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 21, 1998 - Author and storyteller Bill Holm, of Minneota, Minnesota. He gave the keynote speech at the "Healthy Living for Seniors Conference" in St. Cloud last week, and talked about the importance of telling your own story, and the stories of your community.
September 21, 1998 - A strange tale of lawnmowers and the people who use them.
September 23, 1998 - South African president Nelson Mandela received the Congressional Gold Medal today, becoming the first African awarded the honor. Lawmakers cited Mandela for having dedicated his entire life to the abolition of apartheid and said he sacrificed his own personal freedom for the good of everyone. Mandela spent 27 years in prison before becoming president. A South African play set on the eve of Mandela's release from prison opens in Minneapolis tomorrow night. "Playland" by Athol Fugard explores the difficulties for blacks and whites of coming to terms with apartheid. The production is being staged by Pangea World Theater at the Hennepin Center for the Arts.
October 5, 1998 - David and Daniel Kamish, father and son writing team discuss their book "The Night the Scary Beasties Popped Out of My Head." Their work will also be featured in an art exhibit at the Children's Museum, opening October 31st.
October 6, 1998 - A new production at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis brings a bit of Minnesota's Iron Range to 18th-century Italy, or perhaps its the other way around. "The Venetian Twins" is a classic Italian farce relying on the age-old formula of two twin siblings who are constantly mistaken for one another. In the Guthrie production, an internationally known director of Shakespeare and a popular Minnesota writer have teamed up to give the play a truly regional flavor.
October 15, 1998 - Ten years ago, a young Harvard medical student published a book of short stories that became a national bestseller-it was Ethan Canin, whose collection Emperor of the Air earned him comparisons with writers Philip Roth and Robert Penn Warren. Since then, Canin has taken a leave from his medical career and turned to writing full time. He's now out with his second novel, For Kings and Planets, about two friends attending Columbia University in the seventies. The two are unlikely friends, one is an earnest Midwesterner, the other, a worldly, cynical risk-taker from the East Coast. Canin told Minnesota Public Radio's Tom Crann he's writing novels now instead of short stories because they're better for exploring complicated subjects.
October 29, 1998 - Live broadcast of the Westminster Town Hall Forum, featuring historian Iris Chang, author of "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II". She has titled her Minneapolis speech, "The Silence of Nanking: Human Rights and World Ethics".
October 30, 1998 - Jeff Harrison, associate editor at Llewelyn Publishing, describes his prize winning costume in a company contest…Fate Magazine's alien abduction autopsy, with Harrison as one of the alien abductors. Employees at the downtown St. Paul publishing house take their contest very seriously.
November 3, 1998 - Live broadcast of the Carlson Lecture, featuring Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel. He is speaking at Northrop Auditorium at the University of Minnesota. Before the speech, MPR host Dan Olson will be speaking with Steven Feinstein, acting director of the University of Minnnesota Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
November 10, 1998 - "Jackpine Bob" Cary, an author and amateur sledder from Ely, talks about the experience of dog sledding as the state's mushers and sled dogs are gearing up for another season of racing. Cary published a book on sled dogs titled "Born to Pull," which is also discussed.