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 24, 1984 - Minneapolis Star Tribune food columnist Al Sicherman talks about food, writing and humor.
June 6, 1984 - MPR’s John Biewen profiles poet Thomas McGrath. Report includes excerpts of interview and readings by McGrath.
August 5, 1984 - Written by Jan Hartman CBC Radio Sunday Matinee August 5, 1984It is not the bang, but the whimper of isolate mankind in the treatment of nuclear war which will be brought to us on CBC radio on Sunday August 5th. American playwright Jan Hartman has written a script to fire our imaginations, not with the drama of nuclear war in which the survivors go nobly on to create a better world, but with the senselessness of the pride which could cause such desolation.The message of the play comes through devastatingly, not in the predictable rhetoric of the opposing sides, nor in the ever more disorganized weather/radiation reports, but in the plaintive cry of a despairing survivor, "Can anyone hear me?" It becomes apparent that this is the essence both of the play and of the peace movement. How does anyone get the world to listen, to fInd a different direction while that is still possible.
August 13, 1984 - A call-in show with children's authors, Tomie dePaola and local author Jane Resh Thomas.
September 13, 1984 - Merrill Ashley, a member of the New York City Ballet and author of a forthcoming book "Dancing for Balanchine" answers questions about the ballet.
October 4, 1984 - Author Jane Howard talks about her book "Margaret Mead: A Life".
October 15, 1984 - Writer Kurt Vonnegut lectures at the University of Wisconsin in River Falls on "How to Get a Job Like Mine." He comments on Alcoholics Anonymous, Ronald Reagan, meditation and the future of books, in addition to discussing his own writings.
November 10, 1984 -
November 12, 1984 - Studs Terkel, author, historian and actor, speaking at Minnesota Press Club. Terkel’s address was titled “On the Good War.” Following speech, Terkel answers audience questions.
November 22, 1984 - A rebroadcast of MPR’s Kim Hodgson visiting poet Bill Holm in Minneota, Minnesota, and talking with Holm about his small town and the people who live there.