Salon du livre - Francophile book fair
Join us for our annual Salon du Livre! Come meet your favorite local Francophile and Francophone authors and check out their latest book! This year’s edition will present a diverse range of book genres : from novels to poetry and adults to kids, you're sure to find something new for your bookshelf!
Meet the authors!
Scott Dominic Carpenter teaches French literature and creative writing at Carleton College (MN). Winner of a Mark Twain House Royal Nonesuch Award (2018), he is the author of French Like Moi: A Midwesterner in Paris (winner of a Next Generation Indie Book Award), This Jealous Earth: Stories, and Theory of Remainders: A Novel (a Kirkus Best Book of 2013), which is currently under option with a major film production company. Carpenter splits his time between St. Paul and Paris. His website is sdcarpenter.com.
Nathalie Gaillot is a French American author born in Lyon, France. She moved to Minnesota in her twenties to pursue a doctoral degree in Francophone literature at the University of Minnesota. A longtime French teacher, she now works in educational publishing and has made Minnesota her home. Her bilingual poetry book, A Flutist and a Poetess: Poems in English and French, was born of a desire to write in French for an American audience—blending her love of language and poetry, her first passion. You can learn more about Nathalie and her previous publication on her website, nathaliegaillot.com. A Flutist and a Poetess: Poems in English and French is not an ordinary poetry book. It is a collection of poems framed as a theatrical play, which tells a unique and intimate love story between two souls, unfolding poem by poem. Written in both English and French, it can be read in either language, or both.
Steve Hoffman is a Minnesota tax preparer and food writer. His writing has won multiple national awards, including the 2019 James Beard M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. He was nominated for a second James Beard Award in 2025, for his essay, “A Fat Affair,” published in Food & Wine magazine. His first book, A Season for That: Lost and Found in the Other Southern France, was named one of the best food and wine books of 2024 by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Food & Wine, and Saveur. He shares one acre on Turtle Lake, in Shoreview, Minnesota, with his wife, Mary Jo, their entitled puggle named Jack, roughly 80,000 honeybees, and a nesting pair of sandhill cranes.
Caroline Meilleur and John Ward, from the French-American Heritage Foundation will be there with the French-American Heritage Foundation latest release, Dayton with a French accent. ‘‘Tucked away between the Mississippi and Crow Rivers, the little town of Dayton enjoyed a strong French-Canadian flavor and at times was referred to as “Frenchtown.” It traces its beginnings to around 1850, when Paul Godin, aka Paul Goodin, a French-speaking immigrant from the Saint John River Valley, on the border between New Brunswick and Maine, established a residence there. Soon other French-speaking pioneers from Québec and New Brunswick joined him. They established a French-speaking Catholic church known as the Parish of St. John the Baptist, where the French language was used until the 1950s. This book tells the story of these early French speaking pioneers and their families.’’
Dr. Ha H. Tuong is the award-winning author of Peace or Freedom Part 1 (Two Minnows) and Part 2 (The War).
Two Minnows is Dr. Tuong’s memoir as a South Vietnamese soldier who fought against the communists after the American and allied forces had all left in 1973. The author chose to abandon his parental family and flee the incoming Peace in order to look for Freedom. Like other boat people, he was semi-incarcerated in a refugee camp, in his case in Malaysia, and finally made it to the United States to resettle. He became an educator then a school administrator in Minneapolis Public Schools to fulfill his Confucian responsibilities: serve the community of his new home.
The War is a comprehensive cross cultural socio-political research-based analysis of the Vietnam War (Qualitative Research Method). It lays out, not just What had happened, but mainly How and Why events during the Vietnam War were shaped up the way they were, from both the Western versus the Eastern perspectives. The cultural elements, that should have been the main frame governing how policies and battle plans should be made, were oftentimes downplayed, if not ignored. The Republic of Vietnam had to comply to American way of war in order to continue to receive aid.
Les Amis de la Bibliothèque is a group dedicated to supporting and enhancing the AFMSP Library’s diverse resources, literary programs, and annual cultural events. This group has been created to honor the memory of Hélène Nahas Peters (1919-2020) who devoted thirty years of leadership and service to the AFMSP Library, helping grow the collection to more than 5,000 books. They will be leading a old French books sale!
kids corner
Margi Preus is the author of many award-winning books for children and young adults.
Village of Scoundrels, a novel for readers 10 and up, is based on the true story of the teenagers of Le Chambon sur Lignon who helped to shelter and smuggle to safety many hundreds of Jewish children and teens—a timely story of young people standing up for what’s right. Now available in paperback. You can read more about the story here: https://www.margipreus.com/village-of-scoundrel
The Littlest Voyageur concerns an intrepid red squirrel who stows away in a voyageur canoe (even the Frenchest of Frenchmen cannot roll their r’s as well as he). Despite being unappreciated by most of the voyageurs, Jean Pierre Petit le Rouge (he just thinks his name sounds better that way!) manages to escape the stewpot all the way from Montreal to Grand Portage. More here: https://www.margipreus.com/the-littlest-voyageur
Nikki Rajala is the author of three historical fiction novels about lives of young French-Canadian Voyaguers: Waters like the Sky, Treacherous Waters and most recently Uncharted Waters. Rajala has done extensive research on life during the fur trade era. Her books are an hommage to her ancestors because she is a direct descendant of French-Canadian voyageurs, fur traders and explorers.
Trần Thị Minh Phước spent 10 months in a refugee camp in Malaysia before coming to America. In 1984, after a 50-hour Greyhound trip from California, she came to a land called Minnesota, where she believed that she could find the precious treasures in life-education and a safe environment. As the first Vietnamese librarian in Minnesota, now retired , award -winning author, and respected storyteller she has shared her experiences and knowledge of Vietnamese culture, the richness and beauty of Vietnamese folktales, and her refugee experiences at various cultural events, storytelling programs, conferences, libraries, universities, and schools throughout the state and beyond. She is the 2025 Blue Ribbon Alphabet Forest Author at the Minnesota State Fair.Visit the author at Phuocthiminhtran.wordpress.com
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