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.
November 21, 2001 - A Westminster Town Hall Forum speech by Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center in Washington DC. He's the author of "Making a killing: the business of guns in America".
November 22, 2001 - Henry Bosse was hired by the Army Corps of Engineers to photograph the Upper Mississippi River at the turn of the century. His photographs of the Mississippi from St. Anthony Falls to Grafton, Ilinois show the transformation of the river from an untamed wilderness to the busy commercial corridor of the industrial era. Bosse printed his river photos using iron salts to produce a misty blue image. The photos were first displayed at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Because they were government property the army sold copies for a mere 40 cents. Today the prints are worth twenty-five thousand dollars. University of St. Thomas Journalism professor Mark Neuzil has compiled Bosse's photos in "Views on the Mississippi: The Photographs of Henry Peter Bosse."
November 23, 2001 - New book "Portraits of America" is discussed by author Bill Allard.
November 23, 2001 - In hockey-focused Minnesota, it's easy to forget the state has a strong tradition in any other sport. But in 1895, the first college baskeball game in the country was played at Hamline University against the St. Paul Agriculture School. The game took place in a rundown basement with 9 foot ceilings. The final score was just 9-3. Ross Bernstein tells the story of that game- and the countless high school, college and professional basketball games played in the state since- in his new book, "Hardwood Heroes." He says his favorite chapter in the book is on the Minnesota Lakers.
December 4, 2001 - A Macalester College speech by Peter Bergen, one of the few Western journalists who has interviewed Osama bin Laden. He is the author of a new book, Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden.
December 4, 2001 - It's been quite a year for writer Emily Carter. In October she won the Whiting Writing Award, a 35-thousand dollar prize aimed at emerging talent. Her collection of short stories "Glory Goes and Gets Some" originally published in hardback by Coffeehouse press is now a Picador paperback. The stories in the book follow a heroin addicted HIV positive woman from the east coast through treatment and recovery in Minnesota. The book takes a gentle and humorous approach to some ugly realities.
December 12, 2001 - A Midmorning broadcast of Talking Volumes event with Minnesota poet Robert Bly and MPR’s Katherine Lanpher, held at the Woman's Club of Minneapolis.
December 17, 2001 - Gwendolyn Cates was 11 when her father first took her to visit a Navajo reservation. Her father had set out to learn the local language, and made friends on the reservation. Gwendolyn continued to visit as she grew older. Later she became a professional photographer. It was almost a natural when she was asked by the Men's Journal to travel to ten reservations around the country to document Indian Country. A book "Indian Country" grew from the assignment. It contains dozens of portraits, including many from Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin. Cates told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr she wanted to dispel misconceptions about native people. The book includes pictures of many well known and not so well known Indians. One is a portrait of Leonard Peltier who is serving a life sentence for murder at the Federal Prison in Leavenworth, Kansas.
January 3, 2002 - A ruptured water main sent about 55 thousand gallons of water through the offices of the Guthrie Theater last night. Theater officials don't know what caused the pipe to burst or how much monetary damage was caused. However, they say the flood will not delay the start of its next production.
January 21, 2002 - What if you could remember everything that's ever happened to you--the good and the bad. That's the premise of Minnesota-born author Anne Ursu's new novel "Spilling Clarence." The book centers on the psychological reactions that afflict the residents of Clarence, Minnesota after a leak at a psychopharmaceutical factory spills a drug into the atmosphere. One by one, the residents are traumatized by memories of the past. Anne Ursu says the idea to write a novel focusing on memory was a happy accident.