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.
August 10, 2010 - It's going to be another hot early August day for today's primary election. In the farm fields, sweet corn coming in. Back yard tomato plants going full tilt across the region. But don't look now, Minnesota. Essayist Peter Smith says a change is on the way.
August 17, 2010 - It's mid-August, and with a new school year looming on the horizon. Minnesota Public Radio essayist Peter Smith has a few words of encouragement for the state's school teachers.
August 31, 2010 - Midday presents a broadcast of playwright and humorist Kevin Kling, one of Minnesota's best-known storytellers, speaking at the Maplewood Library as part of the Club Book program. Along with several plays, Kling is the author of two collections of stories, The Dog Says How and Holiday Inn.
September 6, 2010 - The Fair is older than Minnesota itself and it's always been a place to celebrate our agricultural roots...but it's also been a place to revel in the unusual. Author Peg Guilfoyle dug up some memories from nearly a century ago.
September 9, 2010 - The history of the Ojibwe people goes back thousands of years and is woven into the story of the state of Minnesota. One writer and college professor is determined that Ojibwe history, language and culture not be forgotten.
September 15, 2010 - Laurie Hertzel got her start as an unlikely reporter in Duluth Minnesota. She describes her evolution from shy newsroom observer to an international correspondent on an assignment in Russia and her current gig at the Star Tribune.
September 16, 2010 - St. Paul Poet Todd Boss sends us this look back at his summer road trip in his poem, "Luckenbach."
September 16, 2010 - MPR’s Kerri Miller interviews Minnesota writer Louise Erdrich about The Guthrie Theater production of Erdrich's novel The Master Butchers Singing Club. Francesca Zambello, internationally renowned opera and theater director, is also interviewed.
September 17, 2010 - Minnesotan and #1 best-selling author John Sandford joins Midday to talk about his 4th book in the Virgil Flowers series. It takes place in southern Minnesota. Under his real name, John Camp, he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
September 17, 2010 - Tomorrow, there will be a ceremony at the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul in honor of that building's placement on the National Register of Historic Places. This year is the 100th anniversary of the theater's construction and there will be a series of events to mark the occasion. Earlier this week, I met Twin Cities architecture historian Larry Millett at the Fitzgerald and we talked about the design of the building, and how the Fitz fits into history of live theater in the Twin Cities.