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, 2012 - The National Book Awards were announced last week and today we'll hear Kerri Miller's conversations with two of the winners. Guests: Katherine Boo: Author and staff writer at The New Yorker and a former reporter and editor for The Washington Post. Louise Erdrich: Author of thirteen novels as well as volumes of poetry, short stories, children's books, and a memoir of early motherhood.
November 22, 2012 - A traditional noon hour Thanksgiving special from MPR's John Birge, featuring music and stories for Thanksgiving.
November 25, 2012 - Kevin Kling / Mason Jennings
November 28, 2012 - Salman Rushdie delivers a Pen Pals Lecture in Hopkins about his memoir and his nine years living with death threats and a fatwa issued upon the publication of his novel, 'The Satanic Verses.' He lived under the pseudonym Joseph Anton.
November 30, 2012 - This week on the Friday Roundtable, our panelists will look at the controversy over Susan Rice, the ethics of drones and other foreign policy challenges facing President Obama as he prepares for his second term. Today, a special Roundtable on foreign policy: Egypt, Russia, Iran, and Israel. We'll also talk about drones and human rights. And I want to ask the Roundtablers about the countries that aren't, but should be, higher on the American foreign policy agenda.
January 4, 2013 - Journalist and humor writer Calvin Trillin speaks in Minneapolis at the Talk of the Stacks series about his new book "Dogfight: An Occasionally Interrupted Narrative Poem About the Presidential Campaign."
January 15, 2013 - A man beset with the problem of an overfull fishpond, a student who has to face a grinning skull as he eats his Froot Loops, and a young girl preparing for the Rapture which is due to begin in a couple of hours. These are all characters in Minnesota writer Scott Dominic Carpenter's new collection of short stories "This Jealous Earth." Carpenter claims the stories came about as a distraction from other writing.
January 29, 2013 - Budgets for many theater companies are tight these days. But culturally specific organizations -- African-American theaters, Latino theaters, Asian theaters -- face unique challenges when it comes to securing support.
January 31, 2013 - Arthur Phillips speaks in Hopkins at the Pen Pals Lecture Series about his latest best-selling book, "The Tragedy of Arthur," a contemporary novel that contains an Elizabethan play.
February 28, 2013 - Maya Angelou speaks with award-winning African Americans Kofi Annan, Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Hudson, Regina Taylor and Alicia Keys. They tell their own stories of success and community.