April 15, 2005 - This weekend, the literati gather to hand out the annual Minnesota Book Awards. In a few minutes, Marianne will be talking murder with two of the fiction nominees. In the history category, one of the books is a biography of a man who was arguably one of Minnesota's great writers. Toward the end of the 19th century, Minnesota produced three men who would go on to Ivy League schools and pursue writing careers. You've no doubt heard of Princeton's F. Scott Fitzgerald and Yale's Sinclair Lewis. But the name of Harvard's Charles Macomb Flandrau probably draws a blank. Flandrau was a wit, a mentor, a critic and a sought-after writer by both book and magazine publishers. Though he traveled the world, he called a house in St. Paul's Ramsey Hill neighborhood home until his death in 1938. So why doesn't the world know about Charlie Flandrau, a writer who all agreed was destined for greatness? "In Gatsby's Shadow," a new biography by Larry Haeg - who lives just a stone's throw from where the Flandrau house used to stand. He didn't set out to write about Flandrau. While researching Fitzgerald's life, Haeg stumbled across his name.
April 15, 2005 - And in the popular fiction category this year, PJ Tracy has been nominated for "Live Bait." P.J. AND Tracy, that is - PJ Tracy is the pseudonym for the mother-daughter writing team P.J. and Tracy Lambrecht. PJ, the mother, lives here, and came into the studio the other day. Daughter Tracy Lambrecht joined us by phone. PJ says that when her daughter was in college, she became the ideal writing partner.
April 8, 2005 - Nobel and Pulitzer prize wining novelist Saul Bellow died this week. Bellow lived and worked in Minnesota for a few years in the late forties and mid-fifties. He spent a lot of time with the poet John Berryman, who was his colleague at the University of Minnesota. This is Bellow writing about that time.
March 25, 2005 - Ilan Stavans believes all great literature can be found in one place. The dictionary. In his book, "Dictionary Days, a defining passion," Stavans praises the dictionary while admitting every dictionary is destined for failure the moment a single word is printed.
February 18, 2005 - A new photo exhibit at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo examines the lives of recent immigrants. The collection of black and white photos captures some of the refugees from many lands who live in Fargo. As Mainstreet Radios Dan Gunderson discovered, every image is the beginning of a story.
January 21, 2005 - On this State of the Arts, MPR’s Marianne Combs talks with poet Donald Hall tabout how he came to be a poet, why he writes, and culture. Segment includes Hall reading his poems.
October 29, 2004 -