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 8, 2005 - David Zingler, writer for the MPR baseball blog Bleacher Bums, tells Morning Edition host Cathy Wurzer what happened to the Minnesota Twins, who are in jeopardy of missing the baseball playoffs for the first time in 3 years.
August 8, 2005 - MPR’s Euan Kerr sits down with poet Robert Bly, who discusses his book of ghazals called "My Sentence was a Thousand Years of Joy," as well as his varied and colorful career.
August 11, 2005 - In 1964, legendary radio host and oral historian Studs Terkel brought a young, virtually unknown songwriter from Hibbing into the studios at WFMT Chicago... That interview with a young Bob Dylan is one of dozens Studs Terkel has transcribed for a new collection of conversations about music he recorded over more than forty years. The book includes Terkel's interviews with classical conductors, opera divas, blues legends, folk musicians and many others.
August 24, 2005 - Midday examines the events that shaped the Twin Cities over the last 150 years. Dave Kenney, author of the "Twin Cities Album: A Visual History."
August 26, 2005 - With the announcement of a terminal disease by playwright August Wilson, an excerpt of Wilson speaking to the University of Minnesota Alumni Association back in 1992 is aired.
August 29, 2005 - On the 37th anniversary of Hubert Humphrey's nomination as the Democrats' 1968 presidential candidate, the History Theatre Radio Series presents: "All the Way With LBJ." The program features a fictional conversation between Vice President Humphrey and President Lyndon Johnson on the eve of the Democratic convention, plus a panel discussion featuring former Vice President Walter Mondale and others on Humphrey's unsuccessful campaign.
September 1, 2005 - Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and one-time St. Paulite August Wilson has revealed that he is dying of liver cancer and may only have months to live. Wilson left Minnesota in 1990 after living here for 12 years, but he made a short homecoming in 1991 to address the University of Minnesota Alumni Association.
September 8, 2005 - Gwenyth Swain is the author of "Wanda Gag: Storybook Artist," a new biography for children. Swain will sign her book this Saturday, September 10th, at the Anderson Center in Red Wing as part of an annual Celebration of Minnesota Children's Authors and Illustrators.
September 15, 2005 - Dudley Voigt, co-founder of Teens Rock the Mic, comments on developing young people. The Twin Cities based youth poetry group is trying to raise money for their organization and they're getting some help from several reknowned writers and poets.
September 15, 2005 - Dudley Voigt, co-founder of Teens Rock the Mic, comments on writer benefit.