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.
March 19, 1979 - Psychologist, author, and theologian Dr. Rollo May offers his insights into the nature of freedom, the relationship between love and freedom, and related questions in a speech at Mankato State University.
March 21, 1979 - This Poets-In-Residence Series segment profiles The Plains Bookbus, which carries the titles of books printed by small presses to many communities in our region. The book bus driver and some of its patrons talk about the books and their life on the plains.
March 27, 1979 - MPR’s Nancy Fushan profiles and interviews author Stanley Elkin. The author talks about his book The Living End and reads from his work.
April 17, 1979 - Vine Deloria Jr., Native American activist, attorney, and author, and political science professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, speaks at the eighth annual Putnam Lectureship in Social Ethics at Hamline University. Deloria Jr’s address was titled "The Natural Philosophical Tradition." Following his speech, Deloria took questions from the audience.
May 1, 1979 - John Manning, a professor of reading instruction at the University of Minnesota, speaks at the Reading-Go-Round, a week-long series of seminars, workshops, and reading activities at the downtown Dayton's auditorium in Minneapolis. Manning discusses the importance of reading at home with children. This is a major portion of that talk.
July 11, 1979 - Richard Buckminster Fuller, American architect, speaks to the Women's National Democratic Club. Topics include architecture, economy, and inflation. Following his speech, Fuller answers audience questions. Fuller was also a systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist.
August 23, 1979 - A Midday broadcast of comedian Dick Gregory speaking before a youth session of the NAACP. [Content Warning: some content, language, and statements used in this story may be triggering to listeners]
August 29, 1979 - Michael Novak, author and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute gives speech, titled “Ethnicity and The Democratic Process.”
September 1, 1979 - Excerpts of an interview with local bookseller James (Jim) Cummings, who has a collection of over 7,600 diaries in his home in Stillwater, Minnesota. Cummings has kept a personal diary since he was 13.
September 1, 1979 - On this regional public affairs program, Rich Dietman talks with bookseller James (Jim) Cummings, who has a collection of over 7,600 diaries in his home in Stillwater, Minnesota. Cummings has kept a personal diary since he was 13.