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 15, 2008 - MPR’s Euan Kerr reports on a musical of “Little House on the Prairie” premiering in Minneapolis. Kerr talks with creative team member of show and others in the theatre scene about musical’s potential success.
August 18, 2008 - New York Times reporter David Carr thought his life might make a good book. So he wrote about the time of his life that was filled with drug use, parenting mishaps and close encounters with oblivion. It's a junkie memoir, but one that Carr says was reported, not invented.
September 23, 2008 - Many of the Twin Cities theaters, dance companies and music groups are quietly facing a leadership crisis. Many were started in the late 1960s and early 70s by members of the baby boomer generation. In the years since they've become an important part of the cultural scene and the local economy. Now, as those artists are approaching the traditional age of retirement, their organizations must decide whether to carry on without them, and if so, how.
September 26, 2008 - It's considered one of the greatest novels about politics ever written, but some would say it's not as much about politics as it is about the human condition. The Midmorning Book Club examines Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men."
September 29, 2008 - MPR’s Elizabeth Baier reports on members of Palabristas, a Twin Cities' spoken word group that explores their love of poetry and performance by writing about what it's like to be Latinos in the Midwest.
September 29, 2008 -
October 1, 2008 - On this Midday, Marilyn Carlson Nelson, chairman and former CEO of Carlson, joins Midday to discuss her book How We Lead Matters: Reflections on a Life of Leadership. Nelson also answers listener questions.
October 1, 2008 - A million dollar grant will help the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis develop new work, and promote it on the web. The money from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will be paid out over five years. Center Producing Artistic Director Polly Carl says in addition to developing and presenting new plays the center will develop trailers for plays which will be available on the web.
October 1, 2008 - MPR’s Chris Roberts reports on the appearance of sidewalk poetry being created throughout the city as a public art project designed to bring more poetry into everyday life. Roberts interviews Marcus Young, the creator of the project, as well as, one of the poets and other residents, about the concrete verse penned by St. Paulites.
October 2, 2008 - A million dollar grant will help the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis develop new work, and promote it on the web. The money from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will be paid out over five years. Center Producing Artistic Director Polly Carl says in addition to developing and presenting new plays the center will develop trailers for plays which will be available on the web.