Bestselling Novelist Lauraine Snelling
To Be Inducted into Scandinavian–American Hall of Fame

For her award–winning novels about Norwegian
immigrants and their struggles to build new lives in America, bestselling
author Lauraine Snelling will join the ranks of Jim Henson, Peggy Lee, Ann
Bancroft, Knute Rockne and Chet Atkins September 26, when she is inducted into
the Scandinavian–American Hall of Fame.

The author of 74 novels with more than two million copies of her books in print, Snelling is one of three new inductees who will be honored in the awards ceremony in Minot, N.D. Others are Clint Hill, co–author of Mrs. Kennedy and Me, which recounts his experiences as a United States Secret Service agent assigned to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy; and actor Josh Duhamel, a Minot native and Hollywood leading man in "All My Children" and "Las Vegas." Drawing on her Norwegian roots and her collection of immigrant stories, Lauraine has written 17 novels published by Bethany House that are set on the banks of the Red River in fictional Blessing, N.D. The saga of Ingeborg and Roald Bjorklund, their family and friends, began in Snelling's 1996 novel, An Untamed Land. The most recent is A Heart for Home (2011), with Ingeborg –– A Norwegian Maiden scheduled for publication in September 2013.

"This award totally blew me away," said Snelling. "I wrote the Red River books
in honor of our farmers, especially those immigrants of Scandinavian descent,
who have worked so hard and creatively to claim their land and eventually feed
the world. Our forefathers and mothers were incredibly strong and resilient,
and now I get to write their stories and brag about them. I can't think of
anything better."

Snelling based Blessing on the real–life town of Drayton, N.D. The
citizens of Drayton were so excited about Lauraine's saga that they established
Blessing Square, which includes a sod house and other historical dwellings
modeled after those in her novels. Drayton also welcomed Snelling to "Blessing
Day" in 2009, staging a play titled "Bound for Blessing."

The author's mother was born in North Dakota two years after her parents
emigrated from Norway. She was the first in her family to go to college,
earning a nursing degree in Grand Forks. Snelling's father, whose grandparents
also emigrated from Norway, met her mother in Minnesota. Snelling was born in
Chicago, and after World War II the family returned to Bemidji, MN, eventually
moving to Washington State, where Snelling and husband Wayne reared their three
children and she began her writing career.

In addition to her Red River of the North, Return to Red River, Daughters of Blessing and Home to Blessing series (Bethany House), Snelling's body of work includes young adult novels; historical romances set in North Dakota; her Wild West Wind series (Bethany House), 12 single–title contemporary novels, including Reunion (Hachette Book Group, July 2012) and several nonfiction books, such as A Hand to Hold: Helping Someone Through Grief (Revell, 2004).

An artist, as well as an author, Snelling lives in Tehachapi, California, with
her husband Wayne and a Basset hound named Winston.