Local author Tim Cochrane shares his experience winning a Minnesota Book Award

Local author and historian Tim Cochrane recently won a Minnesota Book Award for his book, “Making the Carry: The Lives of John and Tchi-Ki-Wis Linklater.” He told WTIP about how the winning books are selected.

The awards are presented annually and recognize books published during the previous calendar year. After books are nominated for an award, volunteer judges help narrow the field down to just four finalists. The winner is then selected from the final four in each category by a different panel of judges. Cochrane said that the authors were notified in January that their work had been chosen as a finalist. The winners are announced at a ceremony in the Twin Cities.

Cochrane’s book was honored with the Emilie Buchwald Award for Minnesota Nonfiction. The other finalists in the category were “Break the Wheel: Ending the Cycle of Police Violence” by Keith Ellison, “Minescapes: Reclaiming Minnesota’s Mined Lands” by Pete Kero, and “Winter’s Song: A Hymn to the North” by TD Mischke.

At the ceremony, Cochrane was joined by members of the Linklater family, who he said he became friends with as he researched their ancestors for the book.

WTIP’s CJ Heithoff spoke with Tim Cochrane about winning a Minnesota Book Award for “Making the Carry.” Audio of that interview is below.

Kirsten Wisniewski May 20, 2024