STORIES THAT MATTER: Renee Gilmore and Bronson Lemer (Signing)

Join us in welcoming Renee Gilmore and Bronson Lemer, both local Minnesota authors with stories to tell.

In her debut memoir, Wayfinding, Renee Gilmore confronts the impetus behind her lifelong wanderlust: a lifetime shaped by loss, betrayal, and sexual violence.  Told through a series of car trips and postcards from the road, this powerful memoir maps a route toward healing, acceptance, and hope, with stops at Waffle House and the Monaco Grand Prix along the way. Narrated with unflinching honesty and flashes of humor, Wayfinding is the story of a fiercely resilient woman determined not only to survive but to remap a new life filled with freedom, connection, and joy.

In this 2026 Minnesota Book Award Finalist (Memoir & Creative Nonfiction) collection of interrelated essays, Bronson Lemer explores companionship through the lens of a queer veteran, focusing on the difficulty of forming true connections with others. Lemer uses lessons from popular culture and literature to think more broadly about the role of the outsider and how we navigate aimlessness while searching for stability and meaning. Bronson Lemer is the author of The Last Deployment: How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq. His work has appeared in several journals and the anthology, Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers.