William Kent Krueger

Biographical details

Krueger has said that he wanted to be a writer from the third grade, when his story "The Walking Dictionary" was praised by his teacher and parents.

He attended Stanford University, but his academic path was cut short when he came into conflict with the university's administration during student protests of spring 1970. Throughout his early life, he supported himself by logging timber, digging ditches, working in construction, and being published as a freelance journalist; he never stopped writing.

He wrote short stories and sketches for many years, but it was not until the age of 40 that he finished the manuscript of his first novel, Iron Lake. It won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, the Barry Award for Best First Novel, the Minnesota Book Award, and the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award.

Marriage and family

Krueger is married and has two children. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Writing influences

Krueger has said his favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird. He grew up reading Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James T. Farrell. Most influential among these was Hemingway. In an interview for Shots magazine, Krueger described his admiration for Hemingway's prose:

"His prose is clean, his word choice perfect, his cadence precise and powerful. He wastes nothing. In Hemingway, what's not said is often the whole point of a story. I like that idea, leaving the heart off the page so that the words, the prose itself, is the first thing to pierce you. Then the meaning comes."

As a mystery genre writer, Krueger credits Tony Hillerman and James Lee Burke as his strongest influences.

Writing process

Krueger prefers to write early in the morning. Rising at 5.30 am, he goes to the nearby St. Clair Broiler, where he drinks coffee and writes longhand in wirebound notebooks.

He began going to the diner when he was in his 30s and had to make time for writing early in the morning before going to work at the University of Minnesota. He continues the habit, and today has his "own" booth there. In return for his loyalty, the restaurant has hosted book launches for Krueger. At one of them, the staff wore T-shirts emblazoned with "A nice place to visit. A great place to die."

Setting in the Cork O'Connor series

When Krueger decided to set the series in northern Minnesota, he realized that a large percentage of the population was of mixed ancestry. In college, he had wanted to become a cultural anthropologist; he became intrigued by researching the Ojibwe culture and weaving the information into his books. His books are set in and around Native American reservations. The main character, Cork O'Connor, is part Ojibwe and part Irish.

Krueger has read the first Ojibwe historian, William Whipple Warren, as well as Francis Densmore, Gerald Vizenor and Basil Johnston. He has also read novels by Louise Erdrich and Jim Northrup. Krueger began to meet and get to know the Ojibwe people and remains fascinated by their culture.

His descriptions are meant to express his characters' feelings about the settings. Krueger believes that the sense of place is made resonant by the actions and emotions of the characters within it. He describes it as "a dynamic bond that has the potential to heighten the drama of every scene."

Awards