Repeatedly 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. This curation presents broadcasts over the decades of writer’s voices in form of speech, interview, and discussion.
April 10, 1982 - MPR’s Dale Connelly interviews author Fern Kupfer about her severely mentally and physically handicapped son Zachariah and her book Before and After Zachariah.
April 11, 1982 - NPR’s Connie Goldman interviews author and poet James Dickey, who shares his thoughts on writing.
April 17, 1982 - On this Weekend program, MPR’s Dale Connelly has a conversation with Margaret Atwood, author of Bodily Harm. Atwood comments on the differential power and aggressive dynamics between men and women.
May 29, 1982 - On this Firing Line program, host William F. Buckley Jr. discusses the late President Lyndon Johnson with the author Robert Caro, who has written a biography of Johnson.
May 31, 1982 - Dale Connelly talks with author and essayist Roger Angell about his book on baseball, Late Innings. Angell comments on the impact of baseball strike, disenchantment of fanbase, and business end of the sport.
February 17, 1986 - Alvin Poussaint, psychiatry professor at Harvard University, speaks at Coffman Union as part of Black History Month at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Poussaint’s address was on the topic "The Psyche of a Racist Culture."
May 24, 1993 - National Public Radio's Susan Stamberg talks with Midday’s Gary Eichten about her work at NPR and her new book entitled Talk: NPR's Susan Stamberg Considers All Things. Stamberg also answers listener questions.
May 10, 1995 - Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, and Dr. Alvin Poussaint, author and psychiatrist, speaking at Carleton College in Northfield. The topics of speeches were on class structure, and the issues of race in the United States.
April 23, 1997 - Author and columnist Molly Ivins is guest speaker for this Frank Premack Memorial Lecture at University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute. Ivins talks the meanness of contemporary politics.
June 12, 2003 - MPR’s Greta Cunningham interviews author Regina McBride about her novel The Land of Women, which tells of a complex relationship between mother and daughter.