about us
Karlyn Coleman and Anika Fajardo are writers and teachers with a passion for helping people tell and share their stories.
karlyn coleman
Karlyn Coleman is an award-winning writer, teacher, and creative collaborator based in Minneapolis. She is the author of Where Are All the Minnesotans? Under her pen name, K.R. Coleman, she has written nine young adult novels for Lerner’s Darby Creek Series. Her short stories have won awards and have appeared in Sycamore Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendencies, Water~Stone Review, Paper Darts, Revolver, and Crab Orchard Review. Her honors include a Sustainable Arts Grant, a Minnesota Emerging Writers Grant, and a Loft Literary Center Mentor Series award.
She has taught students of all ages from children to seniors. She serves on the Loft Literary Center Board of Directors and loves connecting people of all ages to books they’ll love to read.
anika fajardo
Anika Fajardo was born in Colombia and raised in Minnesota. She is the author of a book about that experience, Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of Finding Family (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), which was awarded Best Book (Nonfiction) of 2020 from City Pages and was a finalist for the 2020 Minnesota Book Award. Her debut middle-grade novel What If a Fish (Simon & Schuster, 2020) was awarded the 2021 Minnesota Book Award. Her next book for young readers, Meet Me Halfway (Simon & Schuster) will be published in spring 2022.
She has taught at the Loft Literary Center, St. Catherine University, and ModernWell. She is currently faculty at Augsburg University’s Creative Writing MFA program. She has earned awards from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation, and the Loft Literary Center.
Fajardo’s grandfather (94) reading his Snapshot Stories book.
In the process of launching Snapshot Stories, Fajardo started with her 94-year-old grandfather, archiving his past emails and letters to complete a print book, culling and editing the stories about World War II, his travels with his wife, and his beloved cabin.
At Christmas, she showed him the finished bound book complete with pictures, a timeline, family recipes, as well as a family tree. Her grandfather, who is battling Alzheimer's, became alert and animated. He recognized the words and pictures.
Stories are powerful.
