About
Photo credit: Dave Dieken
Anika Fajardo is an award-winning writer born in Colombia and raised in Minnesota. She is the author of the middle-grade novels What If a Fish, which won a Minnesota Book Award, and Meet Me Halfway, as well as Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of Finding Family.
Anika has earned multiple awards from the Minnesota State Arts Board and from the Jerome Foundation, and her writing for adults and children has appeared in numerous publications including Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World, and Boundless: Twenty Voices Celebrating Multicultural and Multiracial Identities, as well as Travel + Leisure magazine. She is also the author of Encanto: A Tale of Three Sisters, the middle-grade movie tie-in novel.
With a Masters in Library Science, she is a former librarian and also the founder of the author collective, MN BIPOC Kidlit Creators. When she’s not writing, find her teaching at Augsburg University’s MFA program or interviewing authors on her podcast Gobblefunking with Words. Anika lives with her family in Minneapolis.
Huh? How do you pronounce your name?
Anika rhymes with “Monica” but without the “M” (ON-i-kah)
Fajardo is pronounced like it’s spelled, but the “J” makes an “H” sound (Fah-HAR-doh)
*Listen to audio name pronunciation from TeachingBooks.
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Bicultural experience is a dispassionate term for life lived across borders, identities, and even family trees. As Anika Fajardo makes clear, there is nothing dispassionate about flying back to one’s birthland, walking its soil again, or breaking bread with family who have become as good as strangers.—Lila Quintero Weaver
Awards
Finalist, South Carolina Book Award, 2024 (Meet Me Halfway)
Resident, Write on Door County, 2023
Finalist, Minnesota Book Award, 2023 (Meet Me Halfway)
Wisconsin Library Association Outstanding Achievement in Children's Literature Award, 2023 (Meet Me Halfway)
Grantee, Creative Support for Individuals, Minnesota State Arts Board,
2022 | 2023
Finalist, Rhode Island Latino Books Award, 2022 (What If a Fish)
Winner, Minnesota Book Awards, 2021 (What If a Fish)
Finalist, International Latino Book Awards, 2021 (What If a Fish)
CCBC Choices, 2021 (What If a Fish)
Winner, Midway Journal, -1000 Below Contest, 2021 (“Muscle Memory”)
Finalist, Minnesota Book Awards, 2020 (Magical Realism for Non-Believers)
Best Book (Nonfiction), City Pages, 2020 (Magical Realism for Non-Believers)
Grantee, Artist Initiative Grant, Minnesota State Arts Board, 2018 | 2016 | 2011
Mentee, Pitch Wars, 2017 (What If a Fish)
Finalist, Loft Literary Center’s Emerging Writers Grant, 2015
Grantee, Jerome Foundation Travel & Study Grant, 2014
Winner, St. Catherine University's Denny Prize for Distinction in Writing, 2013
Finalist, Bakeless Literary Prize in Creative Nonfiction, 2012
Pushcart Prize Nomination, Hippocampus Magazine, 2011
Fellowship, Loft Literary Center Mentor Series, 2009-2010 (selected by JC Hallman and Judith Kitchen)
Mentee, Latino Cycle of the Inroads Program, Loft Literary Center, 2009
Activities
Founder & web developer, MN BIPOC Kidlit Creators, 2022-present
Mentor, AWP Writer to Writer Mentorship Program, Season 18, 2023
Mentor, Loft Literary Center’s Mentor Series, 2021-2022
Artist Career Consultant, Springboard for the Arts, 2020-2024
Web developer & founding member, Latinx Kidlit Book Festival, 2020
Mentor, Hermanas mentoring program, Las Musas, 2020 | 2021
Executive committee, Board of Directors, Loft Literary Center, 2016-2022
Judge, Scholastic Writing Awards, Minnesota Writing Project, 2021
Member/Madrina, Las Musas, 2019-present
Judge, Kate Dopirak Craft and Community Award, 2020
Judge, First Annual Davenport Prize in Nonfiction, Knox College, 2019
Judge, Minnesota Book Awards, 2012 | 2014 | 2018
Panel judge, Minnesota State Arts Board, 2012 | 2014 | 2018
Book Reviewer (women’s fiction), Publisher's Weekly, 2014-2016
Book Reviewer (women’s fiction), Library Journal, 2004-2012