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 17, 2005 - The winners of the 17th annual Minnesota Book Awards include a Macalester College anthropology professor and a former investigative reporter whose father was a bank robber. Minnesota Public Radio's Phil Picardi has more.
April 28, 2005 - MPR’s Tom Crann interviews Dr. Jon Hallberg about the intersection of poetry and medicine. Segment includes Halberg reading a William Carlos Williams poem. Williams, sustained his medical practice throughout his writing career.
April 28, 2005 - New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has come to the conclusion that Christopher Columbus had it all wrong. He says the world isn't round, at least not anymore. In his new book, "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century," Friedman argues that communication technology has leveled the international economic playing field, allowing people from Brainerd to Bangalore to compete on a more or less even footing. Thomas Friedman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, a bestselling author and a native of St. Louis Park, Minn.
May 4, 2005 - Duluth cookbook author Bea Ojakangas has won an award from the James Beard Foundation in New York City. Chefs and food writers around the country voted to induct Ojakangas into the Cookbook Hall of Fame. They cited her "Great Scandinavian Baking Book" as having lasting impact in the field. She published it 15 years ago, after research on recipes in the Scandinavian countries.
May 16, 2005 - Film director Robert Altman is set to direct a movie based on Garrison Keillors 'A Prairie Home Companion' over the summer. Altman who is known for such hits as "MASH", "Nashville" and "The Player" says he's long been a Keillor fan.
May 17, 2005 - Minnesota poet Robert Bly reads the poem "Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River."
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May 30, 2005 - opular Twin Cities author Lorna Landvik is trying something new in her latest novel, "Oh My Stars." For the first time she's set a story outside of Minnesota and in a period before she was born. It's the depression-era story of Violet Mathers, an 18 year old Kentucky girl who's been beaten down by life. Just as she reaches her lowest point, she winds up traveling the midwest with a trio of musicians.