Support your local businesses

DECORAH -- Join Minnesota author Karen Babine, (The Allure of Elsewhere: A Memoir of Going Solo), on Tuesday, May 27, at 7 p.m. at Pulpit Rock Brewery for an engaging presentation followed by a book signing! Everyone is invited to this free event, sponsored by the Oneota Valley Literary Foundation with support from Pulpit Rock Brewing and Dragonfly Books. What if finding your place meant leaving it behind? One woman, two cats, and hundreds of miles explore the pull of family, freedom, and the stories we choose to carry. In The Allure of Elsewhere, Karen Babine embarks on a cross-country journey with her Scamp camper and two reluctant cats, Galway and Maeve, traveling from Minnesota to Nova Scotia to explore her French-Acadian roots. As she navigates questions of history, identity, and belonging, she reflects on the stories that shape us—those we inherit, those we create, and the tension between kinship and independence. With warmth, wit, and candid curiosity, Babine captures the freedom of the open road in a memoir that examines the power of storytelling to define who we are and where we're headed. Karen Babine is a two-time Minnesota Book Award-winning author of Water and What We Know: Following the Roots of a Northern Life (2015) and All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer (2019), with her third book, The Allure of Elsewhere, published by Milkweed Editions in May 2025. She founded and edits Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, dedicated to publishing top nonfiction scholarship and pedagogy, and her edited collection of Assay work, Beyond Truth and Fact: Innovations in the Craft of Creative Nonfiction, is set for release in 2027. Holding an MFA in creative nonfiction and a PhD in English, she is a UC Foundation Associate Professor of English at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, where she received the UTAA Outstanding Teaching Award in 2023.

Support your local businesses

Join Minnesota Author Karen Babine at Pulpit Rock Brewery May 27