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.
May 28, 2005 -
May 30, 2005 - Popular Twin Cities author Lorna Landvik is trying something new in her novel, Oh My Stars. For the first time she's set a story outside of Minnesota and in a period before she was born. It's the depression-era story of Violet Mathers, an 18 year old Kentucky girl who's been beaten down by life. Just as she reaches her lowest point, she winds up traveling the Midwest with a trio of musicians.
June 7, 2005 - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a 1982 play - one of the ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle by August Wilson. This archive recording is a dub of a commercial recording onto reel to reel tape.
June 9, 2005 - What would you do if you woke up one morning, and didn't recognize where you were? Not only that, you didn't know WHO you were? A new Lee Blessing play at the Guthrie Lab in Minneapolis explores the fluid nature of memory.
June 14, 2005 - Baseball fans who attend games at the Metrodome in Minneapolis have a choice of programs. In addition to the official program, published by the Twins, there is another independently-produced option with a very different editorial perspective. Despite a distinct marketing disadvantage, the publishers of Gameday have cultivated a loyal customer base. MPR’s Jim Bickal takes a look…and a read.
June 14, 2005 - Michael Cunningham's new novel has just been released. It's called "Specimen Days." Tonight Cunningham shares a stage with a woman he calls "an ideal reader", his friend, the poet Marie Howe, as part of the Literary Friendships series at Saint Paul's Fitzgerald Theater. His frist novel -- "The Hours" was a surprising success and it put Cunningham's work in the spotlight like never before. "The Hours" won the Pulitzer Prize, and inspired the 2002 film of the same name. The movie garnered 9 Academy Award nominations. Michael Cunningham says he truly enjoyed the big-screen version of his book "The Hours" despite the fact that the movie couldn't possibly contain all the details of the novel.
June 14, 2005 - Michael Cunningham is the author of four novels, including "The Hours," which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 and was made into a film starring Meryl Streep. His upcoming novel, "Specimen Days," is a journey into the past and future that centers around the American poet Walt Whitman. Howe is a Guggenheim-award-winning poet whose first book, "The Good Thief," was selected by Margaret Atwood as winner of the National Poetry Series. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. She is author most recently of "What the Living Do" and was co-editor of "In the Company of My Solitude: American Writing from the AIDS Pandemic." Cunningham and Howe met through a mutual friend in Provincetown when both were just starting out in their careers. Together, they cared for that friend, who was diagnosed with and later died of AIDS. Cunningham and Howe consider one another "ideal readers;" they live in New York City and show each other everything they write.
June 16, 2005 - Alex Kotlowitz is an author and journalist. He wrote the book "There are No Children Here :The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America." He recently spoke in the Twin Cities at the Family and Children's Services Annual Meeting. He spoke about children's lives in a Chicago housing project.
June 29, 2005 - Author Kevin Powell says that African Americans need to be empowered, not just economically and politically, but also in the areas of physical and mental health. Powell spoke recently at a forum in Minneapolis named for his book "Who's Gonna Take the Weight?"
July 4, 2005 - There will be a big birthday bash later today... for the Minnesota State Capitol. There will be music, tours, and an ice cream social to celebrate the Capitol's 100th birthday. The building first opened in 1905 after nearly 12 years of planning and construction. Since then, it's been a hub of government and one of the state's most important public buildings. Leigh Roethke is completing her doctorate in art history at the University of Minnesota and is the author of a new book called "Minnesota's Captiol: A Centennial Story." She says when St. Paul architect Cass Gilbert was chosen to design the building, he had big ideas.