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LORNA BENSON: Good morning. I'm Lorna Benson with news from Minnesota Public Radio. More than 2,000 customers are still without power this morning in parts of southwestern Minnesota. Nobles Cooperative Electric Company in Worthington has enlisted the help of 40 crews to try to restore power to their customers by late tonight. Lincoln Lyon Electric in Marshall says 200 of its customers are still without service this morning. The power started going out Saturday afternoon due to an ice storm that cut off electricity to some 7,000 customers over the weekend.

The US Supreme Court is letting Minnesota continue to bar some national charities from its annual fundraising drive among state employees. The court without comment today rejected arguments that Minnesota unlawfully discriminates against charities not based in the state. Since 1992, Minnesota has required that charities participating in its state employee combined charitable campaign be based in Minnesota and do most of their work in the state.

Salvation Army bell ringers hit the streets today for the organization's holiday fundraising. Campaign spokesman Mike Dorsey says the Salvation Army hopes to raise $3.5 million between now and Christmas Eve.

MIKE DORSEY: The money that we raised during the holiday season goes to support year round programs. It supports certainly our food baskets and our toys for the holiday season, but it also supports year round rehabilitation, counseling, summer camps for children and families.

LORNA BENSON: In the Twin Cities, volunteers will collect contributions at 300 kettle locations. It's going to be mostly cloudy across the far north today, with occasional flurries partly to mostly cloudy elsewhere, with highs from the teens in Bemidji to near 30 degrees in Rochester. Mostly cloudy in the Twin Cities, with a high in the middle to upper 20s. Currently sunny in Saint Cloud, 12 degrees; cloudy in Rochester, 19; and in the Twin Cities, cloudy, 18. That's news. I'm Lorna Benson.

PAULA SCHROEDER: It's six minutes past 10 o'clock. This is Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio.

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Writer Meridel Le Sueur chronicled the suffering of women and families during the Great Depression. She was a social activist, stuntwoman, and for a time, the voice of Betty Crocker. Le Sueur died last week at the age of 96. She lived many of her years in Minnesota, and today on our Voices of Minnesota interview, we'll hear from Meridel Le Sueur at the end of the interview. We'll tell you how to find some of her work.

In 1982, when Le Sueur Was 82 years old, she talked with Minnesota Public Radio's Mara Ann Tapp about how the role of women changed during the hard times leading up to the Depression.

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: In my childhood, in the villages, the men had to go away at least six months in the year to get cash. They went to the oil fields or the timber or the gold rush. And women were left, you know, to-- this is true in the Black families and the Indian families, now, the real danger and suffering of our economy puts their men out of work.

And so the children come back to them, and this is true in my family. My great grandmother raised her children herself, and my grandmother raised her children herself, my mother raised her children, and I raised my children. I mean, it begins to form a pattern, not from choice, but because of the economic situation, that the men lost their patriarchal heads of the family and their job or their economic power. And I think now the nourishing exists in women.

MARA ANN TAPP: Now, your mother worked, your mother and your grandmother as well.

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Yeah, they raised their children alone. And my great grandmother and my grandmother, the men, like many men, they were alcoholics. And that wasn't just a moral issue. It was the frontier and the suffering and the losing a job. For example, one village near us, in one month, all the glassblowers lost-- their inherited jobs had been three or four generations-- with mechanization. And they were all thrown out.

And this happened and it's happening now again, and the men losing their jobs. So I think that the feminine, what I call the circular feminine, is very important to return. And what I call the new young women I think are doing that, are feeling that.

MARA ANN TAPP: How?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Well, it's wonderful to me, the things that they've freed me from. I call myself Mrs. Lazarus. I was dug up out of the grave by the women, by the new women, literally. A bunch of young women came to my house and said they were from Boston, and they said that they had been xeroxing my old stories of the '30s, and they asked if they could make an anthology.

And I said, well, I wasn't interested in my past work. If they wanted to come to my daughter's house, in the basement was all my work. And they came and stayed a week, and they collected all the stories that they liked or that was valuable to them, and they raised money and printed them.

MARA ANN TAPP: And, now, that was what, the '60s? Beginning of the '60s?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: No, it was the '70s, more like.

MARA ANN TAPP: Did the women's movement, which was renewed in the '60s, create a new audience for you, give you--

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: It created a new audience for all women in the arts, in all the arts. This great thing is happening here now. It's just incredible to me that there should be two months, actually, of honor to creative women. I never heard of anything like that. And I was just thinking, I'm going to make a list of the women in Minnesota who were trashed and lost and gone and their work not known. Because there was nothing like this.

I mean, this is a concept that is-- well, it had to be built up with the women's movement and with women. It's very hard to find forums for women, circular creative work like writing or painting and music. And this is an incredible-- I wouldn't have come back here in the middle of winter, and it's been such an incredible thing to me that they should have a celebration of creative women. You young women can't-- you really can't know how that fits into the drouth of my life.

Nobody ever in Minneapolis-Saint Paul celebrated me as a creative woman. Well, the women's movement is great in the Twin Cities, I think. In the clinics and all their social-- In fact, I was just in California. A lot of the women looked look here to the organizations of women.

MARA ANN TAPP: Well, let's talk about your dual living places a little bit. Would you consider yourself a Minnesotan?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Oh, yeah, I think so. I was born in Iowa, but we came here just before the First World War. And I haven't lived here steadily, but I always came back here. Yes, I think so.

MARA ANN TAPP: Now you live in the southwest as well?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: No, I just go there because the sun is there. I always come back here.

MARA ANN TAPP: As I read your work, and I'm Midwestern, the images are familiar, familiar to me. I say, ah, this woman is a Midwestern writer. She's lived in the Midwest. She knows the land. She writes about the land. Would you consider yourself that, a Midwestern?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Oh, I don't have to consider. I'm a passionate partisan, nonobjective Midwest lover. No, I really feel that my roots are here, and everything that I know. I've been made by the Midwest, by the people in the Midwest, by the struggles in the Midwest. No, I believe in that, for creative artists to belong-- that doesn't mean that they become small. But I don't think you can belong to the entire world unless you live somewhere or are someplace.

MARA ANN TAPP: That you might identify with.

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Yes, and the people, especially. And the people in the Midwest to me are a great source of strength and beauty. I think I was created by them.

MARA ANN TAPP: In the '20s and '30s, you also did reporting, you were a journalist, and a lot of that was about the Midwest. The story I'm particularly thinking of is "I was Marching", which is about the 1934 trucker strike here. That journalism, that reporting was very different from the stories that you wrote, but how was it important, especially that strike?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: That strike? Well, that was a very important-- with the strike in San Francisco, with the longshoremen. It was really a tremendous change in American-- you know, before the 34 strike, the average wage in Minneapolis was $12 a week for a six day week, 12 hours a day. That was the average. There was no unions.

The white fathers here, the Pillsburys, they fought unions. It was you couldn't organize a union. They tried to organize unions here from 1912. So it was-- and then the Depression added on to that. It was a terrific and great strike, because it changed and turned, because it was not just here. It was related to the entire Depression.

But then the CIO came out of that, out of the American struggle was one of the great organizations in '37. The CIO began. But it was all part of that, that raising of consciousness in the American people. Of course, the whole Depression did that. They learned how to organize, they learned how to get food, they learned how to demand.

Here in Minneapolis were some of the Great Depression strikes for food, just for food. One of the first demonstrations we had was-- that was before the New Deal, before Roosevelt. But we had these people in bathing suits walk up Nicollet Avenue, all skin and bones, with big signs that said, "We live on Minneapolis relief", and a woman fainted around 7th Street or something.

And then there was a great demonstration at the courthouse, where thousands of people-- you could starve then in a couple of days. There was nothing like food stamps or relief or Social Security or unemployment insurance. When you say those things, you get kind of cold. I don't know how we lived.

You could be without food. You could be without your house. The mortgage. They could foreclose the mortgage in a week. So it was really a terrible-- but the first demonstration was Hennepin in Washington. There was a big store there. Women just leaned against the windows. There was a lot of fruit and vegetables. Our children were hungry. So they just leaned against the big plate glass window and it broke.

But they were wonderful. They told the owner, we're not thieves. Our children are hungry, and we are going to make a list of everything we take, and when we get jobs, we'll pay you back, which was, of course, very-- they didn't know how dim that was, the possibility. But they were wonderful.

And it was passed out. The food was not allowed to be grabbed by anybody. That's where the matriarchal feeling came in. It was all organized, so most children got most food right on the spot. It was beautiful.

PAULA SCHROEDER: You're listening to a 1982 interview with Meridel Le Sueur on Voices of Minnesota. She died last week at the age of 96. This is Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio, and programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by 3M, who generously matches more than 900 employee contributions to Minnesota Public Radio. It's 17 minutes past 10 o'clock. I'm Paula Schroeder.

Meridel Le Sueur was best known to many as a writer. She was a reporter, a historian, and author of stories for young people. She told Mara Ann Tapp about her philosophy of writing during and then after the Depression.

MARA ANN TAPP: How did those years change you, as a writer, as a person?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: I don't know if it was a change. It was more a growth, I would say. For all my life, I was identified on the range. Before the First World War, I was there with the strike of the iron men. I'd always identified myself with the people's struggles. But there, of course, it was more intense, and I think I began writing more about it and having an audience for writing.

But I don't separate journalism, and my journalism, at least. I think that's true of the establishment journalism, but in the radical movement, there is no such thing as objective journalism anyway. I mean, you're on somebody's side. But we wrote as partisans, we called it. You're on the side-- like, I was marching. I don't say anything about the troubles of the Manufacturers Association or any sympathy for them. I just identified with the strikers.

And I think that's a very poetic piece. I mean, I didn't write objectively either. I mean, I didn't make the distinction of poetry and prose, which I think also is a masculine-- is a patriarchal idea. So I don't think there should be that-- whatever happens should be emotionalized and personalized in the person. In the same way with prose and poetry, my anthology, you'll see that it's all poetry. I mean what we call poetry, which I don't know what that is, but, I mean, it's not just factual or not just analytical.

MARA ANN TAPP: Starting in the '20s and from then up until now, you held a series of very unusual and varied and sometimes unglamorous jobs. You ranged from being a stuntwoman in Hollywood in the '20s to being the voice of Betty Crocker, yes, on the radio. Is it true? Why don't you talk about some of the best and the worst over that time?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Well, we all tried to make a living, and, at some periods in that, there was the only place you could make a living was in what I call the establishment or the corporate world. So you try to make bargains to make enough to live on if you could, like the Betty Crocker. I made enough to write for three years on-- I was there about 10 months, I think.

And I did it on purpose. I was going to save my money to bargain with the devil, as I used to call it, for time to write, which is very-- it's important right now. I see the young women try to do this also. So I did everything that I could to do that, to make enough money and to be able to write.

I worked in factories and just about everything. Waitresses. I was a bartender once. So all those jobs were-- to me, I even-- the job of stunt job. I would very carefully see-- I lived for about a year off of what I could shade away from that stunt job. And it was very dangerous, because you might be killed.

They killed a lot of extras, and you had to sign a paper at the beginning of the day that if you were killed or injured, they took no responsibility. And it was very dangerous. I was almost killed the first job I got.

MARA ANN TAPP: What were you doing?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: I was to jump off a burning ship, and I was a very good athlete and I was a good swimmer, but I was a good swimmer in Minnesota lakes. I heard the ocean was salt, but it really is something when you-- and then besides, I didn't know anything about the tides. The tide, fortunately, took me in instead of out or I wouldn't be here. But I was really almost-- the ship was burning, and I was. I was almost killed that day.

If you lived, you made about $25 a day, and that was a lot. You know, for the more dangerous jobs, And that was a lot of money at that time. You got closer to $25 a week in an ordinary job. So I was really trying to write and get enough money to write.

When I was here, too, I used to-- Fawcett's started in Minneapolis in Robbinsdale. Robbinsdale was the head of the Fawcett publication that later became True Confessions, and they started with the money from Outhouse Fables, it was called. Billy Fawcett. You probably don't know all that history, but they started the True Confessions out in Robbinsdale, a little office there, and you could run out there with a story and get $100 flat for it if they took it. And then I'd reverse the story and go out the next week, just reverse it, who was the heroine or whatever happened. The opposite happened. So I made some money to write on there.

MARA ANN TAPP: Some of these jobs, and I guess I'm thinking again of the Betty Crocker job and the stuntwoman job, I know you had trouble with eventually. You lost the jobs either because-- I don't remember what the reason they gave you in Hollywood was. They wanted to make you a starlet, but you wouldn't have your nose done--

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Yeah, that was--

MARA ANN TAPP: --or something.

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: But they had what they called a stable of women in Hollywood then. I mean, it was a stable. You got beautiful women and you trained them like mares. It was just like training for the race. And you signed a contract for one year or two years and they trained you. That's the way Gloria Swanson and all those-- they taught you how to walk, and Joan Crawford, how to talk.

This guy wanted me to sign, and the first thing I had to do was change my nose, because he said every heroine in the movies had to have a pug nose. And my Semitic nose would not do. I don't know what made me not do it. I just didn't think I was going to do that.

MARA ANN TAPP: What about the Betty Crocker job? How did that end?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Well, I was only going to take that-- two of the women prior to me were in the insane asylums. It was a very, very-- and I decided I'd just take it for 10 months. And that's hard to do, because you say, well, one more month. All that money is tremendous. And there was a lot of other little jobs. You could really make quite a bit of money. For me, anyway, it was.

So I was going to quit. And, fortunately, they finally one day called me and said my voice was too sensuous for the kitchen. And I knew that. I'd been I've been practicing keeping it up and light and domestic.

MARA ANN TAPP: But it was too low? Was that the problem? It was too low?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Sensuous, they said.

MARA ANN TAPP: Sensuous. You were blacklisted in the '50s.

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Yeah.

MARA ANN TAPP: Talk to me about it a little bit. What happened, how you survived, what it was like.

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Well, everybody that did anything or was alive was blacklisted. You didn't have to be a far left. Everybody from the middle, I mean, if you signed a peace, the Stockholm peace thing, or just by guilt by association. It was a terrible-- the FBI did a really good job at that, at psychological terrorism, like Hitler did.

But you could isolate families, like my brother had to repudiate his family to keep his job. And Lockheed then, just like Hitler did, they made you become a stool pigeon against your family and isolate you, make you a non-person. Well the Hollywood Ten, they went to prison. And so it was really a whole era of terrorism. It's hard to really realize, except that now they're trying to pass a bill which will make the McCarthy period look just like a rehearsal, I think. You won't be able to even think.

But they did could isolate you completely and make it impossible to earn a living and harass you. Even my children's books couldn't be sold. I had five children's books, published by Knopf. Very respectable books. But they couldn't be sold. Had to be sold under the counter like contraband.

And I used to make a lot of my living here by teaching writing. Well, my writing class was destroyed, and people said, well, I can't take the FBI visits. My husband-- or if I take your class. So then I thought I'd have a correspondence class. I got a box in the Saint Paul Post Office and put some ads in national papers, and I got quite a lot of response. In three months, everyone who took my course said the FBI had visited them, so they opened my mail, apparently also.

So then I couldn't get a job as a waitress around here. I'd get a job, and then in two weeks or one week, they'd say, well, you're OK, but the FBI'S been here. I have to fire you. So they really did isolate you, made you an innuendo and gossip, and I think that the intellectuals like the university here really fell down. They didn't defend. They were frightened.

There was something to be frightened of. You'd become a non-person. You'd lose your job. They burnt their books before they were asked to here. And so it really was a terrible-- and it's very hard to describe how it could be possible, that an organization could actually isolate you in your own community.

It was a preparation for fascism, I think. I mean, now you look back, it was just about just what Hitler did. I mean, the whole pattern. It's just a miracle that we didn't have it. I mean, the American people are not the German people, I say. They're not led into that.

As soon as they find out what's happening, they really killed the Un-American Committee. Then McCarthy, I don't know, strangely died also physically. It was very strange. But when you look at that period after Roosevelt died, it's very frightening to see the progression of fascistic power that grew up there.

MARA ANN TAPP: You've said in stories that these later years of your life, the last 20 years, have been the best in terms of your writing, the most productive for you. Talk about that a little bit. Why is that so?

MERIDEL LE SUEUR: Well, I think there's a lot to be understood about women especially. In our culture, after the menopause, you're supposed to be non compos mentis. No life, no creative ability. I feel since then that I have more creative intelligence and work. I work more now than I ever did in my life. And I think it's better. I think it's more clear what I've been trying to say.

And I feel I probably even speak more. I just finished 14 dates in California. I say a younger person couldn't have done it. But I think there's a lot to be learned about women and the myths that we have of women. Actually, in the Indian culture, a woman after her family is raised and after the menopause can become a shaman, a historian. I mean, she enters her real power because she doesn't have to-- how much energy it takes to feed your children.

But I could have-- a great writer in New York asked me one time why I didn't write that great novel. You have to write something big. I said, because I don't have a wife. And it's true. I said, you have a wife who does your cooking. I had to have my own children. She has your children. She protects you.

He turned really white because he hadn't-- but that's true. I mean, I never had a full time-- I have full time to write now. That's one thing. I mean, I can write all night if I want to. I don't have to get breakfast for anybody, or anybody living. This is the first time in my life that I have my entire time and energy to write.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Meridel Sueur in a 1982 interview with Mara Ann Tapp. Many of Lisa's pieces have been published by Feminist Press in a volume called Ripenings. The West End Press has published her novella The Girl. Holy Cow Press is publishing many of her works for young people, including Johnny Appleseed. You can learn more about Meridel Le Sueur by visiting the library at Augsburg College. A few years ago, Le Sueur donated a large portion of her own library and writings to Augsburg, and the collection is open to the public.

Next week, our Voices of Minnesota interview is with Macalester College professor Diane Glancy about her life and her new book recounting the forced march of the Cherokee people known as the Trail of Tears.

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It's coming up on 29 minutes before 11 o'clock. You're listening to Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio, and how lucky we are to talk with a couple of fabulous women authors in this hour of Midmorning. Rita Mae Brown first burst onto the literary scene in 1973 with her novel Rubyfruit Jungle. In an era when women were first beginning to assert themselves, Rita Mae Brown defied convention in a very big way by talking openly about lesbianism, her own and that of her character, Molly Bolt, who beats up boys and captivates her Southern town's leading heiress as well as the head cheerleader.

Rita Mae Brown had no problem making waves, publicly, at least. She met her critics head on with an acerbic wit that has been at the core of her nine novels, six mysteries, a writer's manual, and Emmy award winning screenplays, as well as several volumes of poetry.

In the preface to her book Southern Discomfort, she writes, "If you don't like my book, write your own. If you don't think you can write a novel, that ought to tell you something. If you think you can, do. No excuses. If you still don't like my novels, find a book you do like. Life is too short to be miserable. If you like my novels, I commend your good taste."

Well, no wonder Rita Mae Brown has taken to co-authoring books with her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown, who is the model for the mystery-solving Mrs. Murphy. They're out now with their sixth mystery, Murder She Meowed, and Rita Mae Brown joins us in our studios this morning. It's so great to have you here.

RITA MAE BROWN: Thanks.

PAULA SCHROEDER: And I say that it's no wonder that you write with a cat, because I think cats kind of have that attitude too of, listen, this is who I am. Take it or leave it. If you don't like me, go find somebody else that you do like.

RITA MAE BROWN: I've been greatly influenced by cats. And my books come out in spring and Sneaky Pie's come out in the fall.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Oh, I see.

RITA MAE BROWN: We have two different career tracks, lest we compete.

PAULA SCHROEDER: I see. Well, I was wondering how you keep all of this juggled, because you are still continuing to write novels without the cat. Now you've got this series of mysteries that you're writing. You continue to write poetry. You're a busy person.

RITA MAE BROWN: Yeah. Well, I'm disciplined. I think if you're going to write, you have to be disciplined. Actually, I think if you're going to accomplish anything, you have to be disciplined.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, absolutely. You can't just wait for the muse to hit and then sit down in front of your typewriter, or your computer, as the case may be.

RITA MAE BROWN: Well, Sneaky works at the computer because she likes the mouse. I'm still at my old Selectric Three. And actually--

PAULA SCHROEDER: Really?

RITA MAE BROWN: Half of the time I just sit down with a legal pad and my Montblanc pen.

PAULA SCHROEDER: I am amazed that people can still do that, because I have found that I've almost lost the art of writing longhand because I do so much writing on the computer now. But you don't?

RITA MAE BROWN: No. I love the physicality of it. See, I think writing is a very sensual experience. I think language is sensual. Language is just a form of music. You have to hear the rhythm.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, right. Well, Billy Crystal says that too, I think. He said that when he does his comedy routines, he feels a beat in his head. He's got a jazz beat going.

RITA MAE BROWN: I would listen to anything he told me.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yes, definitely. He's a very funny man. Well, you're a very funny writer, too. And you manage to, I think-- there's this wit, and as I said, an acerbic kind of a wit. Have you ever gotten in trouble for that?

RITA MAE BROWN: Well, particularly-- yes, all the time, but especially when I was a child. But I think one of the things that set me off when I was a kid and freed me in many ways is my mother used to say, now, honey, in the South, one out of every four people is mentally ill. Think of your three best friends. If they're all right, it's you.

So just that sort of lopsided view of the universe kind of freed me from the burden of having to make sense all the time. And I think when you're open like that, you often say the emperor has no clothes, whether you say it with wit or whether you say it directly. That's what gets you in trouble. It's not just the wit, it's what you're saying with it. And, generally, human beings have invested a lot of time and energy in false systems. False gods.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah. Such as?

RITA MAE BROWN: Well, look, just where I live in the great grand state of Virginia. I mean, we gave you nine presidents, and now what are we giving you? Speaking of false gods. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Ollie North.

RITA MAE BROWN: Yeah, and the Bobbitts.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Oh, that's right. The Bobbitts.

RITA MAE BROWN: So, I mean, back home, we call the PTL Club pass the loot. I mean, since when did Jesus need a press agent or a publicity agent? But you sit there in Virginia, you're right in the middle of it, and you say, how can people believe in this stuff and send these guys their money? All they have to do is go around the corner to church. They don't have to tune in the TV.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, you certainly poke fun at a lot of people in your books, particularly right in your own neighborhood. I mean, you set these mysteries that you write with your cat literally in your backyard. Now, how do you pronounce that? Crozet?

RITA MAE BROWN: Crozet. It's named for Claudius Crozet, who was an officer in Napoleon's army, who, by a long, circuitous route, made his way to Virginia.

PAULA SCHROEDER: OK. But there are a lot of very pretentious people in your books, people who think that they're really something special, and you kind of tear them apart.

RITA MAE BROWN: Virginia's very haughty. And I can say this because my people reach the shores of Virginia in 1620. That was my maternal family. My paternal family didn't get there until 1640, a cause of--

PAULA SCHROEDER: Oh, latecomers.

RITA MAE BROWN: Oh, it's terrible fighting about it. I mean, the snottiness is just unbelievable. But it's funny. I mean, there's a veneer to it. It's not really awful, but you can make fun of it. And there are people who, the only thing they have going for them in this great life is their ancestors, so one can understand why they cling to them. I mean, our ancestors were wonderful. From 1620 until today, an unrelieved march of poverty, horse trading, and politics. That's our family.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Oh, boy. Well, it's great material for a writer to delve into.

RITA MAE BROWN: I mean, actually, I make fun of it, but I do have that little flash of pride because my great grandfather was aide de camp to Robert E. Lee. So when all else fails, I cling to great grandpa Charles Venables.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Oh my goodness.

RITA MAE BROWN: One of us did something.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, there are an awful lot of people out there who think that Rita Mae Brown did something too, and just all the books that you have written. And I want to give listeners an opportunity to call in with comments or questions about your books that they love, and the number that you can reach us at here in the Twin Cities is 227-6000, or you can reach us toll free at 1-800-242-2828. 227-6000, or 1-800-242-2828.

RITA MAE BROWN: Could they call in with tawdry gossip?

PAULA SCHROEDER: Oh, that's what you love, isn't it?

RITA MAE BROWN: Yeah.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Give you some material for your next book.

RITA MAE BROWN: I mean, I know Minnesota's just as bad as we are. Y'all just cover it up better.

PAULA SCHROEDER: We're just very quiet about it.

RITA MAE BROWN: I mean, she said it. I know people in this part of the world think that Southerners invented sin. We didn't invent it. We just perfected it.

PAULA SCHROEDER: There's plenty of it here. What I love is being able to go to a family event or some party or something, and you can hear, particularly the women, all you can hear is--

[WHISPERING]

And it's he said she said, and then this happened and that happened. Yes, gossip goes on anywhere and everywhere. I've got to go back to your beginnings here as a writer with Rubyfruit Jungle, and then the theme of opening up the issue of homosexuality to the American public in a way that was shocking at that time, but I think that has become almost, well, not quite commonplace for a lot of people, but it's talked about much more now than it was back in 1973. Can you just take us back to that time and some of the reaction that you got to that book and to yourself as well for daring to talk about such a hush-hush topic?

RITA MAE BROWN: Well, it was my third book, but it was my first novel, and I couldn't get it published. A little tiny publisher called Daughters, after I'd been walking around with it for a year, finally bought it for $1,000. And my mother just-- I mean, she had a fit and fell in it. Mother didn't care about being straight or gay. That's beside the point.

But in my part of the world, you marry, you produce an heir and a spare. Who you sleep with for fun is your own business. But you have to do the other stuff. And I didn't want to do the other stuff. I mean, my mother used to get so mad.

She'd say, well, you're not the only one in this family, but you're the only one that won't get married and play your part. And so she just really had-- I mean, she was awful, but she got over it. Once I started paying her bills, she most emphatically got over it.

PAULA SCHROEDER: As a result of this book?

RITA MAE BROWN: Oh, yeah. Mother knew what side of bread was buttered on.

PAULA SCHROEDER: So the most reaction that you cared about was obviously from your family?

RITA MAE BROWN: Oh, I didn't care about people sending me hate mail and yelling at me at meetings and stuff. That meant nothing to me, because nobody can hurt you like your family.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, yeah.

RITA MAE BROWN: I mean, those are the deepest wounds.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, you continued this theme with Venus Envy that was published in 1993. I mean, this is 20 years later, and it's still obviously an issue. Now, this is a character who was literally on her deathbed and decides that she's going to come out. She's not only deciding to come out and tell people that she's gay, but she's going to tell people exactly what she thinks of them. And then she discovers she's not going to die.

RITA MAE BROWN: I loved that book, I must confess. I mean, I guess by now I've got 17 novels under my belt and about 25 screenplays. But what I loved about that one is she immediately has to face the consequences of truth. And very, very few times in your life are you caught like that, and it was wonderful to see what she could do with it.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Have you ever been in that situation?

RITA MAE BROWN: No. I mostly tell the truth. I mean, I would say 99% of the time. I mean, if you've put on 20, pounds I won't tell you because that's rude. And the only reason I tell the truth is, why stretch my memory? If you lie, you have to have a really good memory. It's just easier to tell the truth.

PAULA SCHROEDER: That's true. Yeah. We've got some callers on the line. Let's hear what they have to say to or about Rita Mae Brown, who is our guest today on Midmorning. Joan is calling from Dalbo. Hi, Joan.

JOAN: Oh, good morning. And how are you?

PAULA SCHROEDER: Just fine.

JOAN: Great. I'm so delighted to finally meet, at least by phone, Rita Mae Brown. I won't be able to come into the book signing tonight, but anyway, welcome to the cities.

RITA MAE BROWN: Thank you.

JOAN: And I am a Sneaky Pie Brown fan. I have the first four, and I'm glad to see-- I've been having trouble finding, at least on the shelf, so now I'm going to have a bookstore at least order the fifth and the sixth book so I can keep up with the series. Now that I'm retired, I can stay up later at night and read, because once I get started with those books, I have a hard time putting them down.

RITA MAE BROWN: Oh, I'll tell Sneaky.

JOAN: And do you have a particularly good outlet in the Twin Cities where I could find your books just right on the shelf?

RITA MAE BROWN: Well, I mean, I know I'm going to sign tonight at Once Upon a Crime. I would guess they would have some of them. But I would think that-- I don't know if you have Barnes and Nobles and Borders, but they would have them.

JOAN: Well, Barnes and Noble has been my favorite bookstore. I just moved up to Dalbo from Woodbury, just a couple of weeks ago, in fact. So I had been a great patron of Barnes and Noble, so I'll probably just have them order it. But at least the one in Woodbury didn't have a lot on the shelf.

RITA MAE BROWN: I'll slap their face.

JOAN: One quick question for you, I'm very interested in your style. And, I mean, they're so clean and they're fun. I would like to read some of your other novels. What would you suggest I start with?

RITA MAE BROWN: Well, do you like history?

JOAN: Yes.

RITA MAE BROWN: Start with Dolly.

JOAN: OK.

RITA MAE BROWN: I think you'll like that one.

PAULA SCHROEDER: The Dolly Madison story.

JOAN: OK. Well, that sounds great. Terrific.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Do you do you think that there is-- is there a lot of difference between the styles of writing in your novels as opposed to your mysteries?

RITA MAE BROWN: Oh, sure. There has to be, because a mystery has a set format, and you have to stay within that format, so structurally it's a lot easier for you. But also, your choice of language is different because you have to move people through these horrific events. It's interesting.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah. I found that-- and Murder She Meowed is the first Sneaky Pie Brown book that I've read. But I was amazed at your ability to keep all the characters straight, because I felt like, oh, boy, I'm going to have to really get into this book before I remember who's who. There's a lot of people in those books.

RITA MAE BROWN: Well, I've got to give the cat credit for that, because I can't remember them. I mean, she just says, well, listen, that's the way it really is where we live. There's lots of people and everybody's all mixed up like a dog's breakfast. And I keep saying, can't we just keep it to three people? She says, then you only have three suspects. So she's really way ahead of me.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Now, come on. Do you really write with a cat?

RITA MAE BROWN: Actually, I do. She's in my lap. She really is. They all come in, all the animals. Well, I think one thing, there's a fire in the fireplace. That helps. But they just tend to go where I go. I mean, if I go down to the barn, they just all follow, this little line behind me.

PAULA SCHROEDER: One of the characters too in your book is Tucker the Welsh corgi. And you do indeed did have a corgi.

RITA MAE BROWN: Yeah.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Now, both Sneaky Pie and your dog died this past year.

RITA MAE BROWN: We had a bad year. Sneaky's daughter's taken over the business, and as I was telling you earlier, she looks exactly like her mother, except her eyes are a brighter green. But the model for Tucker, I mean, just was so ancient. Well, they were both really old. I mean, my god, they were like 18, 19 years old. That's really old.

PAULA SCHROEDER: That's very old. Time for them to go.

RITA MAE BROWN: Yeah, Sneaky Pie 2 is a little nicer than her mother.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Oh, really?

RITA MAE BROWN: Her mother was a real good sofa shredder.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yes, and that's one of the things that you do include in the book too. Every time you leave the house, there goes another piece of furniture.

RITA MAE BROWN: I mean, if anybody wants to get rich around me, all you have to do is be an upholsterer.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Rita Mae Brown is our guest today, 14 minutes before 11 o'clock, and Lee is calling from Garfield up there by Alexandria. Right, Lee?

LEE: Right.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah Hi. Good morning.

LEE: Hi, good morning. You wrote a book, a novel that critiqued women's tennis, and I was wondering, what was the response to that novel and if you felt things had changed in women's athletics and women's tennis since that time?

RITA MAE BROWN: The book I wrote was Sudden Death, which I really did for a friend of mine who died called Judy Lacy, and I don't know what the response was except that lots of people bought it. So I guess they thought it was all right. And, unfortunately, women's tennis has changed very little since I wrote that novel, which I think was like '81. '81 or '82 I guess it was published.

It's still controlled by people that don't necessarily care what happens to the kids, and I think that's always a danger when you have an athletic event wherein the main participants are terribly young. Like, if they did gymnastics for money, we'd have far more horror stories than you do in tennis. I mean, tennis is a relatively clean business. It's just that a lot of those people are really unformed emotionally, and that puts them at risk. At a lot of risk, actually.

PAULA SCHROEDER: So this subject came to you as a result of a relationship with a friend?

RITA MAE BROWN: Oh, I'd been out on the road with Martina Navratilova, and I used to hang out with Judy Lacy, who did statistics for The Boston Globe and who was the best friend of Bud Collins. Actually, I think that they were going to get married, but she, unfortunately, died of a brain tumor, which took her away very quickly. None of us knew it was that bad.

But I learned a lot out there, and I learned that all these people that say Americans won't pay money to watch women athletes are wrong. And I think, actually, the golf tour has proved that better than the tennis tour, because golf appeals to more people. And now they're going to try a women's basketball league, which I have a feeling it's going to tank, but it'll take a while.

But at any rate, people will watch some sports. They won't watch others. And tennis is a natural, as is golf. But it's difficult for women, because there's a point at which they want to have families. Male athletes can have the family and compete, and the women really can't. They're just torn in half.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Rita Mae Brown is here in the Twin Cities on her book tour promoting Murder She Meowed. But, of course, what did you say, you had 17 novels?

RITA MAE BROWN: Actually, I have 17, and I have 3 at my publishers that you haven't seen yet.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Oh my gosh.

RITA MAE BROWN: And a bunch of screenplays.

PAULA SCHROEDER: It's just incredible. Now, you did write a guide to writing.

RITA MAE BROWN: I did, starting from scratch.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, and you talked a little bit earlier about the fact that you are very disciplined when it comes to your writing. Is that what you say in that book too, is that you can't--

RITA MAE BROWN: Well, discipline is the path to greatness. If you study any endeavor, whether it's military genius, whether it's literature, whether it's painting, whether it's politics, whether it's building a great company, a lumber company, you've got to be disciplined. And there are people that can always see what's going to happen before it happens. Usually those are the ones that get up early in the morning.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Right, right. And they're working all day until late at night too.

RITA MAE BROWN: Well, that's why Benjamin Franklin said the early bird catches the worm, but an awful lot of people don't have a focus, and that's why they don't accomplish very much.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, you might write poetry as well, and Lydia is calling from Minneapolis, I think, with a comment about that. Hi, Lydia.

LYDIA: Hi. How are you doing? Great show. I've been a fan for 20 years, and I want to make a couple of compliments. My best friend, who is actually a heterosexual man, just read High Hopes and Southern Discomfort and Rubyfruit. He tends to discover an author and then binge out, and so you're one of his latest favorites, and he just thinks you're delightful. Wants to know why he doesn't know more lesbians, because he thinks they're so wonderful after reading your books.

Also, I'm a Southerner, and I've got to say, I'm a transplant up here, but I had a lot-- I didn't feel real great about being a Southerner, and I feel like your books have really been a wonderful way to make me kind of appreciate my zany background.

But my question was about-- you had a beautiful book, a little tiny book of poetry called The Hand that Cradles the Rock, which, fortunately or unfortunately, I gave away to a lover, god, when I was 20, and have never been able to find. And I wonder how-- it was a lovely book, and you've never written poetry since, and I figure that's out of print. And I guess my question is, will you ever write poetry again, and will you ever bring that little book back into print?

RITA MAE BROWN: Actually, that book is in print, combined with another book of poetry called Songs to a Handsome Woman. Crossing Press has them both in one little volume. I still write poetry. I just don't publish it, because it takes a lot of time to clean it up, so to speak. It's like pruning your garden, and I've got piles of it sitting at home. I don't know when I'll ever get to it, but there it is. So I figure maybe in my 80s, like Miss Le Sueur, I'll finally get back to clean up my poetry, and this enormous volume, this huge five pound volume will be published.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, the volume, though, is called Songs to a Handsome Woman, where Lydia could find that one?

RITA MAE BROWN: Actually, I just Crossing Press. I don't even know what's on the title of it.

PAULA SCHROEDER: OK. We've got to go, I'm afraid. But let's talk about you're going to be at Once Upon a Crime tonight.

RITA MAE BROWN: Yeah, between 6:30 and 7:30, and then at Amazon Books between 8:30 and 9:30.

PAULA SCHROEDER: OK. Rita Mae Brown. You can get to see her in person, and if not, pick up one of those many, many books that she's written, the latest called Murder She Meowed. Thanks, Rita Mae.

RITA MAE BROWN: Thank you, ma'am.

PAULA SCHROEDER: It's great to meet you.

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GARY EICHTEN: We keep hearing that Americans are angry, cynical, upset, and William Bennett is going to try to find out why. Hi, this is Gary Eichten inviting you to join us for Midday. William Bennett, one of America's most influential conservatives, is leading a national study into why Americans are so disenchanted and what to do about it. He's speaking at the National Press Club, and I hope you can tune in. Midday begins at 11:00 each weekday morning on Minnesota Public Radio, KNOW FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Gary Eichten will be talking to Representative Becky Kelso, chair of the U of M finance division, about the appointment of a new regent today and the role the regents should play in running the university during the 11 o'clock hour of Midmorning. Want to tell you that tomorrow at this time, well, at 10 o'clock, actually, we are going to be talking with another magnificent author. Haim Potok is going to be on our program, so be sure to tune in for that. Right now, here's Garrison Keillor in The Writer's Almanac.

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GARRISON KEILLOR: And here is The Writer's Almanac for Monday. It's November the 18th, 1996. It's the beginning of National Children's Book Week. It's also the anniversary of the installation of the first push button telephones in commercial service in Pennsylvania, 1963. The first book printed in England bearing a date was published on this day in 1477. It was William Caxton's The Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers.

It's the birthday of the man who built the daguerreotype, the first practical photographic process. Louis Jacques Daguerre, born 1787 in Cormier, France. It's the birthday of the botanist Asa Gray in Sauquoit, New York, 1810, whose Gray's Manual, published in 1848, is still a standard reference work.

It's the birthday of W. S. Gilbert, William Schenck Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan, London, 1836. He practiced law when he was young, was writing comic verse, and then met Sullivan in 1870, and they produced HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado, The Gondoliers, and other operettas.

"When I was a lad, I served a term as office boy to an attorney's firm. I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor, and I polished up the handle of the big front door." The first piece of fiction published by Mark Twain came out on this day in 1865. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County was published in the New York Saturday Press.

It's the birthday of Clarence Day, New York City, 1874, who gave us Life with Father. Standard time was adopted in the United States on this day in 1883. It's the birthday of Eugene Ormandy, born in Budapest, Hungary, 1899. Came to this country at the age of 17, worked in the orchestra of a silent movie house in New York, and eventually became the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. It's the birthday of Johnny Mercer, Savannah, Georgia, 1909, who wrote "Out of Breath and Scared to Death of You", "Lazy Bones", "Autumn Leaves", and many other songs.

And today is the birthday of novelist and poet and critic Margaret Atwood, born 1939 in Ottawa, Ontario. Her father was an entomologist, took the family up to the wilds of northern Quebec for long stretches while he did his research. Her first novel was 1969, The Edible Woman. Also author of The Robber Bride and Cat's Eye, in which she wrote, "We thought we were running away from the grownups, and now we are the grownups." Here's a poem by Margaret Atwood on her birthday entitled "The Moment".

The moment when, after many years

Of hard work and a long voyage

You stand in the center of your room,

house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,

Knowing at last how you got there,

And say, I own this

Is the same moment the trees unloose

Their soft arms from around you,

The birds take back their language,

The cliffs fissure and collapse

The air moves back from you like a wave

And you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor, time after time

Climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You never found us.

It was always the other way around.

A poem by Margaret Atwood, "The Moment", from her collection Morning in the Burned House, published by Houghton Mifflin and used by permission here on The Writer's Almanac for Monday, November the 18th, made possible by Cole's History Group, publishers of Early American Homes and other magazines. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, that's Midmorning for this Monday morning. Hope you can stay tuned for Midday, coming up next. Tomorrow we are going to be talking with, as I mentioned, Haim Potok, who has written some of the biggest bestsellers in this country. The Chosen, The Promise, My Name is Asher Lev. He's out with a new book about Soviet dissident Jews.

That's coming up tomorrow on Midmorning. We'll also talk with Harvey Stein and Kim Hines about their new play examining the relationship between Blacks and Jews. That's tomorrow on Midmorning. We'll take you out with our new theme song by Billy McLaughlin.

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SPEAKER1: On Monday's All Things Considered, Temple Grandin, an autistic who compares her brain to a giant video bank. It's All Things Considered, weekdays at 3:00 on Minnesota Public Radio, KNOW FM 91.1.

PAULA SCHROEDER: You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. 19 degrees under cloudy skies at KNOW FM 91.1, Minneapolis, Saint Paul. In the Twin Cities today, it's going to stay cloudy for the rest of the day, with a high near 27 degrees. Tomorrow, we should see some light snow, and the high temperatures should get up into the low 30s, around 32 for a high tomorrow.

SPEAKER 2: Good morning. It's 11 o'clock.