Barbara Sjoholm is an author and translator from Norwegian and Danish whose books include the illustrated history, From Lapland to Sápmi: Collecting and Returning Sámi Craft and Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 2023); The Palace of the Snow Queen: Winter Travels in Lapland and Sápmi (Counterpoint; reissued University of Minnesota Press, 2023); The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O’Malley and Other Women of the Sea (Seal Press, 2004), and Blue Windows: A Christian Scientist Childhood (Picador, 1997). She has won grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Scandinavian Foundation, Lambda Literary, and the Seattle Arts Commission. Her historical novel Fossil Island won Best Indie Novel from the Historical Novel Society. Her essays and travel articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Scandinavian Studies, among other publications.

Under the name Barbara Wilson she has written nine mysteries, most recently Love Dies Twice with her translator sleuth Cassandra Reilly. The mystery Gaudi Afternoon,  winner of a British Crime Writers Award, was made into a film by Susan Seidelman starring Judy Davis and Marcia Gay Harden.