Beth Hautala

Beth Hautala is a Minnesota writer with a degree in writing and rhetoric whose books are aimed at younger readers. Waiting for Unicorns, her debut novel, was published by Philomel in 2015. It follows twelve-year-old Talia McQuinn to Churchill, Manitoba, where her whale-researcher father is working during an Arctic summer. Talia is grieving her mother and carries a jar of written wishes, while stories about narwhals and new friendships gradually reshape how she understands hope. The first-person narrative emphasizes the northern landscape and is written for readers aged ten to fourteen. Hautala later wrote Miracle Season and The Ostrich and Other Lost Things, continuing her work in children’s fiction. Waiting for Unicorns joins scientific fieldwork, northern place, family distance, and storytelling without turning grief into a quick solution. Hautala instead lets Talia’s attention move slowly outward, from private wishes toward the people and natural world around her. The beluga research and narwhal legend give that emotional movement a setting grounded in both observation and story.