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 3, 2004 - The federal Wilderness Act is forty years old today - a document with a lot of Minnesota connections. The Bill was first introduced in 1956 by Minnesota US Senator Hubert Humphrey. One its most visible supporters was Ely writer Sigurd Olson. Olson's biographer, David Backes, says Olson was controversial but respected.
September 8, 2004 - "Shanda" is a yiddish word for 'scandal.' It's a word used to describe someone who is an embarrassment to his family or even his community. Minneapolis writer Neal Karlen describes himself as a shanda. He grew up Jewish, in a devout Twin Cities family. At one point it looked as thought he was going to become a rabbi. But he turned to journalism instead, and began to drift away from his heritage. He says in time he became what he describes a Jewish "Uncle Tom"
September 21, 2004 - David Lebedoff is the author books such as "Cleaning Up," the story of the Exxon Valdez case, and "The Uncivil War: How a New Elite Is Destroying Our Democracy." Lebedoff is a graduate of the University of Minnesota.
September 24, 2004 - Lise Lunge-Larsen grew up in Norway. Her parents and grandparents filled her life with stories of elves, dwarves, and fairies. Now she shares those stories with children, and the adults who read to them. Her latest picture book is called "The Hidden Folk." She talked with Mainstreet Radio's Stephanie Hemphill about the stories, and about their real meanings in modern life.
October 8, 2004 - Three of the nations most successful non-profit literary presses are based right here in the Twin Cities and they're all celebrating major anniversaries this year. Somehow they've managed to survive in the multibillion dollar book publishing business where major houses viciously compete for access to book-lovers' wallets.
October 14, 2004 -
October 14, 2004 - Now the waiting begins for Pete Hautman, a local author of a book that's been nominated for a National Book Award. It's called "Godless" and was nominated in the category for young adult literature. The nominees were announced yesterday at the Fitzgerald theater in St. Paul and the winners of will be announced in November in New York. Joining us on the line is author Pete Hautman.
October 15, 2004 - Jews in Minnesota are celebrating a double anniversary. It's the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the first Jews in America and the 150th anniversary of the first to arrive in Minnesota. Minnesota playwright Joe Vass chronicles the experience of the immigrants in his latest work. The musical uses the Yiddish word for craziness "Mishegass" as it's title. The show is currently running in St. Cloud before opening in Minneapolis later this month.
October 21, 2004 - In his 1996 book, "Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy," the journalist and commentator James Fallows wrote that the media had become "irresponsible with its power. The damage has spread to the public life Americans all share. The damage can be corrected, but not until journalism comes to terms with what it has lost." Eight years later, in the midst of another presidential election, the question is: has that happened? Fallows gives his answer live at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in Minneapolis.
October 27, 2004 - A Michigan author has won this year's Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award with his book about the Great Lakes. Jerry Dennis grew up near the lakes and spent six weeks traveling through them as a crewmember on a tall-masted schooner. He's written a book that's both a personal adventure and a biography of the waters, telling stories of the fisherman, biologists, and environmentalists whose lives revolve around them. The book is called "the Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas." Jerry Dennis joins us now from Interlochen Public Radio, near his home in Michigan, to talk about it.