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.
February 22, 1983 - Host Robert Cromie talks with Richard and Deanne Mincer, author of The Talk Show Book.
March 1, 1983 - Paul Dickson, co-author of "There are Alligators in our Sewers and Other American Credos", discusses the various popularly held beliefs and notions that have no factual basis. Dickson also answers listener questions.
March 1, 1983 - Host Robert Cromie talks with novelist Jean M. Auel
March 7, 1983 - The first of three retrospective programs about the Vietnam war. Featuring Morley Safer, Garrick Utley, Peter Arnett, Robert Scheer, and Phillip Knightly.
March 8, 1983 - Host Robert Cromie talks with Chicago educator Marva Collins about her book Marva Collins' Way.
March 9, 1983 - "A Vietnam perspective: The War, the veterans and the society" is the 2nd in a series looking back at the Vietnam War and its affects on the United States. Recorded at the University of Southern California.
March 11, 1983 - The last in a series of three retrospective programs on the Vietnam war. The first two dealt with press coverage of the war, and how it affected American veterans. This broadcast attempts to draw some lessons from the Vietnam war.Speakers include historian William Appleman Williams, playwright Arthur Miller, author Frances Fitzgerald, and anti-war activist Todd Gitlin.
March 15, 1983 - Host Robert Cromie talks with Paul Nagel, author of a book on four generations of the John Adams family.
March 22, 1983 - Robert Cromie talks with Stuart Flexner.
March 29, 1983 - Robert Cromie talks with W. Brandford Wiley and Deborah Wiley about the 175-year-old publishing company, the John Wiley Company.