1/3/2011 MinneCulture

Five stories from KFAI's 10,000 Fresh Voices series, featuring Minnesota Writers, all produced by Britt Aamodt.

1. National Novel Writing Month
National Novel Writing Month takes place every November around the world. It was initially set up by a group of San Franciscans who wanted to help themselves and other writers overcome that perennial affliction--writer's block. KFAI's Britt Aamodt caught up with two Twin Citians who attempted the 50,000-word challenge this past November.

2. Dorothy Cleveland
The Twin Cities has a thriving storytelling community, and Dorothy Cleveland has been part of it since the 1990s. This past November Cleveland emceed the preeminent Twin Cities storytelling event, Tellebration, and the last Tuesday of every month she hosts "Folktales Rising," a venue for storytelling and listening at the Book House in Dinkytown.

3. Nan Montgomery
One of 13 children, Nan Montgomery was raised on Duluth's North Shore. As a young writer, she drew inspiration from soap operas, but it wasn't until much later in life than Nan became a poet.

4. Todd Boss
In the last of our December miniseries on Minnesota Writers, KFAI's Britt Aamodt [AH-mit] introduces us to St. Paul poet Todd Boss, whose poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly and the Best American Poetry annual anthology. Boss reads from his 2008 collection Yellowrocket.

5. Jim Lenfestey
In the history of poetry, there have been odes to Grecian urns, canticles to Apollo and Whitman's song of himself. But sonnets on sows? Pastorals on pigs? KFAI's Britt Aamodt talks with Twin Cities poet Jim Lenfestey about "Low Down and Coming On: A Feast of Delicious and Dangerous Poems About Pigs," the new anthology edited by Lenfestey.