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 11, 2003 - Northfield native Siri Hustvedt says her new book called "What I loved," began with a single image. An naked, obese woman's corpse lying on a bed. The image doesn't appear in the novel. But Hustvedt says it launched the process of writing and re-writing which lasted several years. The image morphed into a series of portraits by an artist. One of them attracts the attention of an art historian. These two are the book's central characters. The men become friends, and the novel follows their lives. We learn how their families are changed by their loves and losses over a period of thirty years. Siri Hustvedt told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr it took a great deal of work to achieve the effect.
April 11, 2003 - On this Word of Mouth program, MPR’s Chris Roberts looks at the Penumbra production of August Wilson’s “Seven Guitars,” Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis hosting the fifth annual American pottery festival, a play adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s “Main Street” novel, and “Dancing with Shadows” performance art.
April 11, 2003 - Northfield native Siri Hustvedt says her new book called "What I Loved," began with a single image. An naked, obese woman's corpse lying on a bed. The image doesn't appear in the novel. But Hustvedt says it launched the process of writing and re-writing which lasted several years. The image morphed into a series of portraits by an artist. One of them attracts the attention of an art historian. These two are the book's central characters. The men become friends, and the novel follows their lives. We learn how their families are changed by their loves and losses over a period of thirty years.
April 25, 2003 - A speech given Wednesday by historian Howard Zinn, at the University of St. Thomas, about the war in Iraq.
April 30, 2003 - Today we're live from Preston's Jailhouse Inn, in southeastern Minnesota. There are wonderful storytellers all around this part of the state. But some of the best are in small towns. Whether it's over the afternoon card game at Chic's Pizza or a walleye dinner at the Branding Iron, someone's always got a tale to tell. But very few people in Preston ever considered committing their words to paper -- at least not until now. This past winter, the Fillmore County Journal started requesting stories from area residents. Contributors didn't need any prior writing experience. They only had to follow two rules -- the stories had to be true, and they had to be short. The newspaper plans to publish a book that includes about a hundred of the submissions. Many of them are from first-time writers.
May 2, 2003 - Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and executive director at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government spoke Wednesday at the University of Minnesota. Power says the United States should do more to try to stop genocide throughout the world. Her recent book is "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide". The event was arranged by The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and the College of Liberal Arts.
May 6, 2003 - Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Caro gave Monday's Distinguished Carlson Lecture at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute. He is the author of a multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, the most recent book is Master of the Senate, which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize.
May 7, 2003 - 40 years ago today the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis opened its doors for the first time. The new theater was Sir Tyrone Guthrie's brainchild. The internationally known director wanted to build high quality theater outside the influence of the New York scene. Four decades on Guthrie's vision endures, but the theater now appears to be at a crossroads.
May 9, 2003 - MPR’s Mike Edgerly interviews Minneapolis poet Betsy Brown about her book, "Year of Morphines," which preserves in verse her memory of two women who didn't survive breast cancer; her mother and sister. Brown reads from book.
May 15, 2003 - Renowned writer and University of Minnesota Regent's professor Patricia Hampl delivers a speech entitled The Inside Story: How Autobiography Can Change Your Life - and World History. The literary memoir has grown in popularity and cultural influence over the past few decades, invading territory once held by historians and novels. Hampl discusses the power of the first-person narrative. The event, the 2003 Lindbergh Lecture, took place at the Minnesota History Center on Tuesday.