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.
July 6, 2010 - Summer is with us, and so to, all the little gas powered machines and gardening tools--devices that can be just a bit erratic when it comes to getting them started and keeping them going. You may not know what to do, but this week, essayist, Peter Smith honors a noble, quintessentially Minnesotan profession whose practitioners almost certainly do.
July 27, 2010 - In "North Country: The Making of Minnesota," author Mary Wingerd describes the relationships between Indians and whites in the 200 years before statehood and the early years of statehood.
August 3, 2010 - Remember the old days on radio when folks who couldn't sleep sat up listened to music and talk stations all all night? Well essayist Peter Smith has discovered a new breed of insomniac out there... Guess where.
August 4, 2010 - MPR’s Kerri Miller interviews spoken word poets Matthew Rucker, Sierra DeMulder, and Khary Jackson about the National Poetry Slam being held in St. Paul. Segment also includes excerpt of performer in Haiku style verse as a NPS side event.
August 5, 2010 - John Kander, half of the Kander and Ebb team which wrote the musicals "Cabaret," and "Chicago," is in Minnesota working on a new show. He says it's possibly his most important theatrical piece. "The Scottsboro Boys," which opens tomorrow night at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, tells the story of a pivotal civil rights case.
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.