July 1, 2010 - Midday presents a broadcast of Minnesota's award-winning children’s author Kate DiCamillo talking about why she writes and how she does it. DiCamillo also takes questions from kids at a recent Club Book event in Apple Valley.
July 5, 2010 - MPR’s Marc Sanchez presents a profile of Scott King, owner of Red Dragonfly Press in Red Wing. King creates books the old-fashioned way. He publishes poetry, usually in the form of small "chap" books. Each letter of each word is set in place by hand and then printed one page at a time.
July 6, 2010 - Summer is with us, and so to, all the little gas powered machines and gardening tools--devices that can be just a bit erratic when it comes to getting them started and keeping them going. You may not know what to do, but this week, essayist, Peter Smith honors a noble, quintessentially Minnesotan profession whose practitioners almost certainly do.
July 6, 2010 - Senator Al Franken is in Southeast Asia where he says Laotian officials prevented him from seeing first-hand how 4,500 forcibly repatriated Hmong refugees there are living. Minnesota has one of the largest Hmong populations in the nation. Franken traveled to Laos to check on the refugees and their living conditions. Franken told reporters on a conference call that he did meet with about 150 refugees and got a helicopter tour but Franken says that's not enough.
July 9, 2010 - MPR’s Chris Roberts sits down with Minnesota folk music legend Spider John Koerner and Mark Trehus, owner of Treehouse Records, to talk about the release of vintage recordings that feature Koerner in two different phases of his career.
July 9, 2010 - MPR’s Laura Yuen reports that Hmong American farmers are searching for undeveloped farmland in the Twin Cities, fueled by the growing demand for locally grown produce. But Asian growers sometimes encounter hostilities.
July 22, 2010 - MPR’s Chris Roberts reports on local music band Purest Spiritual Pigs, and talks with Helena Thompson, the founder and core member of Purest Spiritual Pigs. Thompson is also a 10-year veteran of the Minneapolis Fire Department, and her work has a great influence on her music.
July 23, 2010 - MPR’s Jess Mador profiles Girls Rock N' Roll Retreat summer camp in Golden Valley. It is Minnesota's first rock and roll camp -- for girls only.
July 23, 2010 - MPR’s Sasha Aslanian takes a look at Americans with Disabilities Act, twenty years after it’s enactment in 1990. ADA's aim was to give disabled people the freedom to participate in all realms of life: housing, education, employment and public venues. While there have been many accomplishments in those twenty years, many consider the ADA part of an ambitious social revolution that remains unfinished.
July 27, 2010 - In "North Country: The Making of Minnesota," author Mary Wingerd describes the relationships between Indians and whites in the 200 years before statehood and the early years of statehood.