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 25, 2010 - As one of Minnesota's most famous sons receives a lifetime achievement award by the cable tv station BET, Chris Roberts gathers two prominent Prince watchers and his former drummer to talk about Prince's relationship with his hometown.
July 1, 2010 - Midday presents a broadcast of Minnesota's award-winning children’s author Kate DiCamillo talking about why she writes and how she does it. DiCamillo also takes questions from kids at a recent Club Book event in Apple Valley.
July 5, 2010 - MPR’s Marc Sanchez presents a profile of Scott King, owner of Red Dragonfly Press in Red Wing. King creates books the old-fashioned way. He publishes poetry, usually in the form of small "chap" books. Each letter of each word is set in place by hand and then printed one page at a time.
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.