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.
December 5, 1997 - Midday presents a special Voices of Minnesota, with Minnesota writer Bill Holm reading from his book Faces of Christmas Past, a collection of essays and reminiscences about Christmas in Iceland and Minnesota.
December 13, 1997 - From "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" to Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" books help us get into the holiday spirit. The Minnesota team of Tom Hegg and Warren Hanson have found success in this corner of the book market. The two are collaborators on "A Cup of Christmas Tea" and "PEEF: The Christmas Bear". Warren Hanson is releasing a new book this holiday season. "The Next Place" deals with a topic not usually associated with the holiday season--death. "The Next Place" is an inspirational story about what Hanson hopes lies ahead for us after we die.
December 13, 1997 - The torturous hugs from elderly relatives, sitting at the kids table for dinner--and time packed into cars for long, stuffy trips to visit family, these elements are part of everyone's holiday memories. They're also fodder for Kevin Kling's play "Charred Underbelly of the Yule Log". Delving into childhood memories is the hallmark of a Kevin Kling play.
January 9, 1998 - Author Ron Handberg talks about his latest book, Malice Intended.
January 11, 1998 - Master Storyteller Jim Stowell has been telling the stories of Minnesota for the past 30 years. The Great American History Theatre in St. Paul is celebrating Stowell's long career by hosting a JIM FEST.
January 28, 1998 - MPR’s Bob Potter talks with Robert Lavenda, anthropologist at Saint Cloud State University and an expert on town festivals in Minnesota, about the origins of the carnival legend.
January 30, 1998 - MPR’s Lorna Benson walks around Rice Park with historian Paul Larson, who speaks about how the Winter Carnival is all about fortitude and making the best of what mother nature hurls our way.
February 3, 1998 - Best-selling author Tom Clancy is the new majority owner of the Minnesota Vikings. The offer is for about 200 million dollars and surpasses the record price paid for a National Football League franchise. Clancy pledges to keep the team in Minnesota and wants to make the Vikings one of the premier franchises in the NFL. Tom Clancy is the author of such military thrillers as "The Hunt for Red October," "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger,". He was ranked 27th last year on Forbes magazine's list of the highest-paid "entertainers" His estimated gross income was 50-million dollars. He's a Baltimore native whose love of football began as a boy when he attended the same church as Hall of Fame quarterback Johnny Unitas. Four years ago, Clancy also led an unsuccessful effort to buy the New England Patriots four years ago.
February 3, 1998 - Sportfishers have a new gadget to try out, if there's any room left in the boat. A Brainerd man is introducing AquaView- a device that goes beyond sonars and depth-finders, and actually lets you watch the fish take your bait -or ignore it, as the case may be.
February 3, 1998 - Jo Ann Shroyer discusses her book Secret Mesa about the Los Alamos National Laboratory.