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 11, 1999 - Legendary radio broadcaster Norman Corwin's radio play On a Note of Triumph, which aired on V-E Day on May 8, 1945.
November 11, 1999 - Today, in a special Veterans Day program at Fort Snelling, University of Michigan History Professor Gerald Linderman will speak about combat and moral responsibility. A new book about a Minnesota man deals with that subject as well. "Reflections of Courage on D-Day and the Days that Followed" is the story of Charles "Ace" Parker of the elite infantry unit known as the Rangers. The book was put together by Parker's nieces, Marcia Moen and Margo Heinen. Moen says she knew virtually nothing about her uncle's war experiences until she started working on the book. Charles Parker lives in Anoka now. As part of the Rangers Fifth Battalion he fought in many battles in World War II. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions on D-Day and the days that followed. He spoke with Minnesota Public Radio's Jim Bickal about what it was like the night before the D-Day invasion.
November 12, 1999 -
November 15, 1999 - In an essay on flyfishing, the novelist Thomas McGuane writes, "What is most emphatic in angling is made so by the long silences...the unproductive periods" That essay is called "The Longest Silence". It's also the title of McGuane's new collection of 33 essays, in which he charts a lifetime with a flyrod pursuing trout, salmon and saltwater game fish. Thomas McGuane talked to Minnesota Public Radio's Mike Edgerly about his new book and his life in fishing
November 16, 1999 - A Carleton College speech by Washington Post syndicated political columnist and author George Will. he is also contributing editor of Newsweek magazine.
November 16, 1999 - New York poet Molly Peacock reads on the issue of privacy.
November 18, 1999 - Live broadcast of the Westminster Town Hall Forum, featuring Oregon family therapist Robin Karr-Morse. Her speech is titled, "Tracing the Roots of Violence." She is the author of Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence.
November 18, 1999 - Walter Kirn lives in Montana where he works as a book critic. But he grew up in Minnesota, and so its not surpring his new novel "Thumbsucker" is set in the St Croix River Valley. Although it's probably not going to please the Minnesota Tourist board. Kirn's satirical view of rural Minnesota in the 1980's is a turbulant world of Miami Vice, Izod shirts and Mormons. In a town gone suburban, 14-year-old Justin, gives up thumbsucking his long-time security blanket, only to replace it with girls, cigarettes, booze and drugs. With adults too self-absored to care, Justin is forced to navigate the bizarre waters of adolesence alone.
November 22, 1999 - For more on the design of the Lindbergh terminal, we turn to Michael Schrock. He's a Minneapolis architect who's done some recent work at the terminal, and is also president-elect of the Minneapolis chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
November 25, 1999 - A Thanksgiving Day special, "Giving Thanks: A Celebration of Fall, Food and Gratitude." Produced by MPR's John Birge, it includes a rare recording of actor Charles Laughton, essays by Bill Moyers, Donald Hall and Garrison Keillor, and the music of Aaron Copeland, Vivaldi and more.