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.
August 5, 1996 - Hour 2 of Midmorning, featuring Voices of Minnesota with Lee Pao Xiong, and author Susan Allen Toth on How to Prepare for Your High-School Reunion call-in.
August 7, 1996 - Children have to endure a lot of injustices. But sometimes, what goes around comes around. Ojibwe storyteller Ann Dunn has this childhood memory.
August 9, 1996 -
August 16, 1996 - Jerry Dennis is an acclaimed nature, science, and outdoor writer whose books have appeared on national bestseller lists, have been translated into six languages, and are taught in many universities and high schools. His essays and stories have appeared in such publications as The New York Times, Smithsonian, Orion, American Way, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Gray's Sporting Journal. Among the awards he has received are the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, the Michigan Author of the Year Award, the Great Lakes Culture Award, and four Best Book of the Year awards from the Outdoor Writers Association of America.
August 19, 1996 - Chucking your job -- most people dream of it sometime. Leave your desk, leave your boss, leave office politics, hit the road. For most of us, that's destined to remain a dream; but Loren Eyrich has managed to pull it off. A few years ago, Eyrich walked off his job at a Florida car dealership, and never went back. He bought an old pickup camper and hit the road: oldies on the radio, coffee in the thermos, a plate of ribs waiting in the next small town. Of course, making a living that way isn't easy. Eyrich keeps himself in coffee and ribs by writing a fat quarterly newspaper on the joys and burdens of the traveling life. The newspaper is called Heartland Highways -- and Leif Enger found Eyrich along one of them, camped in a state park south of Brainerd.
August 20, 1996 -
August 22, 1996 - On this special All Things Considered live at the Minnesota State Fair, Kevin Kling performs a piece from "Diary of a Madman."
August 22, 1996 - The beginning of the Minnesota State Fair means the end of the county fair season. For writer Ann Daly Goodwin, the state fair is grand, but county fairs are something much, much more.
August 23, 1996 -
August 24, 1996 - Could you--would you--illustrate a book? That was the question the widow of Dr. Seuss posed to two Minnesota artists. The artistic team of Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher are big fans of Dr. Seuss. They were shocked when they received a fax three years ago asking them to do the artwork for a manuscript by Dr. Seuss. Theodor Geisel--better known as Dr. Seuss wrote 44 children's books.