We’ve got a lot of new titles to be excited about this year, from the oft-buzzed-about The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen to the beautiful early-1900s photographic northwoods journey of Border Country. These books join our already robust collection of beautiful books about Minnesota and the Upper Midwest, and we’d like to take a moment to … More Reading for the holidays: Churches of Minnesota
Camp scene from 1915 at Lake Vermillion, in the mist. Because there is a difference between the history we know and the stories we keep, the experience of this book is magical. —PETER GEYE, from the Foreword to Border Country: The Northwoods Canoe Journals of Howard Greene, 1906–1916. *** Over the course of ten years, … More Before Sigurd Olson, and before Calvin Rutstrum, there was Howard Greene.
In these three snippets, we meet the childhood and teen-aged friends of F. Scott Fitzgerald in St. Paul, Minnesota. The first piece appears in the book F. Scott Fitzgerald in Minnesota (2017). The final two have not been published previously. BY DAVE PAGE Photograph by Jeff Krueger. 96 VIRGINIA STREETClark residence (1884)In 1908 Charles A. Clark, … More F. Scott Fitzgerald in MN snippets: Thanksgiving, a football captain, and Crocus Hill Pharmacy
Miles Lord: Minnesota’s Maverick Judge will air on TPT/Twin Cities PBSon Sunday, Nov. 19. Here’s a preview.More about the book. BY ROBERTA WALBURN There was once a generation of young Minnesotans who, imbued with a social-gospel populism, set out to make their state, their nation, and their world a better place for all. Especially in … More Judge Miles Lord: Our Brothers’ and Sisters’ Keeper
BY LINDA LeGARDE GROVER Here in Duluth, not long after my seventh grandchild was born, I began to write short essays about aspects of Ojibwe contemporary life that link to the joy and gratitude that Ojibwe people have for new life and the continuity of our existence. He is a third-generation child of our extended … More Linda LeGarde Grover: "Everything that we experience, no matter how small, is a story."
BY DAVE PAGE When my friend and co-author Jack Koblas began doing research on F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1970s, quite a few of Fitzgerald’s St. Paul acquaintances were still alive. In response to Koblas’s inquiries about Fitzgerald, several of these friends replied that they couldn’t believe anyone wanted to do another book on Fitzgerald, … More F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Minnesota State Fair’s tunnel of love.
BY VIDAR SUNDSTØL In the old days in Norway—up until the end of the 19th century—the night between the 23rd and 24th of June was the night to harvest any kind of plants that were supposed to hold healing or magical powers. At the same time it was a dangerous night to be wandering around … More Midsummer Eve: A gateway to another, sometimes dangerous, world.
BY SARAH STONICH Upon the paperback release of Shelter: Off the Grid in the Mostly Magnetic North, author Sarah Stonich answers questions posed by BookFox. Q. Does writing energize or exhaust you? Both. I’d compare a good session of writing to a long day of stone-stacking or gardening. They are very similar in that you’re … More Sarah Stonich on memoir writing, truth, and Shelter.
“Fliffus.” “Word Jazz.” “Instant Theater.” Now we know it as Improvisational Theater. The father of improvisation and founder of the Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis in 1958, Dudley Riggs grew up in the circus. His parents were circus performers and as a young boy, Dudley was thrown into the exciting, adrenaline-fueled world of performance. His … More "Flying Funny": The unusual gravity-defying first act of improv theater’s founding father, Dudley Riggs.
BY NORA MURPHY “We’re just Potato Famine Irish,” declared my grandfather when, as a child, I asked him about our family’s roots in Ireland. A Minnesota Supreme Court Justice, his word sank heavily into my heart and lodged there for decades. They didn’t resurface until decades later, when I began working at the Minneapolis American … More "We’re just Potato Famine Irish."
