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"Minnesota Public Radio, Garrison Keillor Settle All Outstanding Issues"
St. Paul, MN - Garrison Keillor and Minnesota Public Radio have reached an agreement reopening public access to thousands of past shows of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac.

Within the next 15 days, MPR will restore public access...
...

- PRESS -

"The Forum at Grace Cathedral, September 2017"

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young of the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, CA, sits down with Garrison Keillor for an in-depth conversation as part of the Cathedral's program The Forum on September 17, 2017.... >>

- RADIO -

"Trees"

November '47, we left the big city

My folks and my brother, my sister and I

We lived in a basement, way out in a cornfield

Windows so small, you can just see the sky... >>

- PRESS -

"New Garrison Keillor Online Shop!"

We just launched a new online shop carrying merchandise related to Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion, and The Writer's Alamanac. Today's featured product: the complete final performance of Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion," live at the Hollywood Bowl on July 1, 2016... >>

Garrison Keillor

Advice from Mr. Blue

"Exes, etiquette, and losing a spark"

Dear Mr. Blue, I can't get over my ex. We dated a few years ago and when we broke up, even though it was mutual, I was devastated. At 22 years old, it was my first time being in love, and my first time being heartbroken. The relationship itself had been turbulent: he was a night owl and an alcoholic…


Weekly Column

A winning candidate for 2020

Finally we see some spring in Minnesota, temperatures edging into the 50s, maybe 60s, snow gone except in the crevices, green grass, the miracle of going outdoors in shirtsleeves. It's like the Rapture except that everyone gets to enjoy it, not just the select few. We who were brought up not to complain have been moaning for a month, and we feel bad about that and intend to atone for it by being good to people who have not been nice to us, if we can think of any.

James Comey has come and gone, an example of the danger of oversell. After seeing him everywhere all the time for a week, there was little need to buy his book. I own a bookstore and it only sold 24 copies: people had already heard six times what he had to say. As the gentleman knows, he did at least as much as the Russians did to elect No. 45, and he certainly has a right to try to make amends, but when he told The New Yorker at length about the "emptiness" of the man — good Lord, when did FBI directors acquire X-ray vision? Leave emptiness to the Buddhists.

This, you understand, is coming from a cranky old liberal who is tired of hearing about the #real and prefers to talk about the #imaginary. I go to dinner with Democrats and when I hear somebody say, "I can't believe the way T—" I am out of my seat the moment their tongue hits the back of their teeth to make the T. There are plenty of smart people who are paid to talk about him and to say new and interesting things and I wish them well. But not at the dinner table, please.

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News
New Garrison Keillor Online Shop!

New Garrison Keillor Online Shop!

Pretty Good Goods junkies rejoice: there is a new one-stop merchandise shop for all your needs related to Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion, and The Writer’s Alamanac. Today’s featured product: the complete final performance of Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” live at the Hollywood Bowl on July 1, 2016 and collected on a […]

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The Forum at Grace Cathedral, September 2017

The Forum at Grace Cathedral, September 2017

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young of the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, CA, sits down with Garrison Keillor for an in-depth conversation as part of the Cathedral’s program The Forum on September 17, 2017.

Read More
Minnesota Public Radio, Garrison Keillor Settle All Outstanding Issues

Minnesota Public Radio, Garrison Keillor Settle All Outstanding Issues

St. Paul, MN – Garrison Keillor and Minnesota Public Radio have reached an agreement reopening public access to thousands of past shows of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac.

"MPR wants fans of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac to have free access to the thousands of wonderful performers and artists, musicians and poets whose work is included in those archives, and we want your fans to have free access to the decades of terrific material you created," MPR President Jon McTaggart wrote in a letter to Keillor on April 5. A full copy of the letter is available at www.garrisonkeillor.com.

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Letter from Jon McTaggart to Garrison Keillor

Letter from Jon McTaggart to Garrison Keillor

Dear Garrison,

I could never have imagined the surprising circumstances you and I've been in for the past few months. But here we are, and I'm hoping this personal appeal can help to move us forward.

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A Prairie Home Companion 40th Anniversary: Let’s Have a Party

A Prairie Home Companion returns to the Macalester campus for an anniversary celebration with three days of music, comedy, food, and festivities, July 4-6th.

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The Daily Circuit — O, What a Luxury

Garrison talks poetry and O, What a Luxury with MPR’s Kerri Miller

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Poems of Gratitude: The Fourth Annual Common Good Books Poetry Contest

Garrison and Common Good Books are sponsoring a poetry contest! Pour your love onto the page, shape it well, and mail your love letter to Common Good Books before April 15 — fame and fortune could be yours.

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ABC: What Makes St. Paul So Great?

ABC: What Makes St. Paul So Great?

Garrison gives a tour of St. Paul during the 2008 Republican National Convention

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AP: Keillor to celebrate 40 years on Lake Wobegon

AP: Keillor to celebrate 40 years on Lake Wobegon

Garrison discusses the 40th anniversary of A Prairie Home Companion in an interview with the Associated Press

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CBS Sunday Morning — Garrison Keillor signs off — June 26, 2016

CBS Sunday Morning — Garrison Keillor signs off — June 26, 2016

A profile of Garrison as he prepares to retire from A Prairie Home Companion

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Writing

A winning candidate for 2020

Finally we see some spring in Minnesota, temperatures edging into the 50s, maybe 60s, snow gone except in the crevices, green grass, the miracle of going outdoors in shirtsleeves. It's like the Rapture except that everyone gets to enjoy it, not just the select few. We who were brought up not to complain have been moaning for a month, and we feel bad about that and intend to atone for it by being good to people who have not been nice to us, if we can think of any.

Read More
Exes, etiquette, and losing a spark

Exes, etiquette, and losing a spark

Dear Mr. Blue,

I can't get over my ex. We dated a few years ago and when we broke up, even though it was mutual, I was devastated. At 22 years old, it was my first time being in love, and my first time being heartbroken.

Read More

The true story of last weekend’s blizzard

A yuge blizzard descended on Minnesota over the weekend and all of our people who went south for the winter got back home in time to experience it. It was truly yuge, a fabulous blizzard and the snow was up to the housetops and the highway patrol said, "Stay in your homes. Do not drive on account of rabid wolves and jackals running loose." But some of us went out anyway because that's how we are. America was not settled by the timid.

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A walk down the aisle

There is a long aisle at our grocery store with soda pop at one end and tea and coffee at the other, which my love and I get to after the butter and eggs and 2% milk. We come to the beverage aisle and she selects the coffee, dark ground, with names like Swan Lake and Machiavelli. I notice the can of Maxwell House percolator grind and think of Mother and Dad. And there between the coffee and the soda pop is an extensive collection of waters.

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A remaindered sermon from Easter Sunday

I've been reading a fine book for Holy Week, Short Stories By Jesus, by Amy-Jill Levine, about the parables in the Gospels, and thought how much better Sunday School would’ve been had it been taught by a Jewish scholar rather than the rigid joyless fundamentalists of my youth. Jesus was Jewish, He wasn't a Protestant, for God's sake. Levine covers the whole string of them, the runaway boy, the tardy workers, the kindly alien, the good CPA, the mustard seed, the rich man and Lazarus, and respects the mysteries they represent.

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Looking at snow, thinking of crocuses

Late March is a time of rare unanimity here on the northern tundra when everyone — socialists, monarchists, anarchists, humble peasants, mighty tycoons — is ready for the snow to melt and green grass to appear and a warm breeze blow through the open window, which is unlikely to happen anytime soon and so we must live with the fact that the world is beyond our control.

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We were wrong and we should say so

Now that the 17th is behind us, the pipes have stopped calling from glen to glen, Danny is gone until next March when the valley is white with snow, I look at my calendar and don't see much to get excited about. Easter is two weeks away and what with church membership in decline, the day is more about jellybeans and less about the Resurrection of Our Lord. And ladies don't wear big hats as they used to do.

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Too much information, baby, I love you

Stormy Daniels is going to tell her story and if it is true that she whispered in her lover’s ear to meet with Kim Jong-un and talk about denuclearization and if steel tariffs were also part of the discussion, it’ll be news for a week and then something else will come along and she will be forgotten.

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Press firmly and I'll go away

The beauty of Facebook, to my way of thinking, is the ability to unfriend people and make them disappear from your life. I wish we had a button on the steering wheel of our car that would do that. The people in the red car waiting to enter the parking lot at the concert Sunday who didn't understand the basic principle of Taking Turns: one click and they go back where they came from.

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What’s that shaking in my pocket?

There is a power imbalance between the president of the United States and me, and so I am loath to criticize him lest he smack me down. Same with my mayor and city council, who could, if I offended them, send dump trucks full of snow and make a mountain at the end of my driveway and I might spend hours shoveling it and then collapse with a major coronary. So I am going to write about telephones instead. With all due respect to you in the telephone industry.

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Radio

Interview with St. Louis Public Radio

November 2, 2018 episode of St. Louis on the Air, on which host Don Marsh talks with Garrison Keillor ahead of an appearance at the Fox Theater.

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JCCSF: O, What a Luxury

Garrison discussed limericks, free verse, life in St. Paul, and the book O, What a Luxury at a November 2013 lecture at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.

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A Prairie Home Christmas — 1995

A Prairie Home Christmas — 1995

Originally broadcast on Christmas Eve 1994, A Prairie Home Christmas is a delightful compilation of all-time-favorite highlights from past holiday broadcasts of Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion.

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The Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra — 1994

The Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra — 1994

Garrison Keillor and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra perform one of Keillor’s most-requested pieces, “A Young Lutheran’s Guide to the Orchestra,” along with other musical and humorous selections. Originally conceived as a local fundraiser, this collection will delight any fan of A Prairie Home Companion.

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Guy Noir: Radio Private Eye — 1994

Guy Noir: Radio Private Eye — 1994

The first collection of skits featuring Garrison Keillor’s intrepid detective featured on A Prairie Home Companion. It’s a dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but high above the mean streets, a light burns on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, where Guy Noir—hard boiled, world-weary, yet surprisingly articulate—is trying to find the answers to life’s questions.

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A Prairie Home Companion 20th Anniversary Collection — 1994

A Prairie Home Companion 20th Anniversary Collection — 1994

Filled with gentle humor, down-home truths, and amazing depths of tenderness and meaning, these tales of “the little town that time forgot and the decades could not improve” are classics of American storytelling.

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Lake Wobegon USA —1993

Lake Wobegon USA —1993

This collection contains 16 touching, exquisitely funny monologues from Garrison Keillor recorded during American Radio Company broadcasts from tour stops all over the country.

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The Book of Guys — 1993

The Book of Guys — 1993

In eight tales, the old storyteller plumbs the lives of various guys—an aging god, a fallen hero, a confused cowboy, a jealous husband, an old lecher, a teenage leper, and more—and locates the true nature of guyhood today.

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A Visit to Mark Twain’s House — 1992

A Visit to Mark Twain’s House — 1992

This classic performance of Garrison Keillor’s American Radio Company was broadcast live from the Mark Twain Memorial in Hartford, Connecticut. The Hartford house is where Twain wrote many of his works. Guests included Roy Blount Jr. the Gregg Smith Quartet and singer Pamela Warrick-Smith.

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Stories — 1992

Stories — 1992

This audio collection includes Keillor’s own favorite stories from his many years as a contributor to The New Yorker and from two of his best-selling books, Happy to Be Here and We Are Still Married.

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