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1:1 with award-winning Minnesota author Kate DiCamillo
DiCamillo hoped her first book, “Because of Winn-Dixie,” would sell 5,000 copies. It went on to win a Newberry honor that would help propel sales to 11 million.
MINNEAPOLIS — Kate DiCamillo is one the most successful children’s authors in the country and lives right here in Minnesota — a move she actually credits as a big part of her success.
Though Kate DiCamillo did not grow up here, her reaction to her massive success is decidedly Minnesotan.
When asked about her career she shakes her head in disbelief.
“It’s impossible,” she said.
DiCamillo is a New York Times bestselling author with more than 43 million books in print. Two of them, “The Tale of Despereaux,” and “Flora and Ulysses,” are Newberry Award winners. Six of her books have either been made into movies — or soon will be.
DiCamillo came from humble beginnings. Growing up in Florida, her childhood battles with chronic pneumonia caused her to miss a lot of school and fueled her love of reading.
“I was home alone a lot and I had books,” she said. “And that was fantastic.”
When she got to college, a professor complimented her on her writing and suggested she go to graduate school. She took the compliment to heart but skipped grad school. Instead, she said, she started calling herself a writer and “wearing turtlenecks and acting cool” while working odd jobs at places like Disneyworld.
She didn’t start writing until she turned 30 and moved to Minnesota.
“You know, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you if I hadn’t moved from Florida to Minnesota and gotten a job in a book warehouse down in the Warehouse District called The Bookman,” she said.
By sheer chance, DiCamillo was assigned to the children’s section where she started reading the books and decided to try her hand at children’s literature.
Every day before work, she would set her alarm for 4:30 a.m. She dedicated herself to writing two pages a day, five days a week. Eventually, she had a story to send out, but for six years, no one noticed.
The rejection letters piled up, but she kept writing. She would collect 473 rejection letters before a publisher contacted her.
“I look at that number, 473, and I think, ‘What if it stopped at 471?’ I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you today,” she reflected. “I wouldn’t be this person who has found what she wants to do with her life and gets to do it, you know?”
Her first book, “Because of Winn-Dixie,” is a tale about a girl and her dog. DiCamillo wrote it during her second winter here in Minnesota.
“Because of Winn-Dixie is a book about homesickness in many ways and it’s a book about missing the South,” she said. “And so, you know, it’s like I couldn’t have written it unless I left.”
DiCamillo hoped the book would sell 5,000 copies, but it won a Newberry honor, which propelled it to the top of the charts. It went on to sell 11 million copies, forever changing her life.
She quit the warehouse job, bought a house in Minneapolis and started writing full-time.
She still writes out of her home office, still before dawn, still two pages a day, five days a week. But the homesickness of her early days and her very definition of home has changed.
Minnesota, she said, now feels like where she is supposed to be.
“This…this is home,” she said. “This is my place.”
DiCamillo is scheduled to appear at two reading events next month, the details of which can be found below.
- B&N Summer reading event – Maple Grove
Saturday, May 6 at 1 p.m.
Maple Grove, #2749,
8040 Wedgewood Lane, Maple Grove, MN 55369 - B&N Summer reading event – Eden Prairie
Saturday, May 13 at 11 a.m.
Eden Prairie Center, Store #2048
8251 Flying Cloud Dr. #3000, Eden Prairie, MN 55344
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Synchronize your watches! The award-winning best new musical sets its destination to the Orpheum.
MINNEAPOLIS — You don’t need to build a flux capacitator to travel back in time and relive an ’80s phenomenon.
“Back to the Future the Musical,” which won the 2022 Olivier Award for Best New Musical, is coming to the historic Orpheum Theatre in downtown Minneapolis at the beginning of fall.
The London’s West End and Broadway show is based on the 1985 blockbuster film that spawned two sequels: “Back to the Future Part II” in 1989 and “Back to the Future Part III” in 1990. All three films combined grossed nearly a billion dollars.
The award-winning musical stars Caden Brauch as Marty McFly, Don Stephenson as Doc Brown and Ethan Rogers as Biff Tannen.
“Back to the Future the Musical” officially premiered at the Manchester Opera House on March 11, 2020. It then had a huge run at London’s West End beginning in 2021 and hit Broadway in August of 2023.
The musical is directed by Tony Award-winner John Rando with original music by multi-Grammy-winners Alan Silvestri (“Avengers: Endgame”) and Glen Ballard (Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”), alongside songs from the movie including “The Power of Love,” “Johnny B. Goode” and “Back in Time.”
“Back to the Future the Musical” will play at the Orpheum from Tuesday, Sept. 10 to Sunday, Sept. 22.
Tickets, which start at $50, will go on sale at HennepinTheatreTrust.org on Friday, June 14, 2024, at 10 a.m.
The production contains flashing lights, strobe effects, pyrotechnics and is recommended for ages 6 and up.
Its run time is 2 hours and 35 minutes and includes one intermission.
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Marina Dougall, 36, was last seen in Minneapolis in September of last year but wasn’t reported missing until May 2024.
ANOKA COUNTY, Minn. — The Anoka County Sheriff’s Office is asking the public to help find a missing Anoka County woman who they believe is without critical medication.
Marina Dougall, 36, was last seen in Minneapolis in September of last year but wasn’t reported missing until May 2024. Police said her family hasn’t heard from her since she was last seen.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension released a statement Wednesday, saying Dougall was known to frequent the Franklin Avenue North area of Minneapolis as well as places throughout Anoka County and across the Twin Cities metro. Investigators said she may have been in the area of Burnett County, Wisconsin last September, before being dropped off at the Norwoood Inn in Roseville.
MISSING: Investigators believe Marina Dougall may have been in the in the Burnett County, Wisconsin, area Sept. 20-22, 2023, and then dropped off at the Norwood Inn in Roseville. Anyone with information on Marina Dougall’s whereabouts is urged to call 911. pic.twitter.com/HhfAeFGiJZ
— Minnesota BCA (@MnDPS_BCA) September 11, 2024
The BCA said Dougall has a medical condition that requires medication, and that she also has a history of mental health and substance abuse issues.
Dougall is described as 5’9 and 140 pounds, with brown hair and green eyes. She also has a chipped front tooth, flower tattoos on her right hand and left shoulder, a snowflake tattoo on her right abdomen and a large tattoo on her back.
The BCA added Dougall was born in Russia and speaks with a slight accent.
If you’ve seen Dougall or know any information about her whereabouts, you’re urged to call 911 or contact the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office at 763-324-5209.
A judge handed 25-year-old Damarean Bible a 367-month sentence – 30 and 1/2 years – for killing 37-year-old Savannah Williams in November of 2023.
MINNEAPOLIS — A Minneapolis man will serve more than 20 years in prison after being convicted of second-degree intentional murder in the death of a transgender woman in November of 2023.
A Hennepin County district judge sentenced Damarean Kaylon Bible to 367 months – or 30 and 1/2 years – for fatally shooting Savannah Ryan Williams, a woman who was well-known in the Twin Cities trans community. He will serve two-thirds of that sentence behind bars.
“This senseless act of violence against a Native and Cuban transgender woman has left a family without a daughter, a partner without their person, and a community without the vibrant light that Savannah uniquely brought to every room she was in,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty following the sentencing. “Savannah deserved safety.”
Moriarty said investigators in her office conducted a thorough review to determine whether the killing was motivated by bias, but concluded they could not prove bias beyond a reasonable doubt. The county attorney did say Williams’ murder is part of a pattern of escalating attacks against trans women, particularly those who are of color. She said since 2013, 286 trans women have been killed, with 85% of those victims being Bipoc women.
Two state legislators who are members of the Queer Caucus vowed to continue work at the State Capitol to protect Minnesota’s transgender community and increase penalties against those who harm them.
“Savannah Ryan Williams was a beloved member of the trans and Two Spirit community, and she should be alive today,” said Minnesota Rep. Leigh Finke (DFL-66A). “The data is clear that trans people, especially trans people of color, suffer violence at rates far greater than our cisgender neighbors. The Queer Caucus will continue do everything in our power at the Capitol to solve this crisis, and I thank the County Attorney’s Office for sharing this commitment.”
Minneapolis police were dispatched to the 3000 block of 4th Ave. S. around 9 a.m. Nov. 29, 2023 on reports of someone not breathing. Witnesses told officers they heard a gunshot just before 6 a.m.
Investigators used surveillance video to track the shooting suspect to an apartment building where they arrested Bible.
A criminal complaint says Bible admitted to shooting Williams in the head. He told police she approached him for a sexual encounter but he began to feel “suspicious.” After the act, he shot and killed her, according to court documents. Bible reportedly confessed after police found surveillance video of him at the scene near the Lake Street light rail station.
The complaint said while in jail, Bible told his dad he “just murdered someone.” It reads that he felt sorry for killing the victim and knew he wasn’t God, but he “had to do it.”
He was convicted of second-degree intentional murder on Aug. 27, 2024.
Following her death, friends remembered Williams as a big personality who was “full of life.”
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