About the Author
Carol Dines’s new young adult novel, The Take-Over Friend, finalist for the Achevan Prize, will be forthcoming from Fitzroy Books October, 2022. Her recent adult fiction, a collection of stories, This Distance We Call Love, won the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, 2022. In addition, her recent stories have been published in Ploughshares, Salamander, Narrative, Colorado Review, and Nimrod International. She has also published two novels for young adults, Best Friends Tell the Best Lies (Delacorte), The Queen’s Soprano (Harcourt) and a collection of short stories for young adults, Talk to Me (Delacorte.) Her poems and stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Somebody’s Speaking My Language (Women’s Voices Press), Voices of the Land (Milkweed), and Love and Lust: An Anthology, (Taylor and O’Neill’s Open To Interpretation, 2014). She is a recipient of the Judy Blume award as well as a recipient of Minnesota and Wisconsin State Artist Fellowships. Dines received a BA from Stanford University and an MA in English from Colorado State University. She has taught writing to all ages at universities, colleges, and public schools in Colorado, Florida, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband, Jack Zipes, and their standard poodle.
Inspiration:
Writing is a constant balancing act between being in the world, engaged in community, culture, and politics, and carving out the necessary alone-time to go deep into one’s own truths on the page. As a writer, I want to understand the larger currents in our fragile world, while also recognizing the smaller moments that infuse my characters’ lives with insight and meaning. For me writing is a daily practice, similar to meditation, a way of paying attention to everything -- neighborhood meetings, dog-training, construction noise, hair loss, icy roads, migrating loons. Writing offers the opportunity to observe ordinary everyday experience and to reveal how even the smallest moments render our lives significance.
