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 26, 1996 - MPR’s John Rabe visits Minnesota autor Pete Hautman at the Minneosta State Fair to talk about pigs and his book, “Mortal Nuts.” Hautman shares how his book owes much to the Fair experience.
August 30, 1996 - MPR’s Gary Eicthen interviews Winona LaDuke, vice-presidential pick of Ralph Nader in the 1996 election. LaDuke, a Native American of the White Earth Reservation, is an environmentalist and writer.
August 30, 1996 -
August 31, 1996 -
September 2, 1996 - Leif Enger presents Mainstreet Radio report on efforts by filmmaker John Hansen to translate Ole Edvart Rølvaag’s novel Giants in the Earth onto the big screen. It is a task that has been attempted in the past, but never realized.
September 4, 1996 - As students and teachers across Minnesota return to school this week, commentator Ann Daly Goodwin remembers the years she spent teaching high school students...and the lessons SHE learned from THEM.
September 6, 1996 -
September 8, 1996 - MPR’s Greta Cunningham interviews Emilie Buchwald, co-founder and publisher of Milkweed Editions, about nature essays. Milkweed Editions hopes the current debate over the use of the Boundary Waters will inspire people to put pen to paper and submit their writing in their essay contest.
September 9, 1996 - Part of the Voices of Minnesota series with Rhoda Gilman, historian. Arne Fogel on Billie Holiday and Odd Jobs - motorcycle patrol officer. Hour 2.
September 9, 1996 - MPR’s John Rabe interviews Irish poet Seamus Heaney, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Heaney speaks about the importance of radio in his life. Heaney also reads numerous poems.