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.
September 25, 1996 - Playwrights and acting troupes have a range of motivations. The folks putting on Tony and Tina's Wedding, for instance, may not be looking for heavy dramatic catharsis from their audience. Showboat moves closer to a social lesson, but also entertains. A new company in Minneapolis opens tomorrow with a more serious motive. By putting on international works with a diverse company, Pangea World Theatre hopes to bring peace and unity. "Conference of the Birds" is based on a 12th Century Persian poem, and involves 15 actors -- including Melanie Julian and Luu Pham. The company was founded by Dipankar Mukherjee. The three joined me in the studio, and I asked Mukherjee how a theatre troupe can hope to bring about world peace and harmony.
September 27, 1996 - Essay on a walk in the woods later collected in "Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map" by Barton Sutter, published October 1998 by University of Minnesota Press.
September 27, 1996 - This fall, there is a brand new U.S. citizen in one St Paul family. Commentator Becky Helegesen says the whole process was - amazing.
September 28, 1996 - MPR’s Lorna Benson interviews Eleanor Lanahan, F. Scott Fitzgerald's granddaughter about her famous grandfather, as well as Zelda, her grandmother. Lanahan also discusses how her mother somewhat protected children from the family history.
September 29, 1996 -
October 2, 1996 - A show billed as the world's first and only polka musical opens tomorrow night in Saint Cloud. The New Tradition Theatre Company will present the first Minnesota production of "Evelyn and the Polka King", by Minneapolis playwright John Olive.
October 4, 1996 - Essay on a walk in the woods later collected in "Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map" by Barton Sutter, published October 1998 by University of Minnesota Press.
October 4, 1996 - It's well-known and shameful, that the United States kept people of Japanese descent in prison camps during World War Two. A growing number of scholars say there were also internment camps for up to a few thousand Germans. Scholars, like Saint Olaf professor La Vern Rippley, say there were at least fifty camps across the United States -- the closest to Minnesota in Fort Lincoln, North Dakota and Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. As of June 30, 1945, there were supposedly 21-hundred Germans in them. Professor Rippley says the reason these facts are not well-known is wrapped-up in the Unites States' attitudes about its Germans, one of the biggest ethnic groups in the country and the most-populous in Minnesota.
October 4, 1996 - If you are racing on your way TO or FROM work, careening through a list of errands, conversing on your cell phone, commentator Jim Baden has a few words for you. Baden, publisher of the Mille Lacs Messenger newspaper says it's important to remember, there are still places in Minnesota where cell phones and fax machines are - well, unusual.
October 10, 1996 - In high-profile political races, up to two-thirds of a campaign budget might be spent on advertising, most of it on TV. With so much riding on these ads, the way a thirty-second spot is designed and delivered is something not taken lightly.