Congratulations to Vesna Kittelson, winner of the 2024 Minnesota Book Artist Award for her artist’s book “Letters to Amerika,” based on a decades-long imaginary conversation between Kittelson and American culture. She describes it this way: “…the dialogue has been about everything, but especially my trying to understand the meaning of democracy and (absence of) justice to immigrants.”

Vesna Kittelson (Courtesy of The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library)

Kittelson, who lives in Minneapolis, received the 2024 Woman of Influence award from the Croatian Women Network, has won a silver medal from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association for her 2020 work “Synthesis-Lost and Found in America: The Art of Vesna Kittelson” (Afton Press) and received a 2019 Artist’s Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. She has worked in museum libraries in Brooklyn, London and the Twin Cities.

The Minnesota Book Artist Award, which recognizes a Minnesota book artist or book artist collaborative group for excellence of a new artistic work, is part of the Minnesota Book Awards administered by Friends of the St. Paul Public Library in partnership with the Minnesota Center for Book Arts.

Kittelson will be recognized at the Book Awards gala May 7 at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul. She will discuss her book at 7 p.m. Wednesday,  April 24, at Open Book, 1011 Washington Ave. S., Mpls., home of Minnesota Center for Book Arts. For more information go to thefriends.org.

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