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.
June 16, 1999 - J.F. Powers, one of Minnesota's most celebrated authors, died of natural causes at his home in Collegeville on Saturday. He was 81. Powers won national acclaim for his novels which explore the tensions of Midwestern Catholicism by following the story of a small-parish priest. He was considered a quiet literary giant, who worked various jobs in Chicago during the Great Depression and became a conscientious objector during World War II. Powers was a Professor and Writer-in-Residence at St. John's University in Collegeville until 1993.
June 22, 1999 - Noted historian Doris Kearns Goodwin discusses her work as a presidential historian and her love of baseball in a speech given recently at the annual meeting of the University of Minnesota Alumni Association.
June 28, 1999 - A Twin Cities speech by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Anna Quindlen. She was featured at the Library Foundation of Hennepin County's "Pen Pals Lecture Series," and gave a speech titled "How Reading Changed My Life." Anna Quindlen has a book by that title, as well several best-selling novels.
June 28, 1999 - A Twin Cities speech by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Anna Quindlen. She was featured at the Library Foundation of Hennepin County's "Pen Pals Lecture Series," and gave a speech titled "How Reading Changed My Life." Anna Quindlen has a book by that title, as well several best-selling novels.
July 5, 1999 - Pulitizer Prize-winning historian and author David McCullough relates some of the great stories that make up American history, focusing on three Americans who played a large role in shaping this nation: John Adams, Abigail Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.
July 6, 1999 - A group of artists, educators and book sellers is trying to save the boyhood home of one of Minnesota's best-known living authors. They are hoping to raise between 150 to 200-thousand dollars to move, rennovate and re-open the home of Jon Hassler. The author of "Staggerford," "A Green Journey" and many other novels is usually associated with central Minnesota because he taught at St. John's University for many years. But Hassler grew up in Plainview, a small agricultural town in southeastern Minnesota not far from the Mississippi River. His home was going to be deomolished to make way for a medical clinic, but fans of the author have managed to move it to a temporary site, while they raise money for the rennovation. A major benefit is planned for tomorrow evening. Executive Director of the Rural America Arts Partnership Ken Flies, says Hassler's house is in fairly good shape.
July 9, 1999 - Mainstreet Radio’s Leif Enger interviews Wayne Johnson, author of the crime novel "Don't Think Twice." The hero of book, Paul Two Persons, is a Ivy-League educated Chippewa, and owns a remote lodge on Lake of the Woods. Two Persons finds himself in serious trouble when he returns to the reservation he grew up on. The book relies heavily on the land and waters of northern Minnesota, and the traditions of the Indians who live there.
July 9, 1999 - Nature photographer James Brandenburg describes his reaction to viewing the aftermath of massive windstorm in the BCWA. Brandenburg lives near Ely on the edge of the Boundary Waters.
July 9, 1999 - Nature photographer James Brandenburg says it's been hard to deal with the scope of the damage to the wilderness after massive windstorm. Brandenburg lives near Ely on the edge of the Boundary Waters.
July 13, 1999 - One of the nation's most expensive -and dramatic - storage facilities for rare books is now under construction at the University of Minnesota. One collection making the move to the new facilitiy is the Kerlan Collection of children's literature, which must leave the beautiful room it's occupied for years.