Associated Press
ST. PAUL -- Louise Erdrich won the Minnesota Book Award for best novel Friday night and Robert Bly won for best poetry.
Erdrich's book, "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse," is a story of life on a North Dakota Indian reservation told through the memories of a priest who keeps something hidden.
Bly's "The Night Abraham Called to the Stars" is a collection of poems that examine art and nature through a complex Middle Eastern verse form.
In other awards, Garrison Keillor won the Nature and Minnesota category for "In Search of Lake Wobegon," a collection of essays with photographs by Richard Olsenius.
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The prize for autobiography and memoir went to Peter Razor's "While the Locust Slept," an account of growing up as a ward of the state.
William Kent Krueger of St. Paul won the prize for popular fiction for his "Purgatory Ridge: A Cork O'Conner Mystery." It was his second Minnesota Book Award.
Lise Lunge-Larsen of Duluth won her second Minnesota Book Award for her children's book "The Race of the Birkebeiners," illustrated by Mary Azarian.
"Zazoo" by Richard Mosher of St. Paul won the prize for youth literature for preteens and older.
Other winners were "Views on the Mississippi: The Photographs of Henry Peter Bosse" by Mark Neuzil of St. Paul, in history and biography; "The Cancer Poetry Project," edited by Karin Miller of St. Louis Park, in anthology and collections, and "Garment Register" by Harriet Bart of Minneapolis, printed by Philip Gallo of Minneapolis and bound by Jill Jevne of Cohasset, in fine press.
Harry Lerner, founder and CEO of the Lerner Publishing Group, was given the Kay Sexton Award for outstanding contributions to Minnesota's book community.
