April 7, 2006 - A new movie set in Montana and made by a famed German director, has it's roots firmly in Minnesota. Director Wim Wender's new movie "Don't Come Knocking" was written by it's star Sam Shepard while he lived just outside the Twin Cities.
January 16, 2006 - Author Nicole Kelby says she wanted to work out why she was so peculiar. During the 20 years she lived in Minnesota she worked with Dudley Riggs, Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater, Kevin Kling, and Channel 9 News. Then a few years ago, she moved back to her native Florida, in part to explore her own personality quirks. She describes the state as so undeniably beautiful that it warps people. Be that as it may, one of the results of Kelby's return is her new book, "Whale Season" which details strange going's on at a rural Florida strip bar.
January 16, 2006 - Author Nicole Kelby says she wanted to work out why she was so peculiar. During the 20 years she lived in Minnesota she worked with Dudley Riggs, Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater, Kevin Kling, and Channel 9 News. Then a few years ago, she moved back to her native Florida, in part to explore her own personality quirks. She describes the state as so undeniably beautiful that it warps people. Be that as it may, one of the results of Kelby's return is her new book, "Whale Season" which details strange going's on at a rural Florida strip bar.
November 15, 2005 - MPR’s Euan Kerr interviews Gregory Maguire, author of “Wicked,” who shares that his purpose behind creating book series was in exploring the idea of evil.
August 8, 2005 - MPR’s Euan Kerr sits down with poet Robert Bly, who discusses his book of ghazals called "My Sentence was a Thousand Years of Joy," as well as his varied and colorful career.
May 16, 2005 - Film director Robert Altman is set to direct a movie based on Garrison Keillors 'A Prairie Home Companion' over the summer. Altman who is known for such hits as "MASH", "Nashville" and "The Player" says he's long been a Keillor fan.
February 7, 2005 - Say the word 'lobotomy' nowadays, and the reaction will likely be either revulsion or gallows humor. For decades the operation was widely used to in the U.S. Between 40 and 50 thousand people are believed to have had the operation. A psychiatrist, Dr Walter Freeman developed the technique. A lobotomy involves severing parts of a patient's brain to treat mental illness. Freeman performed the operation on almost 3500 people, many of them during an out-patient procedure. Minneapolis author Jack El-Hai just completed a biography of Freeman called "The Lobotomist." El-Hai told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr the lobotomy seems brutal now, but in the first half of the 20th century doctors treating mental illness had few viable options. We should note, this conversation deals with some detailed descriptions of brain surgery.
September 8, 2004 - "Shanda" is a yiddish word for 'scandal.' It's a word used to describe someone who is an embarrassment to his family or even his community. Minneapolis writer Neal Karlen describes himself as a shanda. He grew up Jewish, in a devout Twin Cities family. At one point it looked as thought he was going to become a rabbi. But he turned to journalism instead, and began to drift away from his heritage. He says in time he became what he describes a Jewish "Uncle Tom"
March 12, 2004 - Jerry Battle, the central character in Chang-rae Lee's new novel "Aloft," loves to fly alone. It's the way Jerry gets away from his problems, and he's got a lot of those. He's nearing 60, and neither his dad, nor his grown children are doing well. His long-term girlfriend left him. He's worried a co-worker may be suicidal. Somehow he manages to maintain his emotional distance, but as the story progresses that gets harder and harder. Lee's first two novels "Native Speaker" and "A Gesture Life" were about immigrants. Jerry Battle is an Italian-American living on Long Island. Chang-rae Lee told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr he began writing the book because he was intrigued by Jerry's character.
December 30, 2003 - Sculptor Aldo Moroni thinks big. Really big. His latest project sets out to chronicle the development of Western Civilization. He's building --- and rebuilding --- the ancient city of Babylon in his Northeast Minneapolis studio. He'll take it from ancient times up to it's current incarnation in modern day Iraq. Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr reports.