EDITOR'S NOTE: This 2022 story was updated to reflect Drouillard's recognition in the 2023 Minnesota Book Awards.
Staci Lola Drouillard is a Minnesota writer and a descendant of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Anishinaabe.
Her first book Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe was published in 2019 and now she has a second book out — it’s called Seven Aunts.
It’s part memoir and part cultural history, telling the story of her seven Anishinaabe and European aunts who provided Staci a foundation of strength and sense of home, and who might have gone overlooked without this book.
After this interview, Seven Aunts went on to earn the 2023 Minnesota Book Award in memoir and creative nonfiction. Read more about Drouillard and her book from the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, which hosts the book awards each year.
Drouillard also won the Hamlin Garland Prize in Popular History and the Northeast Minnesota Book Award for nonfiction.
See MinnPost's coverage of Staci Drouillard.