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 9, 1993 - On this Voices from the Heartland segment, Minnesota author Barton Sutter reads his essay on Duluth weather, titled April Fools.
April 12, 1993 - A Midmorning interview with writer Deborah Jiang-Stein about the various workshops she leads for women writers in prison, including one at Federal Prison Camp, Alderson, in West Virginia.
April 14, 1993 - W. Scott Olsen, Fargo-Moorhead author of the book, Meeting the Neighbors: Sketches of Life on the Northern Prairie, gives his impressions and insights of small-town America via research in rural western Minnesota.
April 15, 1993 - St. Paul-based author, publisher, and advocate Monica O'Kane talks about her book, Hey Mom! I'm Home Again! Strategies for Parents and Grown Children Who Live Together.
April 17, 1993 - MPR’s Chris Roberts talks with local author Evelyn Fairbanks about The Days of Rondo. The memoir details life in St. Paul’s historic and vibrant Rondo neighborhood during the 1930s to 1950s.
April 22, 1993 - Rhoda Lewin, a Minnesota-based oral historian and Jewish scholar comments on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as it prepares to open.
April 23, 1993 - MPR’s Mike Maus interviews Minnesotan author Marie Lee on her young adult novel, If It Hadn’t Been for Yoon Jun. Following a reading segment, Lee discusses the struggles of integrating her Korean and American identities and of feeling different than most other adolescents in her youth.
April 30, 1993 - MPR’s Liz Hannon interviews American food journalist Lynne Rossetto Kasper about winning International Association of Culinary Professionals Cookbook of the Year award. During segment, Kasper reads from The Splendid Table: Recipes from Emilia-Romagna, the Heartland of Northern Italian Food.
May 3, 1993 - MPR’s John Biewen profiles Minneosta poet Bill Holm after his heart attack. Holm talks about his health, his time in China, writing, and disdain for strict nutrition.
May 3, 1993 - Local reporter and writer Jo Ann Shroyer is interviewed about the idea behind her book, Quarks, Critters, and Chaos: What Science Terms Really Mean. Topics of conversation include particles and DNA testing.