Jessica Lind Peterson

Jessica Lind Peterson is an essayist, playwright and co-founder of Yellow Tree Theatre in  Osseo, Minnesota.

Her first book, Sound Like Trapped Thunder, published by Seneca Review Books , is the winner of the 2020 Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book Prize and was named a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Awards in the category of Memoir & Creative Nonfiction. Her essays have appeared in: The Rumpus, Orion, Seneca Review, River Teeth, Anomaly (formerly Drunken Boat), Passages North, Alaska Quarterly Review and others.

Jessica is the author of nine full-length plays, two one acts, and one musical, all of which have had professional productions in Minnesota and all over the country. Her plays been called “quirky” “Neil Simon-esque” and “wildly funny.” She is perhaps best known for her farcical Minnesota-themed holiday comedies and was named a “MinneSNOWta Christmas send-up master” by Minnesota Monthly. Her most recent project is an on-stage adaptation of the NY Times best selling novel, The Christmas Shoes, for A.D. Players at the George Theatre in Houston.

From 2008 - 2020, Jessica served as founder and co-artistic director of Yellow Tree, an award-winning professional theater in the Northwest suburbs of Minneapolis.

Jessica was a co-recipient of the 2017 Prometheus Alumni Award from the University of Minnesota, Duluth which recognizes alumni for outstanding artistic achievements. She holds a BA in English Literature from the University of Minnesota Duluth and an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University in St. Paul. Jessica is also an adjunct professor, and currently teaches in the MFA program at Hamline University. She lives in Duluth, MN with her family where she works in the nonprofit sector and plays in the woods.