Kelly Lundquist

Kelly Foster Lundquist has taught writing at North Hennepin since 2014. During that time, she has served as MSCF President, Director of Creative Writing, and been a SEED Facilitator, as well as working on the lead team for our Higher Learning Commission Accreditation. She has received the "Above and Beyond" Award from Phi Theta Kappa as well as a "Faculty of Excellence" Award from TRIO. She has an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Kelly is the author of Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage (2025), which won the 2026 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Writing and was a finalist for the Last Syllable Lit Book Award and the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Life Writing. Beard was also listed as a "Most Anticipated Memoir of Fall 2025" by SheReads and a book of the week by Shelf Awareness and Lavender magazine, and it also received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly. Kelly's work has appeared in the Times of London, People magazine, Buzzfeed, the Huffington Post, Queerty, the Savage LoveCast and other places. Her essays and poetry have been nominated for "Best of the Net" as well as a Pushcart Prize. One of her poems, "Mt. St. Helen," will soon appear in the American Pop Culture Almanac: Daily Readings of Poetry and Prose (forthcoming from MoonTide Press, 2027).  She is currently at work on a second memoir. Kelly lives in a little red house by the Mississippi River with her husband and daughter and half-hound dog, Auggie.