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.
April 26, 2000 - Eugene McCarthy, former Minnesota senator and former presidential candidate, visits MPR studios to talk with Gary Eichten about politics, journalism, and 25 years after the end of the Vietnam War. McCarthy also answers listener call-in questions.
April 26, 2000 - A new American Radioworks documentary "Twenty-Five Years From Vietnam." An hour of stories about the war as it fades into history but continues to shape the lives of many Americans.
May 2, 2000 - In John Lanchester's new novel "Mr Phillips" the title character wakes to begin his first day in the ranks of the unemployed. He's been laid off, "downsized", and can't bring himself to tell his family. The book chronicles the first 12 hours of an experience which Lanchester told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr many people go through, but few talk about.
May 8, 2000 - Celice and Joseph are lying on a beach: both are dead. From its opening scene, "Being Dead" the new novel from English writer Jim Crace, sets the idea of the biographical novel on its head. What seems at first to be a study in describing the process of decay becomes a compeling story of Joseph and Celice's rather ordinary lives. Crace juggles the story of their past and the story of their daughter discovering that her parents are dead Crace told Minnesota Public Radio's Stephanie Curtis the death of his own father 20 years ago inspired the novel .
May 12, 2000 - A discussion about why people kill, and what pushes people over the edge to violence against strangers. Guests include Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Rhodes, author of Why They Kill: Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist.
May 12, 2000 -
May 16, 2000 - Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. He spoke as part of the Pen Pals Lecture Series sponsored by the Hennepin County Library Foundation.
May 16, 2000 - Writer Nancy Cobb knows first-hand how the death of a loved one changes your life forever. Her father committed suicide, her mother died after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease and her close friend Elaine died of cancer. Cobb's personal experiences with grief are the inspiration for her new book "In Lieu of Flowers: A Conversation for the Living." The book is part memoir--and part advice column. Cobb wants people to accept the "divine intersections" where the living meet the dying. She says she wrote it as a way help her deal with her overwhelming grief.
May 17, 2000 - Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Thomas Friedman of the New York Times will be in the MPR studios to talk about the controversy over globalization. He is a native of St. Louis Park.
May 22, 2000 - Critics have called it a modern day "Midsummer Night's Dream." Charles Baxter's new novel "The Feast of Love" opens with a sleepless character--also named Charles Baxter--meeting his insomniac neighbor Bradley. The two men are in a park at 4 o'clock in the morning and begin talking about love and relationships. Bradley suggests that Charles should write a book about him--and call the book "The Feast of Love." The novel charts Bradley's ups and downs in relationships. It also lets characters linked to Bradley to tell their story. His neighbors, his employees and his two ex-wives all appear in the book. Charles Baxter is a Minneapolis native and a Macalester College graduate. He's appearing at this alma mater tonight.