This collection encompasses 50-plus years of interviews, readings, speeches, and reports on the vibrant literary scene in Minnesota. Not only home to giants F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis, our state has an array of incredible contemporary poets, novelists and playwrights. Their words make up majority of this collection.
Repeatedly being named the “Most Literate City in the United States,” the Twin Cities has played host to numerous visiting national writers via book tours, festivals, and lectures. Many recordings of these are also included.
This project was funded by the National Historical Publications & Records Commission.
November 22, 1977 - Midday broadcast of writer Harrison Salisbury speaking at the Minnesota Press Club. Salisbury talks about controversial changes at The New York Times, changing competition among New York newspapers, and comments on China.
December 16, 1977 - Minnesota poet Robert Bly reads some of his works at an appearance at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.
January 2, 1978 - An edited re-broadcast version of A Home for the Weekend program of poetry and music with Nancy and Joe Paddock, writers and poets from Minnesota.
March 14, 1978 - Author and poet Abigail McCarthy lectures on Jane Grey Swisshelm, the 19th Century St. Cloud newspaper editor and pioneering radical Minnesota feminist. Speech held at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul.
April 22, 1978 - MPR’s Tom Meersman profiles the local efforts of the small book press, highlighting the second annual Small Press Book Fair at Macalester College in St. Paul book.
May 2, 1978 - MPR’s Bill Siemering profiles Minnesota poet Robert Bly. Program includes Bly reading from his book This Body is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood at Augsburg College, followed by an interview with Siemering.
May 22, 1978 - On this Midday ‘Playwrights' Lab’ hour special, a feature of short dramatic pieces by area playwrights. Program also includes arts reporter Nancy Fushan talking with playwrights-in-residence Mark Frost and Jon Olive, who discuss their works.
June 10, 1978 - MPR’s Kate Williams talks with Minneapolis poet Jerri Alexander, who shares poetry from her book Hurt Comes and Goes: Poetry of a Black American Woman.
July 5, 1978 - MPR’s Nancy Fushan reports on performance of Polish playwright Sławomir Mrożek’s Tango at Mixed Blood Theatre. Fushan talks with producer Jack Reuler and director Bob Bruhler about the generational family play.
September 14, 1978 - MPR’s John Ydstie talks with Minnesota author Frederick Manfred. Manfred participated in a symposium in Moorhead that explored the effects of place on a writer's works.