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 23, 1996 - For many people who love books: the feel of them, the look of them and especially the way ideas take shape in them, its anathema to think books might one day come in an electronic form. But to others its the much- anticipated soon-to-be-realised inevitable future. Imagine being curled in bed, reading Jane Austin or Mark Twain, words blinking from a laptop computer. In this first of two reports on the future of the book, Mary Stucky talks to some of those who've been thinking the most about how technology may change the way we read.
April 24, 1996 - Depending with whom you talk, American book publishing is either stronger than ever or nothing more than a tawdry extension of Hollywood. Americans bought a record number of books last year. And some say books available to the consumer are not any better nor any worse than years past. But as Mary Stucky reports, there's growing criticsm of publishers for just focusing on what sells.
April 26, 1996 -
April 26, 1996 -
April 26, 1996 - MPR’s Dan Gunderson profiles poet David Mason and his long form narrative poem, "The Country I Remember."
April 26, 1996 - Voices from the Heartland - Jim Latimer reads from his book "Going the Moose Way Home"
April 26, 1996 -
April 30, 1996 - The Unabomber -- The Freemen- what do these people and their actions say about us? When people violently disagree with the policies of a nation, what is the right course of action. Is there room for violence in a disagreement with the government?
May 1, 1996 -
May 8, 1996 -