Chris K Cedar is a Young Adult & Middle Grade author, teaching artist, and recovering theater kid based in Minneapolis. ENCHANTING, her debut YA Novel-in-Verse (2027), is a love-letter to queer teens deconstructing from exclusionary faith traditions. It was shortlisted for a Young Adult Novel Award (2026). Her YA projects have received support from a Metro Regional Arts Council Next Step Fund Grant (2024) and a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant for Literary Arts (2020). She has an MA in Writing for Young People from Bath Spa University in England and graduated with Distinction (2025). A paper on utilizing non-traditional formats to reach reluctant and marginalized young readers is forthcoming in Leaf Journal: On Writing for Young People (2027).
As a teaching artist, she runs youth writing workshops and has presented on how to craft compelling prompts for young creatives. A recent middle school character design class created a charming soul-eating squirrel she unwisely promised to sneak into her next novel.
As a non-fiction editor, she assisted on the Positive Stories Project at the Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo and has assisted in various story-telling projects related to peace and conflict studies.
Beyond writing, she works as a freelance photographer and plays too much ultimate frisbee. Keep up with misadventures, workshops, and vampire squirrel-sightings by signing up for the newsletter, launching soon.
