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.
March 24, 2006 - MPR’s Chris Roberts reports on MInneapolis’s Mixed Blood Theater production called "Point of Revue," which has 15 African American writers interpret the state of Black America in 2006.
April 7, 2006 - A new movie set in Montana and made by a famed German director, has it's roots firmly in Minnesota. Director Wim Wender's new movie "Don't Come Knocking" was written by it's star Sam Shepard while he lived just outside the Twin Cities.
April 13, 2006 - MPR’s Chris Roberts profiles students preparing for the first "Poetry Out Loud" competition in Minnesota.
April 24, 2006 - MPR’s Tom Crann talks with Duluth’s Poet Laurete Bart Sutter, who talks about his role. Sutter also shares a poem on his city.
April 25, 2006 - In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Midday presents Voices of Minnesota interviews with two women who survived the Holocaust and ended up in Minnesota: Sabina Zimering and Lucy Smith.
May 5, 2006 - On Sunday May 7, 43 years after its first opening night, the Guthrie Theater will close its old building next to the Walker Art Center, and move to new digs on the Mississippi River. Hume Cronyn, a member of the Guthrie's first acting company, looked back on the theater's early days in a 2003 conversation with Guthrie artistic director Joe Dowling.
May 8, 2006 - Morning Edition’s Cathy Wurzer interviews Minnesota poet James Armstrong, who talks about his volume "Blue Lash." The poems look at the complex nature of Lake Superior. Armstrong also reads a poem from book.
May 8, 2006 - The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a case that will decide whether public school districts can assign students to schools based on race. Hundreds of districts across the nation try to enforce diversity because they worry schools will become segregated if they don't. Education reformer Jonathan Kozol talked about the increasing segregation of America's schools in May at Carleton College. Jonathan Kozol, the former teacher who has written about race, poverty and education for nearly four decades, spoke about what he calls the "restoration of apartheid schooling in America"
May 17, 2006 - In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, President Bush acknowledged that the disaster laid bare the persistent racial inequalities in America, but Bush strongly rejected the idea that the federal government's response to Katrina was somehow racist. Social critic Michael Eric Dyson was not convinced. Michael Eric Dyson: Professor of humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, in the keynote address of The Blake School's annual Diversity Symposium on May 3 in Minneapolis. Dyson's latest book is "Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster."
May 30, 2006 - Finding the time and money to go to the theater can be hard. If you're living below the poverty line, the obstacles to attending theater are far greater. But several organizations argue that seeing great theater is sometimes as important as food and shelter. In this first installment of a three part series on providing theater for the poor, Minnesota Public Radio's Marianne Combs takes a look at how Project Success is helping to make Twin Cities theaters more accessible to everyone. To learn more about Project Success or to see other stories in our ongoing Poverty series, visit our Web site at minnesota public radio-dot-org. Tomorrow Marianne Combs continues our series with a look at Ten Thousand Things Theater company, which takes performances on the road to homeless shelters, church basements, public housing and prisons.