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.
January 18, 1999 - The remarks of Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University, at this morning's annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast, sponsored by the General Mills Foundation and the United Negro College Fund.
January 27, 1999 - In Ian McEwan's Booker Prize winning novel "Amsterdam", opens with the funeral of a society woman attended by her husband, a publisher, and three of her former lovers; a composer, a newspaper editor and a high level politician, the British Foreign Secretary.
February 3, 1999 - A Twin Cities speech by National Public Radio host Ray Suarez. He spoke at Macalester College about the history and future of American cities. Ray is writing a book due out in May, titled The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration.
February 5, 1999 - MPR’s John Rabe interviews Garrison Keillor on his new satirical book, Me, that seems to parody Jesse Ventura.
February 9, 1999 - Broadcast of Monday's Westminster Town Hall Forum address by Archbishop Desmond Tutu - he spoke about peace and reconciliation.
February 19, 1999 - MPR’s Katherine Lanpher talks with poets Robert Bly and William Duffy about their adventures in poetry - both then and now.
February 26, 1999 - Jim Knipfel has walked on the dark side of life. As a young man, he was a heavy drinker, and a petty thief prone to start fights. He spent time in psychiatric wards after multiple suicide attempts. Finally, in his late twenties he started settling down, landing a job as a newspaper columnist, getting married and moving away from his wilder drinking buddies. But then Knipfel entered a literal dark side. His eyesight had always been poor, but doctors told him that he was going to be blind by age 35. Now almost completely blind, he recounts his wild years and his loss of vision in his new blackly comedic memoir Slackjaw.
March 5, 1999 - Novelist Jon Hassler is best known for his fictional tales of ordinary people who experience extraordinary things. Hassler brings those same elements and even a few familiar characters to his latest literary pursuit, a darkly comedic play set in the small Midwestern town of Staggerford, the same town he wrote about in his very first novel.
March 9, 1999 - Many Minnesotans experienced a few white knuckle moments on the roads today, but imagine if driving was your work. Author Ellen Hawley spent five years as a twin cities cab driver. Her first novel, "Trip Sheets" is a fictional account of a young female cabbie loosely based on Hawley's life. Hawley says she's glad she didn't have to spend 9 hours on the roads today, but the cab driving life does offer some perks.
March 12, 1999 - A lot is going on in the world of popular music this weekend. Minnesota Public Radio's Jim Bickal talked with James Deers, music critic for Sidewalk.com about some of the highlights.