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.
March 13, 2000 - Even as a pre-schooler growing up in Baudette, Minnesota, Christin Lore Weber knew she wanted to become a nun. At the age of 17, she entered the convent, and spent the next 14 years of her life there. Ultimately, she left the Church to marry and fulfill her dream of becoming a writer.
March 16, 2000 - Minnesota prison inmates have written and illustrated a book which they hope will keep at-risk kids from becoming fellow inmates.
March 24, 2000 - A Macalester College speech by Marketplace host David Brancaccio, about his new book, Squandering Aimlessly: My Adventures in the American Marketplace.
March 29, 2000 - Star Tribune writer and Minnesota Public Radio sports analyst Jay Weiner will be in the MPR studios to talk about his new book, Stadium Games: Fifty Years of Big League Greed and Bush League Boondoggle
March 30, 2000 - Three years ago, creative writing teacher and children's author Jane Kurtz found herself a refugee. The Grand Forks resident was one of the many who lost their homes and neighborhoods in the Red River Flood of 1997. Kurtz said she didn't write about the experience right away, because it was too raw and too close. But as time went by, she collected her poems into a book for children called River Friendly, River Wild. It's dedicated to everyone who survived the flood, or helped its victims, and anyone anywhere who has had to pick up life after a natural disaster. I asked her about her most vivid memory of the flood.
April 1, 2000 - American culture has shaped powerful myths about the war - and some of the most powerful ones surround the Vietnam-era veteran. This American RadioWorks documentary, “Revisiting Vietnam: 25 Years From Vietnam,” presents various reports and interviews from an American perspective.
April 7, 2000 - Before he wrote Angela's Ashes, the Pulitzer Prize winning memoir of growing up poor in Ireland, Frank McCourt was a high school English teacher in New York city. 'Tis, the sequel to Angela's Ashes, has done well too. He gave a speech at the City Arts and Lectures Series in San Francisco about writing, education, and life in New York City.
April 14, 2000 - Tonight the Minnesota Book Awards will honor a St. Paul woman in recogntion of her lifelong love of reading. Jeanne Fischer will receive the Kay Sexton Award. At 90 years of age, Fischer still reads almost a book day. She gives book talks at clubs and churches, reviews books, writes poetry, reads to children and participates in her own book club. Fischer says her love of books began at an early age.
April 20, 2000 - Wyman Spano and Virginia Gray will be in the MPR studios to talk about the "political culture" of Minnesota and their new book, Minnesota Government and Politics.
April 21, 2000 - Authors and scientists Jill Schneiderman of Vassar College and Ed Buchwald of Carleton College will discuss their new book The Earth Around Us. The 30th anniversary of Earth Day is Saturday.