Minnesota children’s author Kelly Barnhill won a Newbery Medal for her 2016 middle-grade reader The Girl Who Drank the Moon, an enchanting and expertly written tale of a young girl who is befriended by a kind witch. After the compassionate but misunderstood witch accidently feeds the child moonlight, filling her with magical powers, she raises her as a daughter. In addition to winning the Newbery Medal, Barnhill’s writing has earned her the World Fantasy Award, the Parent’s Choice Gold Award and numerous other literary honors.
Now, The New York Times bestselling author has turned her pen to grown-up fairy tales in her short-story collection Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories. This beautifully crafted collection of nine stories unravels complicated narratives and delves into universal themes of love and death. Set in a world that is both eerily familiar and stunningly original, Barnhill has brought readers uncanny characters facing issues from death to sexuality, infused with both the most familiar of human struggles and the best of our hopeful spirit.
Barnhill makes her home in Minnesota, where she is a teaching artist at COMPAS, a statewide community arts program. Boswell Book Co. and the Lynden Sculpture Garden will welcome the award-winning author for its upcoming Women’s Speaker Series event at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 1 at Lynden. This ticketed event comes with a signed copy of Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories.
