Sheila O’Connor
Thank you to Sheila for sharing her thoughts about art and writing, space and quiet, and the vagaries of process.
Sheila O’Connor is the author of six award-winning novels for adults and young people. Her books include Where No Gods Came, winner of the Minnesota Book Award and the Michigan Prize for Literary Fiction, and Sparrow Road, winner of the International Reading Award. Her novels have been included on Best Books of the Year lists by Booklist, VOYA, Book Page, and the Chicago Public Library, among others. O’Connor received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and her work across genres has been recognized with the Loft Literary Center’s McKnight Fellowship, two Bush Artist Fellowships, and several Artist Initiative grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board.
“In a story is where I will come to understand some major truth that I don’t have the language for and couldn’t even articulate.”
A few things we mention in this episode:
COMPAS: Minnesota-based nonprofit bringing artists to the schools
Evidence of V: A Novel in Fragments, Facts, and Fictions (Rose Metal Press, 2019) by Sheila O’Connor
Tokens of Grace: A Novel in Stories (Milkweed, 1990) by Sheila O’Connor
“If it’s not art, I’m not interested in it.”