Nonfiction
Iliana Regan
Iliana Regan has been awarded Michelin Stars for their restaurant Elizabeth in Chicago from 2014-2020. They are currently the chef and owner of the Milkweed Inn in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The James Beard Foundation nominated them several times in the Best Chef Great Lakes category. In 2016 Food and Wine named them as one of the Best Chefs in America. In 2019 their first memoir, Burn the Place, was longlisted for the National Book Award, the first time a food writer was listed since Julia Child in 1979. Burn the Place won the Midland Authors and CHIRBy awards in nonfiction. Their second memoir, Fieldwork, was a finalist for the Midland Authors Prize. They have their Masters of Fine Arts in Writing from the Art Institute of Chicago and spend every moment they can with pencil in hand surrounded by the natural world jotting down what they see.
2024 Nonfiction Shortlist: Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir
From National Book Award–nominee Iliana Regan, a new memoir of their life and heritage as a forager, spanning their ancestry in Eastern Europe, their childhood in rural Indiana, and their new life set in the remote forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Fieldwork explores how Regan’s complex gender identity informs their acclaimed work as a chef and their profound experience of the natural world.
