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 9, 2008 - Some of the most seasoned theater professionals in the Twin Cities are working together to show what life is like after 70. Their play is called "Exit Strategy" and opens this weekend at Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis.
April 12, 2008 - The Minnesota Book Awards will be presented tonight at a ceremony at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in St Paul. Awards are presented in eight categories, including novel and short story, memoir, Minnesota books and poetry. The event is organized by the friends of the St Paul Library. Awards co-chair Elaine Hopkins says the event has attracted a great deal of attention.
April 28, 2008 - One of Minnesota's best-known novelists, Louise Erdrich, discusses her book “A Plague of Doves,” a story that weaves together the murder of a family, a lynching of men innocent of the crime, and the tangled relationships of Ojibwe and whites living around the dying town of Pluto, North Dakota.
May 2, 2008 - Minnesota writer Leif Enger's new novel, "So Brave, Young and Handsome," is a tribute to the Western. An old cowboy seeks forgiveness from his estranged wife as he tries to shake a pursuing Pinkerton detective. And the book's narrator is a writer attempting to match the success of his first book. Enger's first novel, "Peace Like a River," was a best-seller.
May 6, 2008 - The cabin in wilderness writer Sigurd Olson's "Listening Point" has been named to the National Register of Historic Places. Olson wrote nine books, including "The Singing Wilderness" and "Listening Point," named after a spot on an island in Burntside Lake. The cabin is maintained by the Listening Point Foundation. Executive Director Alanna (ah-LAH-nuh) Johnson says Olson worked for wilderness preservation on a national level, but he lived for many years in Ely.
May 7, 2008 - The federal government has recognized Sigurd Olson's rustic cabin on Burntside Lake in northeastern Minnesota as historically significant.
May 7, 2008 - Morning Edition’s Cathy Wurzer talks with Hmong author Kao Kalia Yang about her book “The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir.” Yang also describes her family life experience and transition to living in the United States.
May 12, 2008 - Writer Bill Holm is celebrating a little. Today the McKnight Foundation named him its 2008 Distinguished Artist. The award carries a fifty-thousand dollar stipend. Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr called Holm to talk about the news and found him looking both forward and back.
May 12, 2008 - The McKnight Foundation today gave writer Bill Holm its 2008 Distinguished Artist Award. The award includes a fifty-thousand dollar grant.
May 29, 2008 - This weekend two stage veterans who have worked together on and off since the early 1960's will present their latest collaboration. Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr reports Wendy Lehr and Bain Boehlke will star in "The Gin Game" at the Jungle Theater in Minneapolis.