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.
December 16, 2008 - MPR’s Euan Kerr sits down in a café to talk with poet Todd Boss.
December 25, 2008 - Midday features three stories of the Christmas season. Garrison Keillor has a special Christmas Day edition of "the News from Lake Wobegon," MPR's Dan Olson reads the famous 1897 New York Sun letter, "Is there a Santa Claus?," and Truman Capote reads "A Christmas Memory."
December 25, 2008 - Master comedian Jonathan Winters presents a distinctive reading of "A Christmas Carol," using a special performing edition prepared by Dickens for his own presentations.
January 1, 2009 - At the start of the new year, Midday presents some of 2008's most entertaining speeches. In this speech, author and humorist Garrison Keillor talked about poetry, writing and his own relationship with the library at the "Talk of the Stacks" series in November at the Hennepin County Library in downtown Minneapolis.
January 7, 2009 - Minneapolis writer Dobby Gibson discusses his collection of poetry called "Skirmish." Gibson says it's a reference to the many small battles contained between the covers, including an ongoing battle between himself and his writing.
January 16, 2009 -
January 26, 2009 - It's been a good day for local writers. Both of the top awards from the American Library Association, the Newbery and Randolph Caldecott medals went to books with Minnesota and Wisconsin connections. The Newbery Medal for Children's literature went to Neil Gaiman for "The Graveyard Book." It's the story of a young boy adopted by the ghosts and other supernatural spirits who live in an old cemetary. Gaiman who lives in Western Wisconsin is known for his work writing comic books, novels, and film scripts. He is in Los Angeles for the release of the film adaptation of another of his children's books "Coraline." He told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr he was still a little stunned.
January 26, 2009 - Another local author in a good mood today is Susan Marie Swanson. She's the author of this year's Caldecott Award-winning best *picture book*. It's called the "The House in the Night" and the winning illustrations in it were done by Beth Krommes.
January 30, 2009 - Many collectors will tell you that books are works of art. Not just for their words, but as objects of art. Many artists at some point in their careers have made books. The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is celebrating the book as an art form with it's exhibition "Text/Messages." It features books created by Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali and Kara Walker, among others.
February 3, 2009 - A rare, original oral history of Indian life has surfaced in the Twin Cities. It's one of the oldest known examples of it's kind. In 1910, Lakota Chief Martin White Horse dictated stories about his community, located on a reservation in South Dakota. After the oral history, called a winter count, was typed up, the transcript went into storage. There it lay for decades, forgotten about. The descendants of the white woman who typed up the document rediscovered it last summer, and opened up a window to the history of the Lakota and to their own family.