Bonnie Jo Campbell

Portrait of a smiling Bonnie Jo Campbell with long blonde hair wearing a red sleeveless button-up shirt and patterned dangling earrings. She is seated behind a wooden table with her hands clasped, with a softly blurred wooden staircase and interior in the background.
Special Guest Artist, Writers Retreat, Interlochen College of Creative Arts

About Bonnie Jo

Bonnie Jo Campbell's most recent novel, The Spirits, was released in October 2026. The Wall Street Journal called The Spirits "...a moving and cathartic story of forgiveness" and the novel was listed in the Los Angeles Times "Best Books Fall Preview 2026." Her novel The Waters was a Today Show “Read with Jenna” Book Club selection. Her other novels include Once Upon A River, a National Bestseller that was adapted into the award-winning film, and Q Road. Campbell’s short story collections include American Salvage, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, and Women and Other Animals, an AWP Grace Paley Prize winner, and Mothers, Tell Your Daughters. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, and a recipient of the Eudora Welty Prize and Mark Twain Award. She lives outside Kalamazoo on a small farm with her husband and donkeys.

(photo credit: Fran Dwight)

bonniejocampbell.net