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.
April 24, 2007 - Speaking hours after the announcement of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin's death, Vladimir Putin, the current president, praised Yeltsin for ushering in "a whole new epoch" for "a democratic Russia." What is Yeltsin's legacy, and what will Putin's be?
April 25, 2007 - MPR’s Sea Stachura reports on new poetry collection "Where One Voice Ends Another Begins: 150 Years of Minnesota Poetry." Stachura interviews a poet and editor of collection.
April 26, 2007 - MPR’s Dan Gunderson reports on Mark Vinz, a well-known Minnesota poet, retiring from the classroom.
April 27, 2007 - If anything, playwright August Wilson's stature has been growing since his death two years ago. August Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who spent 12 years in St. Paul, died in 2005. The one-time St. Paulite has a Broadway theater named for him. In May, the New York Times will host an event celebrating Wilson's work, and earlier in the year the Kennedy Library honored Wilson, too. The participants at the Kennedy Library Forum were actor Charles Dutton and composer Dwight Andrews, both of whom worked on Wilson's Broadway productions. Dutton got interested in acting while serving a seven-and-a-half year jail sentence for mansluaghter. He eventually won a spot at Yale Drama School, where he was introduced to Wilson's work. From there is was on to Broadway, and Dutton was twice nominated for the Tony Award for his performances in Wilson's plays. Andrews served as music director for six Broadway productions of August Wilson plays. He is a professor of music theory and African American studies at Emory University, and practicing minister.
April 28, 2007 -
May 1, 2007 - MPR’s Euan Kerr interviews author and teacher Wang Ping, who says her Chinese history is the result of some curious twists of fate.
May 1, 2007 - Wang Ping has an intimidating resume. She teaches creative writing at Macalester College in St Paul. She's published fiction, poetry, and an acclaimed book on the Chinese tradition of footbinding. She's just come out with a new collection of short stories. She's an accomplished photographer too.
May 1, 2007 -
May 8, 2007 - Author Sherman Alexie isn't shy about sharing. He's a prolific writer whose novels and short stories often describe the paradoxes of life as a Native American in the 21st century. Alexie told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr that he's been thinking lately about violence. What resulted is a book of gritty fantasy called "Flight" which is about a young man named "Zits.'
May 15, 2007 - It's a rare novel that opens with instructions on how it should be read. But that's exactly how Heather McElhatton's "Pretty Little Mistakes" begins.