Events

Celebrate Independent Bookstore Day at Milkweed Books with special one-day-only promotions, and delightful snacks and sips! We invite you to stop in, shop from our array of books and broadsides, and share in the joy and community of local independent bookstores during one of the biggest annual events in the bookselling world! Sign up to become a Milkweed member to receive an exclusive tote bag and member discount! Learn more about Milkweed membership levels and benefits here.

This event will run all day, from 10 am to 5 pm, at Milkweed Books, our brick-and-mortar independent bookstore located on the…

Join us as Milkweed Books welcomes award-winning author Dorothy Chan for a reading from their new poetry book Return of the Chinese Femme, an unabashed exploration of queerness, excess, identity, and tenderness. Dorothy will read from their book and sit in conversation alongside poet Douglas Kearney, followed by time for audience questions and a book signing.

Enjoy a social hour in our brick-and-mortar indie bookstore Milkweed Books beginning at 5 p.m., followed by the reading and conversation beginning at 6 p.m.

About the book

The speaker in Dorothy Chan’s fifth collection, Return of the Chinese Femme, walks…

Join us for the May entry in our monthly reading and panel discussion event series Milkweed Presents, hosted by The Seed Keeper author Diane Wilson! Diane will lead readings and conversation about writing amidst climate change with Erin Sharkey, editor of A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars, and special guest poet Halee Kirkwood.

Enjoy a social hour and book-signing in our brick-and-mortar indie bookstore—Milkweed Books—beginning at 5 p.m., followed by the reading and conversation in the Open Book Performance Hall beginning at 6 p.m.

Our Spring 2024 slate of Milkweed Presents includes:

February…

Join Debra Magpie Earling and Louise Erdrich for a conversation in celebration of The Lost Journals of Sacajewea. This event is in partnership with Birchbark Books and the Minneapolis Central Library.

Author accommodation generously provided by Canopy by Hilton Minneapolis.

Join Debra Magpie Earling, author of the 2023 Montana Book Award-winning The Lost Journals of Sacajewea, for a conversation over lunch about the origins and development of her visionary novel. The event is open to all Kaleidoscope members and guests.

Join us as Milkweed Books welcomes poet Tess Taylor for a reading from her new book Leaning Toward Light, a collection of contemporary gardening poems with a diverse range of contemporary voices that offer poems celebrating that joyful connection to the natural world, in an era of climate crisis. Tess will read from Leaning Toward Light and be joined in conversation by local author Beth Dooley, followed by time for audience questions and a book signing.

Enjoy a social hour in our brick-and-mortar indie bookstore Milkweed Books beginning at 6 p.m., followed by the reading and conversation beginning at 7 p.m…

Join us as Milkweed Books welcomes poet Sonja Swift for a reading from her book Echo Loba, Loba Echo: Of Wisdom, Wolves, and Women, a unique look at the cultural, environmental, historical, literary, metaphorical, and political role of the wolf. Sonja will read from Echo Loba, Loba Echo and be joined in conversation by local author Winona LaDuke, followed by time for audience questions and a book signing.

Enjoy a social hour in our brick-and-mortar indie bookstore, Milkweed Books, beginning at 5 p.m., followed by the reading and conversation beginning at 6 p.m.

About the book

Echo Loba, Loba Echo is…

Join us for the our monthly reading and panel discussion event series Milkweed Presents, hosted by Worldly Things author Michael Kleber-Diggs! Michael will lead readings and a conversation on the topic of art and activism during times of global and civil conflict with special guest speakers Sun Yung Shin and Michael Torres.

Please join us in-person at Open Book for an unforgettable reading and discussion at 6 p.m., and come early for a book-signing and social hour at Milkweed Books, our brick-and-mortar independent bookstore, at 5 p.m.

Milkweed Presents is a monthly event series featuring Milkweed authors as curators of…

Join Milkweed Books as we host a launch event for three neurodivergent writers and their new books with Cow Tipping Press and Unrestricted Interest.

Mary Ayetey likes to write. She is a Black Autistic writer and winner of the Cow Tipping Prize. She likes Disney. She likes trolls. She likes listening to calm music and upbeat music. She’s been writing the first book of Henriette Meets Mully, and she wrote the “Respect” poem and “Pepper Spray.” She also likes to paint.The Ghosts I Know introduces a bold literary voice. At times blurring the past, and other times distilling…

Please join Milkweed Books in hosting poet Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. as he reads from his debut poetry collection Gay Poems for Red States.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In Gay Poems for Red States, Carver counters the injustice of a persistent anti-LGBTQ+ movement by asserting that a life full of beauty and pride is possible for everyone. More than a collection of poetry, Carver’s earnest and heartfelt verses are for those wishing to discover and understand the vastness of Appalachia, and for the LGBTQ+ Appalachians who long for a future—for a home—in an often unwelcoming place…

Join us for the our monthly reading and panel discussion event series Milkweed Presents, hosted by In Winter’s Kitchen author Beth Dooley! Beth will lead readings and a conversation on the topic of food and love with special guest speakers Karen Babine, Theresa McCormick, and Marnie Wells.

Please join us in-person at Open Book for an unforgettable reading and discussion at 6 p.m., and come early for a book-signing and social hour at Milkweed Books, our brick-and-mortar independent bookstore, at 5 p.m.

Thank you to our event sponsor Friesens.

Milkweed Presents is a monthly event series featuring Milkweed authors as…

Join us as Milkweed Books welcomes author Nathan Lipps for the launch of his debut book of poems, Built Around the Fire, which delves into notions of place, the enveloping wonder and plight of our environment, and the complexities of rural culture. Nathan will read from Built Around the Fire, followed by time for audience questions and a book signing.

Enjoy a social hour in our brick-and-mortar indie bookstore Milkweed Books beginning at 6 p.m., followed by the reading and conversation beginning at 7 p.m.

About the book

Built Around the Fire delves into notions of place, the enveloping wonder and…

Join us as Milkweed Books welcomes poet John Balaban for a reading from his newest book Passing Through a Gate, an essential collection of his prize-winning poems in one place, threaded through with essays that link poetry to Balaban’s extensive travels, whether hitchhiking throughout the United States or wandering the countryside of Vietnam during wartime to record and translate folk poetry. John will read and be joined in conversation by local author Michael Bazzett, followed by time for audience questions and a book signing.

Enjoy a social hour in our brick-and-mortar indie bookstore Milkweed Books beginning at 6 p.m., followed by…

Come join Milkweed as we welcome Zoë Schlanger to Minneapolis to launch her new book, The Light Eaters: How Unseen Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth. Zoë will be joined in conversaton by Ranae Hanson, author of Watershed: Attending to Body and Earth in Distress, winner of the 2022 Minnesota Book Award.

About the book

What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, consume, and accommodate simultaneously? More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied…

Join us at Milkweed Books to welcome Iowa poet Margaret Yapp and launch her new poetry collection, Green For Luck, out with EastOver Press on April 23.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Green for Luck wanders green city blocks, denying happen-stance and making lists. Margaret Yapp attends to mundanity as a string that holds us close to the earth, building quotidian divinities, landing jokes just to make sure we’re listening. In this book, words push the left and upper margins, forcing the body of the page to act as negative space, a place where the light gets in. Green for Luck …

Join us as Milkweed Books welcomes Lauren Russell for the launch of her new collection, A Window That Can Neither Close Nor Open, out August 27th. In A Window That Can Neither Open nor Close, the stakes of writing are also the stakes of living. “Though I no longer wanted to die,” writes Lauren Russell, “our first years together were not easy … because I also did not want to live.” From this enigmatic in-between, Russell dives into multitudes: cats and questions; compulsion and devotion; narrative and diagnosis; language and loneliness; scrupulosity and stasis; suicidality and love. After a…

Join us as Milkweed Books welcomes Jennifer Kabat for the launch of her debut memoir, The Eighth Moon: A Memoir of Belonging and Rebellion. After reading from The Eighth Moon, Jennifer will be joined in conversation by Summer J. Hart and Kathryn Savage.

Enjoy a social hour and book-signing in our brick-and-mortar indie bookstore Milkweed Books beginning at 6 p.m., followed by the reading and conversation at 7 p.m.

Experience the power of life-changing literature with Montana Poet Laureate and Métis storyteller Chris La Tray, author of the forthcoming memoir Becoming Little Shell. Enjoy dinner, drinks, a live auction, and more, while celebrating and supporting transformative books.

Funds raised from the Book Lovers Ball support Milkweed’s mission to identify, nurture, and publish transformative literature, and build an engaged community around it.