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 15, 1993 - A Voices from the Heartland Q&A with Duluth poet Barton Sutter. Feature includes Sutter reading of “Taconite Harbor,” and a discussion on his poetry collection “The Book of Names.”
October 20, 1993 - MPR’s Joe Follansbee interviews former Minnesota U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy who shares a poem on deer hunting, equinox, and views of poets.
October 20, 1993 -
October 22, 1993 -
October 23, 1993 - Twin Cities poet Michael Dennis Browne reads "Potatoes, October."
October 26, 1993 -
October 28, 1993 - Hy Berman, history professor of University of Minnesota, provides a quick summary of the political, social and economic historical differences between South Minneapolis and North Side.
October 28, 1993 -
October 29, 1993 - Husband and wife Vusumuzi and Nothando Zulu are founders of the Minnesota chapter of the Black Storytellers Alliance.
October 29, 1993 - Minnesota mystery writer Brian Freeman shares a Halloween story that involves a ghost along the shore of Lake Superior and the sunken ships its waters contain.