Minnesota

BOOKS: A Conversation With Author V.E. Schwab

Published

9 months ago

March 19, 2025

BOOKS: A Conversation With Author V.E. Schwab

Victoria (V.E.) Schwab is a #1 New York Times best-selling fantasy author of more than 20 books. In this interview with a Minnesota high school student, she shares her thoughts on how to handle the trials of creativity in a time when creative pursuits, especially by women, are diminished.

V.E. Schwab photo by Jenna Maurice

It is practically in the adolescent development rulebook for teenagers to have idols. For me, V.E. Schwab is one of those idols. I fell in love with her writing in middle school, when I read City of Ghosts. Schwab has a talent for making it feel as though the words you are reading were written just for you — like an intimate bedtime story. When I had the opportunity to interview her for the Minnesota Women’s Press, when Schwab was visiting Minneapolis, I wanted to hear what advice she had for aspiring female creatives (like myself).

Schwab is candid. At 37, she has had a successful career since selling her debut novel to Disney during college. . She told me that, like it or not, she has become a brand and it can be a struggle to adjust to the weight of social expectations that go along with that brand.

She was honest about the self-doubt that she faces, despite the success. “My self criticism gets really loud, really fast,” says Schwab. “My perfectionism is so steep that Addie LaRue almost didn’t get written because …I got to a fork in the road and I had to decide between [wanting to execute] a perfect idea and [executing what I considered] an imperfect reality.”

Perfectionism and being your own worst critic is tricky to navigate, she admits.. “‘If it can’t be perfect, it’s not worth doing at all’ is the worst mantra that you can have in anything — in sports, in arts. It’s not going to carry you. So I have to make peace. I have to remind myself that it’s not about writing the best book possible” — meaning, it is not about perfection, but about creating a piece of work you are proud of that executes a concept you were inspired to share.

We talked about dealing with criticism as well. She indicated that feedback is not supposed to be about your emotional response to it — positive or negative — but whose voices you value.

She explains that by weighing feedback equally from a wider audience, rather than close peers, criticism loses some of its power.

Schwab points out the variety of subjectivity in creative fields. Art will always be loved by some and not liked by others. To make something that is universally loved is not possible, and misses the point of creation in the first place. “Once you’ve had the privilege of receiving messages from people for whom your book was everything, it is very easy to let go of the people for whom it wasn’t.”

Schwab had to find the balance between “making art just to make art” and making art sustainable. She denounces the idea that if you engage in both business and art, you are less of an artist. She also rejects the nobility of the starving artist, and the prerequisite of depression or being a mad genius that she says are not necessary for creating good art. “The starving artist is a fun little concept we use in fiction, and it’s hell in reality,” she says.

Schwab says planning is immensely important to her writing process. She creates intricate outlines before writing a novel. These intensive planning periods take about a year per novel). She says it helps her work through all the kinks in a work before starting in earnest to write.

What I learned from our conversation is that, rather than trying plot holes when you’re already knee deep in the creative process, it helps her to work through all the hard stuff first. After that, you can fully commit to the flow of sentences, brush strokes, and chords.

The difficulty of creativity, Schwab adds, stems from our own minds. A key to working through anything, she suggests, is to cut tasks up into small chunks. “[Writing] is so consuming, it can be hard to realize that it’s actually just about putting words on paper. [My advice is to] make the work as small as possible. I sit down and think, ‘I’m writing this scene, I’m writing this page, I’m writing this chapter.’ Do whatever you need to do to make the work doable.”

Amelia Busse is a junior at Jefferson High School in Bloomington.

Excerpt

V.E. Schwab’s upcoming book, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (on sale by Tor Books June 10, 2025) has been described as “Equal parts satisfying and unsettling … it’s really about hunger and rage and grief and our soul-deep need for connection.” The novel features three young women — from Santo Domingo de la Calzada in 1532, London in 1837, and Boston in 2019 — “their bodies planted in the same soil, their stories tangling like roots. One grows high, and one grows deep, and one grows wild. And all of them grow teeth.”

From page 282: “Standing there, halfway down the steps, the hope goes right out of Alice’s sails, because it’s obvious that this is another dead end. It’s a coffee shop — she can smell the beans roasting from the street — and she wants to sit down on the stop and cry, but she can’t even do that now without creating a scene. She should probably just turn around and walk the two miles back to campus, but she can’t bring herself to do it. Her legs are stuck, not the way they were back in the graveyard, but leaden, as if they’ve simply lost the will to listen to her. Maybe it’s the fact she’s come this far, and she has no other leads, or that this place feels familiar in a simple, human way, a nod to the girl she was before, the one who constantly found refuge in café corners, fingers curled around a mug of tea, or the fact she can still hear the music, spilling softly through the door.”

Details: veschwab.com

Source link

Minnesota

2 woman killed in Christmas Eve wreck in SW Minnesota

Published

11 hours ago

December 25, 2025

Press Room

2 woman killed in Christmas Eve wreck in SW Minnesota

(FOX 9) – Two women are dead after a crash involving a minivan and a semi-truck in southwest Minnesota on Christmas Eve.

Deadly Pipestone County crash

What we know:

Minnesota State Patrol responded around 1:45 p.m. on Wednesday to a crash along Highway 75 at 21st Street in Elmer Township in Pipestone County. The intersection is about eight miles east of the South Dakota border and 30 miles northeast of Sioux Falls. Google Maps images show a rural intersection surrounded by farmland with a power substation on the northwest corner. There are stop signs located on 21st Street.

According to an incident report from state patrol, the semi involved was headed northbound on Highway 75 when it collided with the minivan, which was traveling westbound on 21st Street.

Local perspective:

Troopers say both the driver of the minivan, 71-year-old Patricia Ann Struiksma, and a passenger, 69-year-old Donna Jean Vanthof, were killed in the crash.

The driver of the semi was not hurt.

What we don’t know:

Further details about the circumstances leading up to the crash were not disclosed. However, troopers said alcohol was not believed to be a factor in the crash. Investigators also noted that road conditions were wet at the time of the collision.

Minnesota

Source link

Minnesota

Central Minnesota man honors

Published

23 hours ago

December 25, 2025

Press Room

On Dec. 9, 1965, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” debuted on CBS, and it became an instant classic. Lee Jenkins’ home is proof that the show is still a hit six decades later.

“It’s just something about these people,” Jenkins said. “Talking about health, talking about wealth, talking about friendship and everything.”

A long-time Staples, Minnesota, businessman, Jenkins didn’t have any woodworking skills when he retired.

But in 2017, at the age of 74, he decided to pick up a jigsaw and build something that made him happy. Snoopy came to mind, and after he created Charlie Brown’s beloved beagle, he realized he was hooked.

“It just evolved from that to more characters every year until this year,” Jenkins said. “There are 18 in the main gang and Marcie is number 11.”

Each of his creations is made out of particleboard. Jenkins first sketches an image and then goes to work.

“I’m not an artist, this is all freehand out of here,” Jenkins said.

From the sketching to the cutting to the sanding to the painting, it takes anywhere from 10 to 20 hours for Jenkins to build one character.

“Probably the hardest one I had to make was Pig-Pen,” Jenkins said.

He now has enough for an entire holiday scene, complete with Charlie Brown’s scrawny tree just like in the show.

There’s Linus with his blanket, Schroeder with his piano and Charlie right in the middle of it all.

“His famous saying was ‘Good Grief,’” said Jenkins. “And it is fun. It really is neat for the family, and that’s what I’ve got here is a family.”

Jennifer Krippner was as surprised as anyone when her dad began this holiday hobby in his mid-70s, but she believes this isn’t just a tribute to Peanuts creator and St. Paul native Charles Schulz.

“I think what it says to a lot of us is passion, creativity, doesn’t retire,” Krippner said.

She believes her dad is honoring a more innocent time. Back when a phrase like “good grief” meant good things.

“It’s a classic show and the Peanuts, I don’t think, are just characters. They are memories for us, and I think that brings back a lot of nostalgia,” Krippner said.

Each of Jenkins’ Peanuts creations is about 3 feet high and they are on display in front of his house, four miles north of Staples. He typically builds one or two each holiday season.

Source link

Minnesota

Minnesota officials warn federal agents that swapping license plates ‘will not be tolerated’

Published

1 day ago

December 24, 2025

Press Room

Minnesota officials warn federal agents that swapping license plates ‘will not be tolerated’

State officials sent a formal warning to the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday in response to reports of federal agents illegally meddling with Minnesota-issued license plates on unmarked vehicles.

The cease-and-desist letter from Driver and Vehicle Services Director Pong Xiong describes allegations of DHS agents swapping license plates between vehicles and placing identical license plates on two separate vehicles.

Video: ICE agents in Twin Cities stop US citizen, demand proof of citizenship

“The above-described conduct violates Minnesota law and will not be tolerated,” Xiong wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “To be clear, Minnesota law prohibits anyone, including the driver of an unmarked law enforcement vehicle, from displaying a Minnesota license plate other than the license plate assigned to that vehicle by DVS.”

If federal agents don’t abide by Minnesota law, DVS could reconsider federal agents’ access to Minnesota’s undercover license plate program.

“Historically, DHS has used this program to protect the anonymity of law enforcement personnel
performing sensitive work in Minnesota while adhering to state law and providing a mechanism for
accountability in the event an unmarked vehicle is misused,” Xiong wrote.

Further violations could result in DVS revoking their vehicle registrations and seizing their license plates, the DVS director warned.

Read the full letter from DVS below.

Gov. Tim Walz also addressed the alleged conduct by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers during a news conference on Tuesday.

“These guys are doing what criminals do: They’re putting license plates on vehicles they’re not registered to. They’re renting vehicles and putting on fake plates,” Walz said, adding that such a practice makes it more difficult for local and state law enforcement to know whether a vehicle is involved in official duties.

‘It’s putting people at risk’: Walz, Twin Cities leaders denounce ICE immigration operations

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has reached out to DHS and ICE for comment and is awaiting a response.

This isn’t the first time federal immigration agents have gotten in hot water with state officials over alleged license plate violations.

Earlier this month, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced that his office had revoked a rental car’s license plate when investigators found ICE agents swapped its plates. He also issued a warning to all rental car companies that they can be held liable if federal agents are caught tampering with the license plates assigned to their vehicles.

Source link