Literature Posts

Northeastern Minnesota Book Award Winners for 2023

An old fire tower in the north woods, a busy Duluth harbor on the day tall ships arrive, and an 1894 murder on Minnesota Point are just some of the settings for books honored in this year’s Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards.

Literary History: Duluth Manuscript Club

As I’m exhuming? excavating? exploring? the literary history of Duluth (largely by scooping up books from thrift stores and picking up connections with people wherever I can find them) I find the weirdest things, like books published by the Duluth Manuscript Club.

List of Duluth Authors from Duluth Public Library Vertical File

It used to be, a library committed to local information had to keep it in a “clippings file” or “vertical file.” The local history room at the Duluth Public Library still has one and has a master entry on clippings about authors from/in Duluth.

Ladies’ Literature Class of Duluth

The Duluth Ladies’ Literature Class leaves few electronic traces outside the local collection at the Duluth Public Library.

Lester Park Literary Club

In visiting the new local history librarian at the Duluth Public Library, I am uncovering even more gems about the history of writing and literature in Duluth.

One of those gems is the Lester Park Literary Club.

A novel set in a fictionalized Duluth/Superior

A colleague sent me a link to the novel False Negative by David B. Rusterholz, which is set in a fictional university in Superior/Duluth. The author lives in River Falls, a semi-rural, semi-suburb-of-the-Twin Cities community.

Has anyone read it?

Northeastern Minnesota Book Award Winners for 2022

Ojibwe homesteads, shipwrecks and working class haunts provide just some of the backdrops for works honored by this year’s Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards.

Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards announce nominees

For the past three decades, the Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards have recognized books that substantially represent the history, culture, heritage and lifestyle of northeastern Minnesota. In 2021, longtime award coordinators at the Kathryn A. Martin Library at the University of Minnesota Duluth announced that due to staffing changes, the university library would no longer organize the awards. In early 2022, Twin Ports-based nonprofit, the Lake Superior Writers, announced that it would be the new NEMBA coordinators.

Duluth Book Releases in 2022

Zero Waste Kids: Hands-On Projects and Activities to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
Written by Rob Greenfield
Illustrated by Alissa Imre Geis
Contributions from April Hepokoski, Zion Lights, Heidi Rose, Alyssa Binns Gunderson and Michelle Cassar
February
Quarry Books
Available at quartoknows.com

The Girl in Duluth
Sigrid Brown
Feb. 2
Available at amazon.com

Be the Change: Rob Greenfield’s Call to Kids―Making a Difference in a Messed-Up World
Rob Greenfield and Antonia Banyard
April 20
Greystone Books
Available at greystonebooks.com

Kekekabic
Eric Chandler
May 20
Finishing Line Press
Available at finishinglinepress.com

Lake Superior Writers taking over NEMBA

The Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards have a new organizing body, Lake Superior Writers. As a fan of NEMBA, the University of Minnesota Duluth and LSW, I think this is good news for all.

Literary History of Duluth: Duluth Benedictine Books

It looks like (from the Online Computer Library Center records and the books I found at Gabriel’s) Duluth Benedictine Books was a brief experiment in recording the lives and institutions of sisters who live at St. Scholastica. (I just finished a jar of strawberry rhubarb jam I purchased at their most recent jam sale — so yummy.)

I wonder whether this was a project fueled by one of the sisters? By someone determined to write down history or by someone who recognized that telling these stories could also help recruit for the sisterhood (whose numbers are dwindling)?

“Duluth on Duluth”

Back in 2000 George Killough, then an English professor at the College of St. Scholastica, edited the book “Minnesota Diary, 1942-46” the journal of Sinclair Lewis during the time he lived in Duluth.

Bits of Bly: August Sun

The five-part series of clips from a 1997 Robert Bly interview from KUMD concludes with the poet reciting his poem “August Sun.”

Bits of Bly: The Time of Grief

In part four of the 1997 Robert Bly interview from KUMD, the poet talks about the future of American poetry.

Bits of Bly: Transfusions from Other Cultures

In part three of the 1997 Robert Bly interview from KUMD, the poet talks about Spanish poetry and other influences, including the Indian poet Ghalib.

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