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.
October 21, 1996 -
October 25, 1996 -
October 26, 1996 - MPR’s Greta Cunningham takes a walking tour with Dennis William Hauck, author of Haunted Places. The two discuss Minnesota ghost hauntings at the Guthrie Theater, the State’s Capitol, and St. John’s University.
October 27, 1996 - Emilie Buchwald, publisher of Milkweed Editions, reads the winning essay from Boundary Waters writing contest. Essay is titled “Going Home” by Larry Risser.
November 1, 1996 -
November 4, 1996 - As we all walk into our local polling places to cast our vote, commentator Ann Daly Goodwin suggests we rethink all this energy going into improving voter turnout.
November 8, 1996 - Essay on hunting later collected in "Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map by Barton Sutter", published October 1998 by University of Minnesota Press.
November 8, 1996 - Minnesota has more timberwolves in the wild than ever before, and they're covering more ground. Once limited to the arrowhead region, wolves are now establishing packs as far south as Camp Ripley. As the firearms deer season opens tomorrow, hunters in central Minnesota have a better chance than ever to see a wolf in the woods; and some of them aren't happy about what they see as "the competition."
November 11, 1996 - The first feature-film created entirely in Minnesota will be released in theatres this month, but you probably won't see it. "The Visionary" was scripted, filmed and scored locally, with Minnesota actors, stuntmen and crew.
November 15, 1996 - Voices from the Heartland presents poet Diane Glancy reading "Snow," which is a reflection on the Halloween blizzard of 1991.