more!

Sarah Warren and Cristina Oxtra will be Blue Ribbon Authors at the Alphabet Forest at the Minnesota State Fair. Sarah will be there Aug. 31 and Cristina will be there Sept. 6. Fairgoers are invited to visit the Blue Ribbon Author tent at the corner of Cosgrove and Wright from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Chat with the day's featured author, learn more about their work, and do a fun craft activity. Educators and librarians can pick up their free packet during any of the fair days.

We will be at the Walk For Wishes® Minnesota on September 12, 2026 at Viking Lakes! (Viking Lakes , 2685 Vikings Circle , Eagan, MN, 55121). You can buy a book and get it signed by one of our members! Visit the Make A Wish website to find out more.

Shannon Gibney will be in conversation with fellow Minnesota authors Mary E. Roach and Varla Ventura during this free event. Moving Words is an opportunity for writers and readers to explore various themes together: the impact of literature in their lives, their connection as fellow Minnesotans, and the lens through which we read. Check out the Friends of the St Paul Public LIbrary’s website for more information!

Members of the collective will be at the YWCA’s Midtown Strong celebration. Meet your favorite author and get a book!

Date: Saturday, Sept. 19

• Time: 11 am-2 pm

• Location: YWCA Midtown Parking Lot, 2121 East Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN 55407

• Inclement Weather Location: Minneapolis Sports Center, 2121 East Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN 55407

• Cost: Free

Join members of the collective at the Powderhorn Porchfest on September 19th 2026, from 4-10 PM located at 17th Ave South between 32nd and 34th street. Find out more here.

We will be tabling at the 27th annual Minnesota Children's Book Festival on Saturday, September 19, 2026 from 11 a.m. - 4 p.m at the Anderson Center’s historic Tower View campus in Red Wing, Minnesota. Plus Tanáǧidaŋ Tó Wíŋ (Tara Perron), Mélina Mangal, and Meenal Patel will be featured presenting authors and will have book signings. 

In addition to this year’s festival, the Anderson Center will present Illuminating Illustrations, an illustrator showcase, where Emiko Rainbow’s illustrations will be on display from 8/29 through 11/7! Find out more here.

Learn more about the presentations and book signing schedules here

Join us at the Landmark Center for the 20th annual Mid-Autumn Moon Festival! This event is free and open to all! Enjoy cultural performances, crafts, lantern making, a community fair, food for purchase, and mooncake samples. The event will end with a Lantern Parade through Rice Park. A book signing will feature Trần Thị Minh Phước and other members of the collective. Find out more here.

Sarah Warren’s nonprofit Picture Book Parade will host local kid lit authors at the Midtown Farmers Market on October 3rd including special guests Nasra Noor and Cristina Oxtra! Nasra will do a story time at 10am. The first 10 attendees will get a free signed copy of her book My Mommy is a School Teacher.

Marcie Rendon and Payal Doshi will be at the Sinclair Lewis
Writer’s Conference. Visit the Sinclair Lewis Foundation’s website for registration details.

Join Gloria Muñoz to celebrate the launch of her new book at Wild Rumpus bookstore on October 11th at 2pm. Keep an eye on their events page for more details!

Members and friends of the collective will join Sarah Warren’s nonprofit Picture Book Parade to tell stories in the rotunda of the Mall of America on October 11th from 1-4pm. Readers will get free books after seeing them displayed on the Jumbotron!

Cristina Oxtra will be one of the featured authors at the Filipino American International Book Festival in San Francisco on October 17-18th in San Francisco! Find out more here. 

Shannon Gibney will join Sonali Kolhatkar, Yohuru Williams, and Peter Rachleff for a conversation about Kolhatkar’s new book Breaking ICE: Community Defense against State Terror and MAGA Fascism at Moon Palace Books on Monday, October 26th at 7:00pm. Buy the book and RSVP here.

Payal Doshi had a book launch at Crossword Bookstore in Mumbai and visited with students at Gundecha Education Academy, Hiranandani Foundation School, and Vasant Vihar Junior High School.

Meenal Patel was the featured author at the Picture Book Parade story time at the Midtown Farmers Market. Meenal shared her book in a read aloud and as a story stroll. She hosted an art activity and met many adoring fans!

Karen Kenney, Trần Thị Minh Phước, and Sarah Warren were featured storytellers with SoWashCo Cares! Karen, Trần Thị Minh Phước, and Nasra Noor’s books were also displayed as story strolls.

These story times were hosted by the Summer Skoolie program. “Skoolie” is the name of the colorfully painted school bus that goes out into the community bringing free food and fun to families all summer long. Find out more at SoWashCo CARES, Community Education. Special thanks to Picture Book Parade and the MN Humanities Center for supporting MN artists and their work!!

Payal Doshi, Emiko Rainbow, and Thuba Nguyễn were at More Than Lit-an annual community art auction and fundraiser hosted by the Minnesota literacy nonprofit Read With Me MN to provide diverse books for children!

Sarah Warren’s theatrical talents were on full display as a featured author at the Rise Early Learning reading event, Everyone Has a Story.

The Lion’s Historian Press, founded by Rosemond Sarpong Owens, was a featured vendor at Ghanafest in Chicago, one of the largest Ghanaian cultural celebrations in the Midwest.

Rosemond also visited the Obama Presidential Center, where she researched  opportunities to bring the voices of our collective into their growing library and educational spaces.

Sarah Warren, Crown Shepherd, Derek Francis, and Dr. Artika Tyner sold books and had a blast at the Rondo Block Party!

Sarah Warren, Art Coulson, and Phuoc Tran met some amazing librarians at the The Perpich Center Book Fair!

Thuba Nguyễn, Derek Francis, Justice Bel Bey, Jade Amez, Sarah Warren, Payal Doshi, and Vanessa Christensen were at the Southeastern Libraries Cooperating Camp Read-a-Lot! 

Shannon Gibney, Derek Francis, Jocelyn McQuirter, Rosemond Sarpong Owens, and Sarah Warren were at the Midwest Black Book Fair selling books and sharing story strolls! Black Garnet Books really knows how to throw a book party!

Three Things About . . . Art Coulson

What is your typical writing routine?

I typically start each night (I write at night after everyone else is asleep) by reading what I wrote the night before. This helps me get my head back into the space I was in during the previous session. I might correct some obvious things such as typos or clunky phrases, but I resist the temptation to do intense revisions. (If I went down that path, I would never get anything new written). Then I start pounding out the part I want to work on tonight. I don’t set arbitrary time limits or word counts as writing goals each night – I write while I’m in the zone and usually try to complete the chapter or scene I’m working on.

What is your favorite genre to write and/or read? 

I love to read horror, which traces back to the scary drive-in movies my grandmother took us to each weekend when I was a young boy in Southern California (One I remember vividly was called Planet of the Vampires, a kind of horror/sci-fi mashup). While I love to read horror, thanks to grandma, I haven’t yet written a horror novel. But that is about to change – I plan to start a long-anticipated YA horror novel when I spend most of September at a writing retreat. 

What's one writing rule you believe in and one you think is made to be broken?

 I’m a firm believer in this advice: “Start your story in the middle of the action.” It echoed the direction I received when I was a newspaper reporter in Washington. My editor, Bob Endicott, would yell at us in the newsroom: “Don’t back into your stories!” (Note: I cleaned that quote up for sensitive ears). What I took both bits of advice to mean is to cut the boring preambles and scene-setting and get to the point. This is the same advice all writers get early on: Make your first page count, write and rewrite until you’re sure it grabs readers and keeps their interest until the end. 

The piece of advice I think was meant to be broken is the directive to “write what you know.” For me, the fun part of writing is discovering things as I write that I didn’t know when I started. I begin each project with something I’m curious about and, through research and a bit of experimentation, I find out all sorts of interesting things. I think it would be quite boring – and confining – to limit my writing to the few things I already know.  

Find out more about Art Coulson and his work at artcoulson.com.