Ashley Shelby signing books at Bound to Be Read in St.Paul

Mill City Writers’ Workshop was founded by author and editor Ashley Shelby in 2008. Shelby is the author of Red River Rising: The Anatomy of a Flood and the Survival of an American City, which was praised by Salon, the Associated Press, Philadelphia Inquirer, Library Journal, and other media outlets. Her journalism, essays, op/eds, and fiction have been widely published and anthologized. She co-founded and curated the KGB Bar Nonfiction Reading Series in New York’s East Village, where she hosted authors such as Sebastian Junger and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. Shelby, who was awarded the William Faulkner Short Fiction Award in 2002, received an M.F.A. in nonfiction writing from Columbia University. She has taught nonfiction writing at Gotham Writers’ Workshop in Manhattan and the art of the memoir at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

Before moving back to Minnesota, Shelby was an Associate Editor at Penguin Group (USA) Inc. in New York, where she specialized in political and social issue nonfiction, memoir, and narrative journalism. While at Penguin, she acquired and edited books such as The United States of Wal-Mart by John Dicker, Persian Girls by Nahid Rachlin, Buddha’s Warriors by Mikel Dunham, Now Write by Sherry Ellis, Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession by Don Kulick and Anne Meneley, and many more. She specialized in first-time authors.

Shelby is married and the proud mom of a one-year-old son. She blogs about science, consumer issues, and politics at www.scienceforsale.com

About Mill City Writers’ Workshop

Mississippi riverfront and Saint Anthony Falls in 1915. At left, Pillsbury, power plants and the Stone Arch Bridge. Today the Minnesota Historical Society's Mill City Museum is in the Washburn "A" Mill, across the river just to the left of the falls. At center left are Northwestern Consolidated mills. The tall building is Minneapolis City Hall. In the foreground to the right are Nicollet Island and the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.

Location

Mill City Writers’ Workshop is conveniently located in Hopkins, Minnesota, a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis. Right on a newly-revitalized Main Street, MCWW occupies an upper level suite in a charming four-business building.

 

Our address is: Mill City Writers’ Workshops

                          6 Sixth Avenue North, Suite 3

                          Hopkins, MN 55343

            

From Minneapolis: take 394W to Highway 169 South. Get off on the Excelsior Boulevard Exit and head west. Turn right onto 5th Avenue and follow to Main Street. At Main Street, take a left and continue to the corner of Sixth and Main. MCWW is located on the upper floor of 6 Sixth Avenue North.

 

Detailed directions from your home or workplace can be found at Google Maps.

 

MCWW is also easily accessible by Metro Transit bus, route 12C. Detailed information about this bus route, which drops customers off on the corner of Sixth Avenue North and Main Street in Hopkins, can be found by clicking here.

 

 

Buy Red River Rising: The Anatomy of a Flood and the Survival of an American City by Ashley Shelby

 

List Price: $24.95

MCWW Students: $22.00*

 

 

*plus $1.50 shipping

(media mail)

 

 

Publication History

As a working writer herself, Shelby can offer unique insight into the rigors of submissions and rejections, as well as the thrill of acceptance. Below is a list of her publications, grouped by genre.

 

Books

Red River Rising: Anatomy of a Flood and the Survival of an American City, published by Borealis Books (April 2004)

 

Essays

“Minnesota Hotdish”, in Relish, August, 2008

 

“Gloss: Eldridge Cleaver”, in The Drouth (Scotland, U.K..), March/April 2007

 

“Invisible City”, in The Drouth (Scotland, U.K.), April 2006

 

“A Clean Place” in Sierra, September 2005

 

“Runaways” in New Brighton Book’s anthology, Looking Back: Stories of Our Mothers and Fathers in Retrospect, October 2003

 

“Tom’s Restaurant” in Pigeon Magazine, Fall 2003

 

“Confessions of an Indiana Soda Jerk” in The Sonora Review, Spring 2003

 

“A River in Charleston” in Post Road, Fall 2002.

 

“The Importance of Sky” in 3am Magazine, September 2002

 

“Missed Connections” in Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, August 2002

 

“Equal Opportunity Slamming” in Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, June 2002

 

“A Jazz of Notes: Jack Kerouac as a jazz-based writer” in Transit Magazine (U.K.), May 2002.

 

“Love and Loss at NeoCon” in Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, May 2002.

 

“Jack’s Old Neighborhood” in Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, April 2002.

 

“Runaways” in Small Spiral Notebook, April 2002.

 

“Water Toast” in Gastronomica: the journal of food and culture, November 2001.

 

“Blues Workbook” in Beacon Street Review, Winter 2001.

 

Op/eds

“Reaching Out to the Underprivileged…at a Price They Can’t Afford”, op/ed in Minneapolis Star-Tribune, October 24, 2007

 

“Another Flood, Another FEMA”, op/ed in Minneapolis Star-Tribune, September 12, 2005

 

“Reality show too real for the cameras”, op/ed in the New Jersey Star-Ledger, July 5, 2005

 

Journalism

“Shareholder Shout-Out”, in The Green Guide, March/April 2007

 

“Caught in a Net” in E: The Environmental  Magazine, June/July 2004

 

“Red River Rising” in Minnesota Monthly, May 2004

 

“Whatever it Takes” in The Nation, April 5th, 2004, republished on Alternet.org, June 17, 2005, reprinted in The I Hate Corporate America Handbook (Thunders Mouth Press, 2005)

 

Fiction

 

“Sundogs” in Bite Magazine, Fall 2005

 

“Folly Beach, 1974” in The Alembic, Spring 2004

 

“In a Cold Climate” in Falling Backwards (Hourglass Books), 2004

Winner of the William Faulkner Short Fiction Award, 2003

 

“A Small War” in Riva Gauche, Spring 2004

 

“The Vegas Solution” in Strawberry Press Magazine, March 2004

 

“A Temporary Assignment” in Identity Theory, February 2003

 

“Disappeared is a Promise” in Spire Magazine, Winter 2002

 

“Anonymity” in Full Circle Journal, Fall 2002.

Selected for Full Circle’s “Best Of” print issue

 

“No Apparent Sadness” in collectedstories.com, September 2002

Nominated for e2ink-2: The Best of Online Journals, 2003 anthology

 

“Parchment” in Watchword Literary Magazine, Spring 2002.

 

“I Don’t Know You, What Have I Done” in Carve Magazine, May 2002.

 

“Climates” in The Portland Review, Spring 2001.