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.
February 27, 1979 - Ossie Davis, actor and author, talks about Black oral tradition at the Science Auditorium on the campus of the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth. Event was held on March 29, 1978. Davis uses personal examples to explain the importance of the oral tradition in Black culture.
March 1, 1979 - On this Midday, a broadcast of co-founder Black Panther and political activist Bobby Seale speaking at the University of Wisconsin in La Crosse. Seale describes what should be done to improve the lives of poor, Black, and other minorities in the United States.
March 6, 1979 - A panel discussion with journalists, as part of 10-day The Vietnam Experience and America Symposium, held at the Macalester College.
March 6, 1979 - MPR’s Nancy Fushan presents highlights from The Vietnam Experience and America Today Symposium, held at Macalester College. Segment includes speakers at conference exploring the impact of Vietnam on the arts and Fushan interviewing three war fiction authors, including Minnesota writer Tim O’Brien.
March 14, 1979 - Radio Sweden's Al Simon prepared a summary of Isaac Singer's interview appearances in Stockholm while he was there to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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.