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Talking Volumes

Talking Volumes is an annual event series featuring notable authors in conversation about their new books. Presented by MPR News and The Minnesota Star Tribune.

Tickets are now available for our 26th season. Join award-winning journalist and MPR News host Kerri Miller (and special guest host Catharine Richart) as they talk with authors including Stacey Abrams, Patricia Lockwood, Misty Copeland, John Grisham, and Kate Baer.

February 19, 2004 2:48 PM

The Snow Fox

Susan Fromberg Schaeffer's latest novel, "The Snow Fox," is an epic love story set a thousand years ago in Japan. It follows the life of a beautiful and inspired poet, with a reputation for a cruel streak. She falls for the samurai assigned as her bodyguard, but they are torn apart in the intrigues and violence of the almost perpetual civil wars of the time.

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February 17, 2004 11:20 AM

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Her stories have been called tough and unsentimental. ZZ Packer's characters try to undo trouble of their own making, and in the process they show how racism wends through a supposedly colorblind society.

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February 16, 2004 11:20 AM

Neil Gaiman talks about his haunting book for children

A young girl discovers an eerie parallel world in a novel for young adults, Coraline. Author Neil Gaiman joins Katherine Lanpher for Talking Volumes. The show was recorded at the Fizgerald Theater on Sunday, Feb. 15.

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February 3, 2004 11:20 AM

Fact and fiction at play in memoirs

The art of the memoir owes to both nonfiction and fiction writing. An author and teacher of memoir talks about the controversy over the amount of fiction in some memoirs.

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February 2, 2004 2:57 PM

Loving Che

The image of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara has spilled across tee-shirts and dorm-room posters for almost half a century—but who was he? Writer Ana Menendez explores that question in her novel "Loving Che."

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January 20, 2004 11:20 AM

Talking Volumes author Neil Gaiman

One of the top writers of graphic novels adds a children's novel to his critically-acclaimed work. It's the story of a child discovering another world strangely parallel to her own.

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January 19, 2004 5:26 PM

Neil Gaiman on Dave McKean

Neil Gaiman describes his work with his friend and the illustarator of "Coraline," Dave Mckean.

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January 15, 2004 11:20 AM

Talking Volumes: "A Brief History of the Flood"

A broadcast of Talking Volumes at the Fitzgerald Theater. Katherine Lanpher talks with former Minnesotan Jean Harfenist about her debut novel, A Brief History of the Flood. The book chronicles a girl's growing up in a troubled family.

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January 12, 2004 4:15 PM

Minneapolis author receives top children's book award

The story of a small mouse in love with a princess won the top honor in children's literature from the American Library Association on Monday. Minneapolis author Kate DiCamillo received the 2004 Newbery Medal for the year's best writing for "The Tale of Despereaux."

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January 9, 2004 3:12 PM

The Canterbury Papers

In the 13th century the powerful practiced full contact politics. Lose a political battle, and you might lose your head. The period has fascinated Minneapolis writer Judith Koll Healy since she was a girl. About 15 years ago she began reading about Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the political intrigues swirling round her family, the courts of France and England. Those intrigues form the basis for Healy's first novel "The Canterbury Papers."

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