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.
June 22, 2006 - The new Guthrie Theater opens this weekend. After over forty years on Vineland Place in Minneapolis, The Guthrie has moved to the banks of the Mississippi and into the international spotlight. The new, blue building, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, sits on the riverfront in downtown Minneapolis. To celebrate its new home, the theater will host a weekend full of events.
June 27, 2006 - Acclaimed local author Sandra Benitez has come out with a new book, but you won't be able to find it in any book store. Benitez, who has earned nearly two dozen honors for her work, including a Minnesota Book Award, struggled to find a publisher for her new memoir, "Bag Lady." The book recounts her battle with a form of Irritable Bowel Disease and the surgery that changed her life. Concerned that the book would be a hard sell, publishers passed on it. So, Benitez and her husband published the memior themselves.
June 29, 2006 - Speaking in St. Cloud Wednesday, David Broder, the Washington Post's national political correspondent, said that the baby boomers have proved to be bad at governing the United States. Broder says boomer politicians are too focused at re-fighting the battles of the past. Given at League of Minnesota Cities conference.
July 5, 2006 - An Iraqi and Paraguayan's unique collaboration is producing a play in the Twin Cities about the Iraqi experience before and after the war. The story is based on true experiences by one of the playwrights, who grew up under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.
July 20, 2006 - MPR’s Steven John interviews Carol Connolly, the first ever poet laureate of the city of St. Paul. Connolly talks about becoming a poet and reads her first poem ever finished, “Last Resort.”
July 28, 2006 - A new theory called the "long tail" tries to explain how the Internet is changing the way the world does business. A new book by that title was recently published, and it has inspired some hearty criticism as well as praise. Chris Anderson: Author of "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More." He is also editor of Wired Magazine.
August 4, 2006 - Each year the Minnesota Fringe Festival brings together thousands of Minnesotans to see new theater, dance and art. The eleven-day event is a complex logistical feat; it requires a leader who can balance creative artistry and good business sense, all while keeping calm amid sometimes-chaotic activity. Executive Director Leah Cooper will be stepping down after this year's festival.
August 8, 2006 - George Rabasa likes to take his characters to the borders of countries and morality . He says it stems from his heritage. He was born in Maine to Spanish refugee parents and grew up in Mexico City, so crossing borders is familiar to him. Rabasa now lives in Minnesota. In his latest novel, "The Cleansing" Rabasa tells the story of three friends who met in Mexico and have haunted each other's lives for decades.
August 9, 2006 - The University of Minnesota Libraries have acquired the archive of Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul.
August 16, 2006 - Voices of Minnesota visits two activists: Dr. Steve Miles and Laura Waterman Wittstock. Miles is author of a new book about the role American physicians played in torture in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wittstock is the first American Indian to win the coveted Louis W. Hill Jr. fellowship in philanthropy at the University of Minnesota.