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 16, 2012 - MPR’s Marianne Combs reports on two of the Pulitzers announced that have Minnesota connections. Kevin Puts won a 2012 Pulitzer in Music for "Silent Night: Opera in Two Acts" that premiered at the Minnesota Opera. Also, poet Tracy K. Smith won a Pulitzer for "Life on Mars," published by Minneapolis' Graywolf Press.
April 25, 2012 - The Guthrie's 2012 -13 season features 12-productions on its two larger stages. All are written by white men, and only one show will have a female director, staging the production as a co-director. And, as some of Minnesota's arts leaders continue to react to the decisions of the region's largest theater organization, we wanted to get reaction from the Guthrie's artistic director himself. Joe Dowling joins MPR news from Dublin, where he's traveling. He said scheduling any theater season requires balancing a lot of interests.
May 4, 2012 - Morning Edition’s Cathy Wurzer talks with Ojibwe author Anton Truer about his book "Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask."
May 8, 2012 - St. Paul writer Julie Schumacher's new teen novel "The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls" chronicles a long hot summer where members of a mother daughter book club get way more than they bargained for when they sign up for what they thjink is just a way to make summer reading assignments more fun. Schumacher specializes in books for and about adolescent girls. She also reveals in the novel her "Rule of 3,000" about the number of books we are likely to read in a lifetime, and how it's important to make wise book choices.
May 14, 2012 - MPR’s Euan Kerr profiles Twin Cities native Maya Washington, who uses a short film she created about a deaf performance poet to challenge elementary school students to think about - and perform poetry.
May 18, 2012 - Is life better for an African American artist today living in the Twin Cities than it was twenty or thirty years ago?
May 25, 2012 - Essayist Peter Smith shares a poem on mowing the lawn. It captures the essence of the eternal struggle of adults getting kids to actually do the task.
May 28, 2012 - Minnesota native Tim O'Brien, speaking as part of the Club Book series in Blaine a few years ago about his acclaimed book about the Vietnam War and the impact it had on soldiers. It's titled, "The Things They Carried."
May 30, 2012 - In her new book of essays, writer, comedian and "Daily Show" co-creator Lizz Winstead talks about growing up in Minnesota as a progressive in a conservative household and how it shaped her work as a comedian. Guest: Lizz Winstead: Writer and comedian. Her new book of essays is called "Lizz Free or Die".
June 7, 2012 - Legendary American author Ray Bradbury died June 5, 2012, at the age of 91. Back in 2000 he was the featured speaker in Minnetonka at the Pen Pals Lecture Series. He spoke about the greatest influences on his life and career of more than seven decades, and gave this insightful and entertaining speech apparently without notes.