Arts and Culture

Every year, there are more and more holiday movies, many of which revisit the same beloved (?) tropes again and again. NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour takes a thorough look at this year's crop.

Pianist and composer Jon Batiste was nominated in 11 categories, including Album of the Year. Read the full list of 2022 nominees.

Tuesday’s Song of the Day previews the arrival of real winter, among other things.

Even when nominally about something else, the essays in “These Precious Days” are about the weight and grief of relationships. "I was asking what mattered most in this precarious and precious life."

Louise Erdrich's novel turns the trope of the haunted Indian burial ground on its head with the story of a Native-run bookstore being visited by the ghost of a white woman obsessed with indigeneity.

Need a relaxing moment to kick off a busy holiday week? Then listen to Monday’s Song of the Day, a jazz guitar solo from Briand Morrison, brought to us by WTIP music director Will Moore.

Minnesota poet, teacher and men’s movement founder Robert Bly was a major figure in American literature for decades who criticized the Vietnam War. Bly died Sunday. He was 94.

You don't have to be raised in Minnesota to know the stereotypes: “Oh, fer sure,” “doncha know,” hot dish — the list goes on. Comedian Charlie Berens told host Cathy Wurzer how he mines his roots in the Upper Midwest for creative inspiration.

“Gunfight” author Ryan Busse was once a rising star in the gun industry. But he became disillusioned after Columbine when, he says, the NRA began to use "fear and conspiracy and hatred" to boost sales.

Long after Jon Hassler’s death in 2008, the memoir that he worked on in his last years is now being published. A celebration of "Days Like Smoke" is planned for next month at the Community Center in Plainview, one of the two small towns where Hassler spent his childhood.