When Briggitte Suastegui heard about Christopher Nolan's film adaptation of “The Odyssey,” she wanted to go back to its source material. She decided to start reading “The Iliad” first but had trouble getting through it.

Suastegui's friend had a suggestion for her: Why not try the audiobook?

"He was like, 'Well, you know the oral tradition of epic poems, right?'" Suastegui remembered. "'Originally these things were shared down and passed down orally.'"

But Suastegui, 29, said she often lost her place while listening. So she took it a step further: She tried reading a physical copy of “The Iliad” and listening to the audiobook version at the same time.

"And that got me through the book," she said. "I was super engrossed in it."

Suastegui, who lives in LA, had stumbled on immersive reading. The idea is as old as audiobooks themselves, according to The Washington Post. Several educators told NPR they use the strategy in their classrooms to support students with dyslexia and ADHD.

But simultaneous listening and reading is picking up steam among online book communities. Searches for "immersive reading" on TikTok increased nearly 10 times between January and May of 2026, compared to the four months prior — and are up 13 times year over year, according to the company.

Many TikTok users compare immersive reading to watching a movie with subtitles on. Some recommend titles that lend themselves particularly well to listening while reading, including popular BookTok picks like Andy Weir's “Project Hail Mary” or horror novels like Stephen King's “It.”

With both eyes and ears engaged, some readers say it's easier to enter the world of the book. Some say they retain more. Others say they can read faster.

"I did find that I was definitely zoned in more for longer periods of time," Suastegui said. "Because I couldn't really use my phone for anything else, I couldn't really stop."

Carol Feldman, a retired nurse in Durham, N.C., said she discovered immersive reading by accident because she "wanted to read faster."

"Just listening to an audiobook, I can't concentrate. My mind just goes a million different ways and I totally lose track of the story," said Feldman, who's 80. "Reading the words themselves as [the book is] being read to me allows me to focus on the story."

But Maryanne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist at UCLA, warns that immersive reading doesn't always lead to what she calls "deep reading."

Wolf directs the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners and Social Justice at UCLA. She says the cognitive patience it requires to struggle through words on a page is essential to deep reading skills like critical thinking, empathy and reflection.

"When I look at audio, whether it's audio with or without print mediums, the reality is that the print reading medium in and of itself gives more time, more attention to the development and maintenance of these deep reading processes," she said.

But if immersive reading is bringing people back to books, Wolf said she's all for it: "With a decline of reading for leisure, for heaven's sake, do whatever we can to get our young and old to say 'this is a return to this experience of being immersed in other worlds with other people.'"

In a time of distraction, immersive reading might be what it takes for some readers to steal their attention back — and get lost in a good book.

Copyright 2026, NPR

In a studio workshop inside the Northrup King Building in Minneapolis, Maria Bartholdi adjusts microphones and cameras while her cohost Meghan Wolff climbs up on the bright colored table to adjust the lighting. Wolff uses a tried-and-true method: duct tape and cardboard.

When you’re running a podcast and YouTube channel, you use what you have to make it work.

While their guests for the night chat about the latest cards and games they plan to play, Bartholdi and Wolff bounce between lights, cameras and the set to prep for their game night, which will eventually be shown to thousands of fans.

The pair are the cohosts for a show called “Good Luck High Five,” a podcast focused on the popular and complicated card game: Magic: The Gathering.

The podcast — where the hosts talk about the various facets and news of the game — has over 13,000 listens per month. And their new “Commander Arcade” YouTube show — where the two invite guests to play a game with them — averages nearly 32,000 views a month on YouTube.

Through their work on the podcast, the two have also become a large influence in expanding the hobby’s reach beyond the white-male demographic that the game is known for, encouraging women and femme-presenting players to shuffle their best decks for complex strategy competitions at the national level.

Friendship, laughs and a love of a game

The friendship preceded the podcast, when Wolff and Bartholdi met at a comedy improv show audition.

“I was like ‘I’m going to make this person my friend,’” Wolff said. The two even set up a shared Google document they used to secretly chat while at work.

They also shared a love of games, and a mutual friend at a board game night showed Wolff and Bartholdi “the best game.”

“He did phrase it like that,” Wolff said.

“It turned out it was Magic: The Gathering. And sure enough, we became immediately addicted to it,” Bartholdi said. “We played on the floor of various parties, ignoring everybody else in the room, just playing Magic. The bug had bit us hard.”

The game has several different formats that can be played by two or four players, but they tend to use 60- or 100-card decks with cards featuring creatures, sorceries and enchantments. Players take turns trying to whittle down their opponent’s health points to zero and be the last player standing.

Each card can have different effects, and players build their cards to craft different strategies. Bartholdi also said the five colors that are a pinnacle of the game design —– white, blue, black, red and green —– have various themes underlining their cards, allowing players to express their identity.

“Like black is all about ambition and control, and blue is about using your intellect to outsmart your opponents, and green is about smashing face with big monsters,” Bartholdi said. “So you can kind of craft a deck that feels in line with your personal identity, which is also something I don't think you can get in any other game that exists.”

The two launched the podcast soon after, first under a different name — Magic the Amateuring — before rebranding as Good Luck High Five. Bartholdi had a background in media production, so they set up microphones on a kitchen table.

While there were other podcasts focused on the game, Wolff and Batholdi saw an opening with a show focused on new players hosted by women and trained with a comedy background.

“Aside from being an all-female podcast, and my memory is not perfect here, but maybe the first all-female Magic podcast, they brought a level of professionalism to the craft that really leveled up everyone around them,” Blake Rasmussen, the director of communications for Magic: The Gathering, said.

“The thing I always appreciate about them is they are very focused on newer players. That's not to say they don't do content for experienced players, but they always do content with the newer player in mind. And I don't think that's as common in the community as it maybe should be.”

Thirteen years and nearing 700 episodes, plus nearly 50 YouTube videos of their new show “Commander Arcade,” the two have created a media company based on the 32-year-old trading card game. They also added a third host on the team, Tyler Mills.

And there are few other shows that can claim the same staying power.

“Many Magic podcasts have come and gone over the years. I feel like there's only one which has been consistently running longer than we have,” Bartholdi said.

The ‘sigh’ that opened doors

Ten years ago, Wolff wrote an article about the challenges of being accepted into the hobby’s community, based on both her and Bartholdi’s observations.

“I wrote an article for a Magic website that was like ‘hey, there’s not a lot of women playing Magic. And here are some experiences that we’re having. It boils down to, people don’t treat you well. So hey, consider treating women better when they’re playing Magic: The Gathering in these spaces,’” Wolff said. “It… didn’t go over great.”

“This article lit a match, and then we threw gasoline on that match by recording a podcast episode about it as well,” Bartholdi said, “which became our most listened to episode of all time.”

It also caused Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns Magic, to pay attention. The company reached out to the pair, asking for advice.

“We had a meeting with them, and we said, ‘Well, you can hire women to be in your Magic event coverage.’ And they're like, who?”

They offered a few names to Wizards, women who made content or had played competitively. At first, they didn’t offer their own names.

“There's no reason why we didn't put our own names on it, except that sometimes, when you're socialized as a woman, you don't put yourself out there like that,” Wolff said.

Fortunately, they reached out and said “actually, us too.”

And Wizards went with them, along with a few other content creators.

Now, both Wolff and Bartholdi are involved in professional event hosting with pro tournaments, travelling around the globe.

“Anytime you tune into a Pro Tour, you’re very likely to see Maria on the broadcast,” said Rasmussen. “She brings that high-level professionalism to the broadcast. And Meghan, who you don’t see on camera, is often working on a lot of our social and web content to bring that to life. Both have been part of the Pro Tour ecosystem for quite some time.”

Since they released the episode about the barriers for women to play in tournaments, Wolff and Bartholdi have seen changes in the hobby, with organizations promoting inclusion, tournaments for players who are marginalized, and people who show up at events to provide safe spaces.

Wolff recently went to a tournament event in Baltimore and was struck by how much the scene has changed.

“It would literally be you'd walk into this room of 1,000 players, and it would be like, I can count the number of like, femme-presenting people here on one hand.” Wolff said. “And I walked into [this event] in Baltimore, and I’m walking around the tables. I had a real moment about it, because the landscape looked so different. There’s so many femme-presenting people playing at this event.”

“Just the change in overall attitude is night and day between 10 years ago and now, not to say there's not more work to be done,” Bartholdi said “Because, of course there is. But it's truly incredible, in that short amount of time, how much headway that we've collectively made.”

Content creation career for a niche hobby

As the podcast grew and the work continued for tournament coverage, Wolff was laid off from a job in 2016. She realized that the work she was doing on the podcast was the same workload as a full-time job.

For Bartholdi, there were tournaments to cover, episodes to record and edit, flights around the world, then rolling into her job right after a flight, sometimes with a suitcase in tow.

“It was exhausting.” Bartholdi said. “So we had to make a decision.”

The two decided on becoming freelancers, with the GLHF podcast and Magic being the main focus.

But that still means playing the cards the economy deals you. Changes in health care policy, being reliant on a product from a completely independent company and being in tune with an audience that donates funds to support their content.

“Ever since we've been freelancing, I have been more in tune with what is happening in the American economy than I ever have in my life,” Wolff said.

“When people think about Magic: The Gathering, if they're not familiar, a lot of them will think of the ‘90s, but the truth is that Magic: The Gathering is bigger now than it has ever been,” Bartholdi said.

According to reports, Wizards of the Coast generated $547 million in operating profits in 2021, and its parent company Hasbro reported that Magic: The Gathering became the company’s first billion-dollar brand in 2022.

That’s even before a huge year in 2025, when sets of cards featuring new characters and art from the long-running Final Fantasy video game series , brought new players to the table. That release generated $200 million in revenue in a single day. The company has also branched out into cards made with intellectual properties with cross-promotional appeal, like Lord of the Rings, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Marvel Comics.

“In 2026 [there] is going to be the most Magic sets released of all time,” Bartholdi said, “Which is good for us as content creators, because there’s a lot of material to work with.”

Wolff said the internet also demands authenticity, so they have to walk a fine line between being excited and being honest about the cards that come out.

“It's a delicate dance,” Wolff said. “We're talking about Magic because we love the game, and we always, at the end of the day, want to be producing a show that is about the joy of the game. We have to balance that with the fact that we also are going to be honest with people. If Wizards makes a bad product that people don't like, we're not going to go out and pretend to like it, because that would be disingenuous.”

But Bartholdi adds that growth in the interest of the game doesn’t mean their shows are secure. She worries that listeners can feel burned out on their hobby — or economic pressures cause hobbyists to pull back on spending.

Even with the success of the podcast, the YouTube channel, and being a tournament announcer, Bartholdi worries about how long it will last.

“Being a woman in an esports space, or even a sports space, who's over 40 is kind of a terrifying prospect, because once again, you have to see it to be it, and you don't see a lot of it,” she said.

She’s also acutely aware that the same standard is never applied to her male counterparts.

“So I’m like, what does that mean for the future? Can you be a woman on the internet past 40? I don't know, but I'm going to try.”

Wolff, with a chuckle, pipes in to reassure her co-host.

“I'm gonna beat the snot out of anyone who tries to tell you otherwise,” she says, laughing with her co-host.

The podcast releases new episodes every Thursday, with new “‘Commander Arcade”’ videos twice a month.

Zayd Ayers Dohrn spent much of his childhood underground and on the run. His mother, Bernardine Dohrn, was a leader of the '60s radical student group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which opposed the war in Vietnam and racism. Along with Dohrn's father, Bill Ayers, she helped found the Weather Underground, a group committed to armed resistance against the government.

"From my very first memories, I knew that the FBI was chasing us," he says. "My parents tried to explain it in terms [like] we were like Robin Hood or we were like the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars. So I knew in the way a kid knows that our lives were precarious."

Dohrn describes his mother as a "liberal, progressive, activist" who became radicalized by the assassination of Black civil rights leaders and the escalation of the Vietnam War: "Once she helped found the Weather Underground, I would say the mission was to overthrow the United States government," he says.

The Weather Underground planted bombs in empty police cars, the Pentagon and other places they considered symbols of the opposition, giving advance warning to people in those buildings to prevent casualties. For years, Bernardine Dohrn was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list.

Zayd Ayers Dohrn is a playwright and screenwriter who teaches at Northwestern University and also hosted and produced the podcast "Mother Country Radicals." In his new memoir, “Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground,” Dohrn grapples with his own family history and his parents' decision to have children while while living on the run.

"It was a contradiction that reared its head in all sorts of ways, most dramatically when they committed crimes and left their children behind," he says. "But I think ... my mom couldn't have been somebody who decided to abandon the movement and just settle down and have kids. She had to try to do both."

Bernadine Dohrn turned herself into the authorities in 1980 and spent nearly a year in prison. Upon release, she passed the bar exam, while Zayd Ayers Dohrn's father earned his doctorate in education.

"They became middle-class professionals," Dohrn says. "By the time I was 12, we were living in Chicago. We were going to school. We played in Little League. By that point in our lives — in the '90s — we could have passed for ordinary Americans."

Interview highlights

On the title of his memoir, which borrows from the Jefferson Airplane song "We Can Be Together"

The full line [from the song] is, "we are all outlaws in the eyes of America. We are obscene, lawless, hideous, dangerous, dirty, violent, and young." And that became kind of a rallying cry, not only for my parents, but for a big segment of the youth counterculture, this idea that we are all outlaws in a society that demonizes Black people, demonizes gay people, oppresses women, doesn't understand young people.

And so that idea of being outlaws in your own country and of being dangerous, dirty, violent, and young really sums up a lot of what my parents stood for at the time.

On his memory of visiting his mom in prison

She was imprisoned at MCC, Manhattan Correctional Center. ... It's a big kind of brutalist building in downtown Manhattan and kind of a windowless giant concrete structure. My dad would take me and my brothers there to visit my mom and we would go through metal detectors, talk to the guards and to see my mom twice a week and spend a little bit of time with her.

And I remember smuggling in little child-sized books, “Peter Rabbit” and “In the Night Kitchen,” things like that, putting them in my pants so that I could make it through the metal detector so my mom would have something to read to me.

The visiting room was a big kind of cavernous space with a bunch of tables and we would spend a couple hours talking to her, having her read to us, and then we would leave and we would go outside and stand on the sidewalk.

And we'd wait there for half an hour, an hour until she was back in her cell and she could [turn] the lights on and off in her cell so that we could see that she was back in her cell and was safe, and it was kind of like waving goodbye.

On his family taking custody of Chesa Boudin, the toddler son of imprisoned revolutionaries

Kathy [Boudin] and David [Gilbert] took part in a bank robbery, the Brinks robbery in 1981, in which a police officer and two guards were killed. And so they went to prison for a long time and they had left their 18-month-old son Chesa at home with a babysitter when they went out to rob this bank.

So my parents ... took Chesa in when he was very little. He became my brother, we grew up together. … He became part of our family because his parents were sent to prison for a long, long time. …

[Chesa] represented for me what it might look like if my parents had been caught, if they had stayed in the Underground for one more month, one more year, what it might've looked like if they had been sent to prison forever and I had to grow up without them because, that's what happened to Chesa.

On how his parents would get fake IDs and birth certificates when they were fugitives

They would drive out to a rural cemetery, and they would walk around until they found the grave of a kid who had died young, somebody who had died before they turned 2 or 3, so that they had never applied for a driver's license. And it had to be somebody who was born around the same time that they were born. ... And then they'd go to the county courthouse and they'd say, "I'm so-and-so. I've lost my ID, but here's my birthdate. Here's where I was born."

And usually the county clerk would issue them a new birth certificate on the spot. They knew enough to show that they were that person. Nobody else had applied for any documents using those names. And then once they had a birth certificate, they could use that to apply for a driver's license and eventually they had a whole new identity with real official government ID.

On what he believes his parents' activism accomplished

Here we are in another moment of authoritarianism and war overseas and police violence and racism has not gone away. So on one level, you could say, well, what did they accomplish? We're still facing the same problems.

On another level, I think you could say that that moment, the '60s and '70s, they were a part of a radical re-imagining of what this country should be, could be. And I disagree with much of what my parents did. Like all people, they're complicated, flawed human beings, but I think they made a few big choices that are deserving of admiration and respect.

Opposing the Vietnam War with everything they had is one of them. We look back now and it feels like most young people opposed the Vietnam War, but that's not true at the time. It was a very unpopular position. And then the second big choice is opposing racism with everything they had, being white people who risked their lives and their careers and their futures in the struggle for Black liberation.

And I think that's something they accomplished. It doesn't mean that racism is over, that white supremacy is over. But they set an example of what it looks like for white people to do everything they could to fight back against racism.

Thea Chaloner and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web.

Copyright 2026, NPR, Fresh Air

Although Fergus Falls construction worker Chris Tungseth’s journey on “American Idol” ended one show before the championship round, he did perform during the reality series’ season finale a week later.

And to the surprise of many, Tungseth teamed up with Grammy winning hip-hop icon Nelly, for a remix of the Florida Georgia Line hit song “Cruise.”

Tungseth is the first Minnesotan to make it to the semifinals on “American Idol.” Tungseth’s hometown commemorated his achievement Saturday with a celebration in his honor.

The day kicked off with Tungseth ripping through downtown on his uncle’s Harley Davidson to start the parade. He circled back to the end of the procession to wave to fans atop a float decorated to look like a Viking ship.

After the parade, the 27-year-old Tungseth said being an “American Idol” contestant taught him to chase his dream.

“It’s never too late to chase a dream, like when you love something, go after it, right?" he said.

Tungseth said although he didn’t win this season’s “American Idol” competition, he wasn't disappointed.

“The last year has changed my life tremendously. But me as a person, too, just like learning to trust myself and lean into, obviously, my faith,” Tungseth said. “My faith is the most important thing in my life, and just to know that God has the reins, and I’m just along for the ride. And it’s been beautiful."

Tungseth said he will continue his music career and is considering moving to Nashville.

Tungseth didn’t have to wait until the Saturday festivities for Fergus Falls to show love. Earlier in the week, the city erected a new sign near his high school alma mater of Hillcrest Lutheran Academy. Along with the city’s name and population it reads: “Home of American Idol’s Chris Tungseth.”

He said the gesture blew him away.

“I really don’t have words right now, just overwhelming gratitude,” Tungseth said. “That’s kind of the theme of all of this. I came home, knew it was going to be crazy, and it was crazier than I expected in the best way.”

The festivities ended with Tungseth performing a concert on the grounds of the historic Fergus Falls State Hospital in the evening — thousands attended, chanting his name before he took the stage.

After a brief performance by the local opening act American Mojo, the crowd erupted as Tungseth entered.

The first song Tungseth performed was Coldplay's song "Yellow." American Mojo remained on the stage to back him up.

“This is just the craziest experience in my life. And today, I don’t think I ever shed more tears in the last three months than now,” Tungseth said to the crowd after the song. “Being able to look at you guys and just feel the love, you guys blow me away. I love you guys.”

American Mojo frontman Pat Lundberg said the band had just 48 hours to prepare for the concert. Lundberg said it was the largest audience the band has ever performed.

“We had a couple of rehearsals, and here we are,” Lundberg said. “We’re just having a great time being a part of this and supporting him in whatever way we can. We’re excited for him.”

Along with some of the songs that propelled him into the “American Idol” Top 5, other songs from the set list included the Lumineers’ “Ho Hey,” Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros’ “Home,” and John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

Fergus Falls Mayor Anthony Hicks joined Tungseth on stage to present Tungseth with a golden microphone and to proclaim May 16 as “Chris Tungseth Day.”

“He has put us in the limelight,” Hicks said. “He’s brought the people of Fergus Falls together as residents, as a city, as politicians. Locally everybody has backed this guy.”

“American Idol” highlighted some of the challenges Tungseth had in life — including his father’s 2023 death from leukemia and his mother's multiple sclerosis diagnosis. Fans like Sarah Emery said they connected with Tungseth’s personal journey. She attended the parade as well as the concert, and said Tungseth’s time on “American Idol” helped her weather a difficult time in her own life.

“To see everyone come together and be as one for someone who is just so worth being celebrated. … I had to come,” Emery said.

Tungseth’s biggest fan — his mother, Cathy — couldn’t hold back her excitement.

“He’s just a natural, and he has always had that love of music in him,” she said. “It’s so great to share it with lots of people. And I'm so proud of him.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified a song Tungseth performed. The story has been updated.

Diehard Bob Dylan fans from around the world are expected to descend upon northeast Minnesota over the next week for the 16th edition of the annual Duluth Dylan Fest, which celebrates legendary singer and songwriter Bob Dylan’s roots in the region with a series of performances and events.

The festival kicks off Sunday with a concert on the front lawn of the home in Hibbing where Dylan’s family moved when he was six years old.

And it concludes on May 24, Dylan’s 85th birthday, with an evening concert and an afternoon birthday party on the front porch of the duplex in Duluth where Dylan’s family lived for the first several years of his life.

“We’re a group of volunteers that love that Bob Dylan is from Duluth and was born here,” said Zane Bail, one of the organizers of the festival.

Other highlights include a May 17 tour of Hibbing High School, where Dylan graduated in 1959. Five years ago a group of volunteers raised money to install a public art tribute to Dylan outside the school, featuring a series of stainless steel panels that contain lyrics from more than 50 of his songs.

Jam sessions are scheduled for venues in Duluth and Superior, Wis. during the week. A singer-songwriter contest will be held May 22 at Duluth’s Sacred Heart Music Center. The fest concludes with a birthday bash and concert featuring Paul Metsa and Sonny Earl at Alhambra Theatre in Duluth on May 24.

Every year at the front porch party at Dylan’s Duluth home, organizers ask people in the crowd where they’re from. And every year, Bail said, people come from around the country and the world.

“Last year there was somebody from Ireland. We had a couple folks from Australia, New Zealand. We never know who’s going to show up, but it's always a surprise, and it definitely attracts an international crowd,” said Bail.

While Dylan isn’t likely to make an appearance at the festival, he is scheduled to play later this summer in Minnesota, on July 6 at the Mystic Lake Amphitheater in Shakopee. Among his many honors over the years, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

If you’ve read Allan Levi’s bestselling novel “Theo of Golden” — or you’re waiting for a copy to come available at the library — and you’re looking for the next book that will make you feel hopeful about the world, Diane Rineer of Rediscovered Bookshop in Boise, Idaho, suggests the novel, “The Left and the Lucky,” by Willy Vlautin.

At the book’s heart is a friendship: a father/son-style relationship that forms between Eddie, who is a workaholic painter, and 8-year-old Russell, who lives next door.

Eddie has lost somebody in his life, and he wants to make up for it any way he can. Russell is being badly bullied, both at school and by his teenage brother at home. He begins to linger around Eddie, who gives the boy small jobs to do and a listening ear.

“Eddie doesn’t have much, but he does have a big heart,” says Rineer, “and by the end of the book, you just want to hug him.”

“He’s helped so many people along the way in such big ways with what little he has. It’s just a feel-good story, and I feel like we need more Eddies in the world.”

Rineer is a big fan of Vlautin’s novels, in general, and she says this most recent one has her thinking about the importance of helping people in whatever way you can.

Lisa Roy and Maxi Maroni squish clay slabs onto Styrofoam chunks to create a mountainscape with peaks, valleys and secret hiding spots.

“The caves are really popular. A lot of people kind of fight for a prime spot in the cave. We've had a lot of trolls in the caves that people have made,” Roy said.

“And monsters are a very popular creation,” Moroni added.

The sculpture requires about 300 to 400 pounds of upcycled clay. In just a few days, the community will help transform the mound into a craggy city filled with homes, bridges, mushrooms, animals and all sorts of creatures.

“By the end, people are having a hard time finding spots to put their sculptures on,” Roy said.

This is the third year that Aldo Moroni Studios, a sculpture space at the California Building in northeast Minneapolis, is hosting a free all-ages community sculpture build for Art-A-Whirl. According to the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association, Art-A-Whirl, May 15-17, is the largest open artist studio tour in the country, with thousands of artists participating at more than 100 locations.

Roy, who is the studio manager, said hundreds of participants visit each year, including Mayor Jacob Frey and former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak in 2024.

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“We encourage everybody who comes through the California Building to stop in studio 113, come in and make either a tiny house or whatever they want to put on our mountain,” Roy said. “It’s really fun to kind of watch that come to life over the weekend.”

Moroni is a studio partner and the daughter of Aldo Moroni, the studio’s namesake, who died in 2020 from pancreatic cancer. The legendary Minneapolis artist was known for his ceramic “tiny houses” and for creating “narrative sculptures” — vast miniature cities and civilizations out of clay and wax. He was even coined the “Mayor of Minneaturapolis.”

This community sculpture is very much in the spirit of her father, Maxi Moroni says, who helped start Art-A-Whirl more than 30 years ago.

“He was very vocal about the fact that he wanted this to be a legacy space,” Moroni says. “A legacy space that would kind of continue what he would do — engaging with his community, bringing other people into the process of art and making it really a participatory, engaging experience.”

In a 1985 interview, Aldo Moroni said: “There’s a tradition of alienation in the arts that’s 200 years old, but there’s a bigger 4,000-year-old tradition of artists being involved in society. That’s what I think should be revived.”

Moroni said her father famously would create works, destroy them and then rebuild, while keeping “artifacts” from past civilizations. That’s the case with the “Tower of Babylon,” a Babel-like structure that stands some 8-feet tall in the studio.

“The first version was ancient Mesopotamia, where the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers met, and then he would destroy that, and he would go and he'd build the next city on top of it,” Moroni said.

Then there is the hilly cityscape called “Bridges,” which originally started as “Trumptopia.”

“He did a performative art piece where he did dress as Trump, and he went in and he destroyed it, and then this he built after,” Roy said. “It's called ‘Bridges,” meaning we should be building bridges, not walls. So the community sculpture that we're doing is kind of in the spirit of this.”

And in the spirit of Aldo Moroni, the Art-A-Whirl sculpture will be on view for a week, and then it will be destroyed, to be built anew next year.

The goal, Roy said, is to “just create something beautiful that's going to be temporary, but just a really memorable experience for everyone.”

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Hans Christian Anderson hoped to find a household straight out of a Charles Dickens novel when he visited the Dickens family at their country home in the summer of 1857.

Instead, he found a marriage in shambles, a band of miserable and neglected children and a host who was desperately hoping Anderson would leave — the sooner, the better.

But Anderson didn’t leave. He lingered, for five awkward and painful weeks, while the Dickens family disintegrated around him.

Francine Prose takes this historic moment and fictionalizes it in her new novel, “Five Weeks in the Country.” Told from multiple perspectives, the book details the very public dissolution of the Dickens family and the very modern question of what to do when good art is produced by a terrible person.

On this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas, Prose and host Kerri Miller tackle it all — including why Prose likes reality TV, how she grapples with being a fan of Dickens work without liking Dickens the person, and what it means to write risky, even after you’ve written 23 novels.

Guest:

• Francine Prose author of many books, including “Household Saints” and “Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932.” Her new novel is “Five Weeks in the Country.”

Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts.

The biggest art crawl in the universe, interactive theater at the historic Searle Mansion, Duluth music, mental health at the movies and painted outdoor folklore in Winona — find out more in this week’s MN Shortlist.

Art-A-Whirl in Northeast Minneapolis Arts District — May 15-17

Art-A-Whirl, one of the biggest art events of the year, returns this weekend to the artist mecca that is northeast Minneapolis. The Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association says it's the largest open artist studio tour in the country and why fact-check that when it feels so true?

The association says more than 1,600 artists, galleries and businesses open their doors at 100-plus locations. Last year, for the art crawl’s 30th anniversary, they estimated there were 120,000 attendees. That said, it’s advised to find alternative forms of transit, from biking and trolleys to free Metro Transit (the Whirl has a handy guide).

Once you’re there, it’s a whirlwind of art demos and markets, live music (The Current also has a handy guide), food trucks and opportunities to meet artists in their workspaces.

A few picks we’re looking at: Community-building a ceramic city at Aldo Moroni Studios all weekend long in the California Building; the “Artlesque: A Dark Mythology Burlesque Show” Saturday at Marble Fae Creative Collective, bra-printing demos Saturday and Sunday at the Casket Arts Building and, most curiously, the “Make Your Own LICK Art (For Dogs)” all weekend long at Logan Park which sounds like it includes loads of peanut butter.

There are also a couple of ongoing exhibitions nearby that have been looped into Art-A-Whirl including: the ”Cinema Red” exhibition at Public Functionary in the Northrup King Building, “Anne E. Orbovich: deep mapping wildness” at Clifton E. French Regional Park; the 5th Annual Book Arts Show at Open Book and “LEGACY: The Women of WARM Gallery” at the Kickernick Building, which you can read more about in this long-form story MPR News did in April.

— Alex V. Cipolle

‘Fefu and Her Friends’ by Theatre Pro Rata — through May 28

In the 1970s, playwright María Irene Fornés created “Fefu and Her Friends,” a play that brought audiences into the story through a clever narrative device. Told in three parts, the first and third acts are fairly standard for theater — the characters mill about a living room of a large estate as they plan a charity event.

Act two, however, breaks up the characters into different locations (the lawn, a bedroom, the study and the kitchen), where four separate scenes happen simultaneously.

Audiences are then broken into four groups and rotate through each of the distinct scenes and locations, unlocking parts of the story and insights to the characters in the play — with the new order the audience learn things contributing to how the play evolves for them.

For this production, Theatre Pro Rata stages “Fefu and Her Friends” at the historic Searle Mansion in Minneapolis, which masterfully evokes the 1930s New England manse where the play is set.

—Jacob Aloi

Season-closing concert at the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra — May 16

The Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra (originally called the Duluth Civic Orchestra) was founded in the 1930s, and it’s about to wrap up its 91st season. The symphony orchestra will perform “Masterworks 6,” Saturday, which will feature Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 — a regal ode to the Rhineland.

The ensemble will also honor its concertmaster Erin Aldridge, who has been with the orchestra for 20 seasons. Aldridge will perform solo violin for one of her personal favorites, Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1.

—Jacob Aloi

‘Myths & Legends of Minnesota’ at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum — May 16-Sept. 13

The Minnesota Plein Air Collective opens an exhibition at the Winona museum that celebrates “Minnesota’s rich tapestry of folklore, cultural heritage and oral tradition as expressed through the landscape, focusing on the lakes, rivers and other waterways of Minnesota.”

Through these nature tableaus, artists dive into local legends, tall tales and personal narratives.

On May 16, artist Neila Harper French and the Outdoor Painters of Minnesota organization will host a “paint-along” demonstration and the collective will host a “paint-out,” both in the museum gardens.

— Alex V. Cipolle

Three exhibition openings at Soo Visual Arts Center — May 16-June 28

The Uptown Minneapolis art center opens three exhibitions by three artists this weekend. There’s “Dream of Dawn” by Yuming “Griffin” Liu, which includes a beautiful and sandy miniature light house installation. Jay Katelansky explores how “Black bodies navigate safely in the United States” using texts in their exhibition “We all live with dreams.”

Artist Savannah Tines, the first artist to participate in SooVAC’s residency, will show sculptural work that “creates speculative ecosystems where nature intersects with the remnants of technological collapse” in the exhibition “A Walk in the Night.”

— Alex V. Cipolle

‘No One Cares About Crazy People’ at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis — May 18

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, marked with major campaigns by organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness to raise awareness and offer education on issues surrounding mental health.

At the Parkway, NAMI Minnesota and NAMI Ramsey County will host a screening of the 2025 documentary, “No One Cares About Crazy People,” which explores the lives of people living with severe mental illness, as well as their loved ones. The documentary is narrated by Bob Odenkirk with a score by Jeff Tweedy, and a brief Q&A will follow the screening.

For further coverage on mental health this month, listen to “Call to Mind” from American Public Media, hosted by MPR News’ Angela Davis.

— Jacob Aloi

Since 2013, 23 artists from Minnesota and surrounding states have participated in the Native American Artist-in-Residence Program at the Minnesota Historical Society. The program was established to support Native American artists in their research of traditional art forms.

During their residency, artists are financially supported and given access to museums across the state for research purposes. Artists then create pieces of artwork based on their research.

Program specialist Chloe Brodt Cashman says the historical society collects a piece from each artist to add to its collection at the end of each artist's residency.

“For example, we have [a] painted hide that's almost 200 years old. Now, we have a brand-new hide to show that continuation of art practice, that resiliency through culture and through arts,” Brodt Cashman said.

Jennifer Adams is a citizen of the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin. She is currently researching paaxge beadwork, a traditional Ho-Chunk style of beadwork used in regalia and jewelry.

She says it's a lesser-known form of Indigenous beadwork.

Adams’ journey with paaxge beadwork began over a decade ago. She says her family would hold what she calls “immersion camps” for themselves. For a week, they would immerse themselves in Ho-Chunk culture.

Through her research, Adams plans to create a paaxge beadwork pattern book to share with her community. As a part of the residency, artists also propose a community-driven project.

“Things get misconstrued over time, and it's really important that we keep this knowledge alive and passing it on to our children and our youth,” Adams said.

Giizh Agaton Howes is a citizen of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northern Minnesota. She is the founder and owner of Heart Berry, a business that sells Native American-designed apparel, blankets and other accessories.

Agaton Howes was an artist-in-residence from 2018 to 2019. During her time at the Minnesota Historical Society, she focused her research on moccasins, particularly Ojibwe split toe moccasins.

“A part of the reason that I really like moccasins is because it's really a tool of care and love. It’s for every transition in your life, from when you're born and even after you die,” Agaton Howes said. “I think our ancestors were really smart, and were like, ‘This is this way that you can show love for somebody.’”

Through her time with the program, Agaton Howes created a moccasin pattern book with the help of an apprentice for community members to access to make their own moccasins.

The book is titled “Nookomis Obagijigan,” or “Grandmother’s Gift” in English. Instructions in the book are written in both Ojibwe and English languages.

Giizh Agaton Howes' moccasins.

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Agaton Howes says her project came to fruition at the thought of her grandmother—someone who, she says, never received a pair of moccasins until Agaton Howes made her a pair.

She says knowledge of moccasin making became less common during the boarding school era.

“For me in particular, creating this book, this tool, has been something I've been able to carry into the future and use in so many other ways and, in that same vein, has been able to impact lots of other people's lives and their ability to also engage with this art form,” Agaton Howes said.

Similarly, Cole Redhorse Taylor centered his research on moccasins during his residency, which began in 2018. Redhorse Taylor is a citizen of the Prairie Island Indian Community, near Red Wing. He researched pucker toe moccasins, often associated with Ojibwe culture, and their use in Dakota culture.

He says many people in the Dakota community are unaware that pucker toe moccasins are also part of Dakota culture. During his residency, he researched Indigenous trade in the region.

Redhorse Taylor says the residency program was “pivotal” in his career as an artist.

“As a Dakota person, it really changed my trajectory of how I viewed myself, how I viewed my ancestors, how I viewed our relationship to Minnesota itself, to our homelands,” he said.

For Redhorse Taylor, traditional art forms are a way to connect with his ancestors and are how he presents himself through clothing, such as regalia. Throughout his years as an artist, Redhorse Taylor has made an array of regalia, including moccasins and beadwork.

“That's what makes us beautiful — is to have that cultural knowledge, those cultural teachings. Those are what make us who we are, uniquely as Native people,” Redhorse Taylor said.

Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.

From the first Hmong businesses, to homes that became museums and a regenerative Hmong farm, a new map seeks to document important historical and cultural sites for the Hmong community in Minnesota.

Led by the Hmong Museum, the Hmong StoryMap Project shares the stories behind more than 20 places across the state. It covers some 50 years of history since the first Hmong family arrived in Minnesota. And after a yearlong effort, the digital map will finally be unveiled on Saturday.

We heard more about the project from two people who were a part of it. Bee Vang-Moua is a writer and researcher for the story map. Pheng Her is the founder of Guerilla Pastures, which is one of the places on the map.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Northeast Minneapolis' beloved Art-A-Whirl returns this weekend. For more than 30 years, painters, printers, sculptors, jewelry makers, glass blowers and more have flung open the doors of their studios and invited guests to check out how they make their art, to buy their art, and to even make art of their own.

But there's another side of the weekend, too, that's been growing larger and larger since the festival began in 1995. It's live music! The venues and schedules are stacked this year with bands out to show their stuff.

Diane Miller, host of the Local Show on The Current, joined to help us parse through the thick lineup.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

Alight-a-Whirl

It’s Art-a-Whirl weekend! The Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association (NEMAA) puts on the annual celebration of all things local art, with three days of open studios, live events, music and food vendors. Hours are Friday 5-8 p.m., Saturday 12–8 p.m. and Sunday 12–5 p.m.

It's a favorite event for Molly Reopelle, a muralist who works under the name “Made by Molly Jo.” One space she’s particularly looking forward to seeing is Alight-a-Whirl, an annual art sale fundraiser for Alight. The nonprofit supports displaced people and refugees in the U.S. and across the world.

Alight-a-Whirl features a 500-piece art sale with work by local, international and refugee artists, as well as pop-up events, including a Friday happy hour and portrait painting. All profits from the art sale support Alight.

Molly says: One of the people I’ll be looking at [at Alight-a-Whirl] is Lora Hlavsa.

She might be recognizable because she developed the artwork with NEMAA for the Art-a-Whirl branding this year, and she's got a really cool new series called The People's Pantry, which is using really familiar objects like foods and pantry staples to explore some of her lived experience and then reflect on migration and cultural access.

— Molly Reopelle

Gender Joy Art Show

Jenn Watters in Duluth recommends seeing the annual Gender Joy Art Show, whose creative works are expressions of joy made by female and gender expansive people of all ages.

The exhibit is put on this year by the YWCA of Duluth and the Program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault (PAVSA), and the show will include work created by PAVSA’s weekly art group. New this year is an interactive art exhibit entitled “The Elephant in the Room,” hosted by Rachel Gilbertson of Art of Presence.

Visitors to the exhibit are encouraged to write words or phrases they’ve received that were harmful to their gender identity, which Gilbertson will transform into a brightly colored work with an elephant’s face emerging from the chaos. The exhibition runs until June 27 in the Atrium of Zeitgeist in Duluth.

Watters who particularly enjoys seeing the work created by children.

Jenn says: This is one of my favorite art shows each year.

— Jenn Watters

One Subject Press

Deborah Keenan, a Twin Cities poet and former longtime teacher at Hamline’s MFA program, is trumpeting the work of former student Zach Czaia, who runs One Subject Press.

A year ago, Czaia bought a Chicago-based press and moved it to Minneapolis, through which he publishes a wide range of work from poetry to fiction to theology. On Friday, May 15, the press will celebrate its one-year anniversary with an evening of literary readings and food.

Czaia will read, along with poets Greg Watson and Suzanne Swanson, and attendees are invited to bring a poem to share. The event runs from 6-8 p.m. at Inkwell Booksellers in northeast Minneapolis. It is open to the public, though registration is requested through the press.

Deborah says: It’s called One Subject Press after a Richard Rodriguez quote: “There is only one subject: what it feels like to be alive. Nothing is irrelevant. Nothing is typical.” That's the flag Zach carries into battle, and it's a great flag.

I think lots of people who love poetry and essays should absolutely show up [to this event.]

— Deborah Keenan

On a May evening in St. Paul, Israeli violinmaker Avshi Weinstein poses a question to the Jewish Community Center Symphony Orchestra before they begin rehearsal.

“Do you have any idea how many labor camps, ghettos, concentration camps were in Europe during the war?” Weinstein asked.

Some musicians respond — a thousand one says, several thousand, says another.

“Close to 40,000,” Weinstein said. “Almost every single camp had an orchestra. Auschwitz actually had seven orchestras. There was a lot of music in the ghettos. “

He explained: “The Nazis wanted to have music.”

Weinstein is in Minnesota for Violins of Hope, an internationally touring collection of 70 violins that survived the Holocaust. Weinstein also calls it a residency because, for two months, there will also be more than 50 events featuring the violins — exhibitions, lectures, special Shabbat services and concerts spanning the state and even reaching to Sioux Falls, S.D.

The JCC Symphony Orchestra will perform May 20 with violin soloist Marc Levine playing the “Shlomo in Auschwitz” violin.

Katie Kline, senior director of Jewish arts and culture for the Minnesota JCC, says the programming is so expansive because they wanted to reach as many people as possible.

“Survivor stories are becoming increasingly rare,” Kline said. “These instruments are an accessible way for people to hear these stories, to remember them and to continue to share these stories and carry them forward.”

Decades ago, Weinstein co-founded Violins of Hope in Tel Aviv with his father and fellow violinmaker Amnon Weinstein, who died in 2024.

In the 1990s, they put out a request on an Israeli radio station.

“We asked on a radio show if people have instruments which belonged to Jewish people during the war,” Weinstein said. “We started getting more and more instruments.”

In the years since, they recovered and restored dozens of stringed instruments from around the world. Many have written biographies, which are on view at exhibitions at the art galleries of the JCC’s Capp Center in St. Paul and Sabes Center in St. Louis Park, as well as at The Museum of Russian Art and Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis.

The “POW Violin,” for example, was made by an unknown prisoner during World War II, who engraved a scene of a walled town on its backplate with the inscription “Souvenir de Capitivite” (French for, souvenir of captivity). “For the unknown prisoner who made it, this violin was more than an instrument; it was an act of resistance and means of survival,” the biography states.

The “Vanderveen Violin,” belonged to Dutch prima ballerina and violinist Joyce Vanderveen, who was a teen when the Nazis invaded Holland.

“Joyce escaped Amsterdam with her mother and sister on a bicycle, carrying this violin as her one precious possession,” the biography states. Vanderveen survived the war in hiding, and went on to become a famous dancer. She died in 2008.

“In 1997, Joyce discovered that a childhood magazine photo of her had been cut out and pinned above Anne Frank’s bed in the Secret Annex,” the biography reads.

The history of the “Shlomo in Auschwitz” violin, which will be played by Levine on May 20, is unknown, but after it was recovered and repaired, Israeli violinist Shlomo Mintz played it at the gates of Auschwitz, which was captured in the 2018 documentary, "Violins of Hope: Amnon’s Journey."

These stories, Weinstein said, help humanize the millions of people the Nazis killed during the war.

“When I grew up, I could hear survivors. We cannot hear so many survivors today,” Weinstein said. The violins give ”the understanding that it could have happened to your next door neighbor, your cousin, your uncle. It gives it much more personal touch, and we have to make sure that people don’t forget, because if you look around, people do forget.”

The Minnesota Orchestra welcomed 2026 with its annual “Nordic Soundscapes Festival” in January. With music by Jean Sibelius and Hans Abrahamsen, the festival was a bright spot of warmth during winter.

Lurking in the shadows, however, was the news that the Minnesota Orchestra was in a $4.2 million deficit from its previous fiscal year.

“We have very high fixed costs because we have a full-time orchestra,” said Isaac Thompson, who took over as the orchestra’s CEO and president in October 2025.

In fiscal year 2025, the orchestra had a higher audience attendance than previous seasons, returning to numbers similar to those pre-pandemic. They also saw a bump in revenue and a slight reduction in expenses. Still, the scales didn’t balance for the second year in a row.

“There is a structural kind of disconnect between those; the revenue piece, and the expense piece,” Thompson explained.

A look at new revenue streams

In an effort to close that structural gap, Thompson is exploring other revenue options for the orchestra. He’s been looking at models from other major orchestras, such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

“The Los Angeles Philharmonic has the Hollywood Bowl, which is a huge cash cow for them,” Thompson said.

The Hollywood Bowl is a major amphitheater in California that offers a variety of programs. The Minnesota Orchestra has invested in its own outdoor venue, the Community Performing Arts Center amphitheater in north Minneapolis.

“We’ve invested in that venue, and there will be a revenue piece of that, that comes back to the orchestra,” Thompson said.

The venue is part of the large Upper Harbor redevelopment project and will be operated jointly by the orchestra and music venue First Avenue.

“But also even beyond that, it helps kind of broaden the orchestra's brand into the community,” Thomson said. “We're also looking at opportunities like, what is our role within downtown Minneapolis? How can we activate the areas around Orchestra Hall?”

Putting the art front and center

The organization is also looking at cutting costs by changing hiring practices for personnel brought in for special programs. During certain times in a season, the orchestra has to hire extra musicians to meet the needs of a particular performance.

“When you do a massive Mahler symphony, it requires a different kind of set of forces than when you do, you know, a Haydn symphony,” Thompson said. For example, some of Joseph Haydn’s symphonies can be performed by a couple dozen performers, while Gustav Mahler’s 8th symphony requires over 100 musicians, a choir and several vocal soloists.

Thompson said these decisions will not affect programming, but that the change in process will save the orchestra an estimated $2 million over the next two years.

“There's going to be more due diligence in terms of making sure that we're certainly hiring for each of those pieces, but we're not necessarily going beyond that,” Thompson said.

That decision was part of the recent bargaining agreement that the orchestra and its unionized musicians came to in April.

“The organization is in a financial situation that we all understand, and need to help out as much as we can,” said R. Douglas Wright, the orchestra’s principal trombone and a member of the negotiating committee.

“I think that we've come to an agreement that really threads that needle between the financial issues, but at the same time protecting and growing the art form.”

That sentiment is something that both the musicians and Thompson seem to have in mind.

“[Thompson] has let it be known since he got here that the art is going to be front and center,” said Timothy Zavadil, a clarinetist/bass clarinetist who’s been with the orchestra since 2007.

“He is obviously much more well versed on the financial side of things than we are. We feel like we have a partner in understanding the artistic needs for the organization too.”

How the orchestra’s past affects its future

The new union contract also increases musicians' pay 2.5 percent annually for the next two years.

The agreement is a far cry from the infamous lockout in the early 2010s, triggered by a $6 million deficit at the orchestra. In an effort to shore up the deficit, the orchestra proposed massive pay cuts for its unionized musicians.

When the players rejected that plan, the organization locked them out for 15 months — leading to a whole season of canceled performances. MPR News reported at the time it was the nation’s longest running labor dispute at a concert orchestra.

“I think what came out of the lockout is a strengthening of the partnership between the orchestra and the community,” said Zavadil, who also serves on the union’s negotiating committee.

“I think what we learned after the lockout is that this entire organization — and I am including musicians, staff, board and just as important is our audience — we have all come together and taken ownership of this organization to create something that is bigger than ourselves,” he said.

Summer blockbuster season has begun — not just on the big screen but bookshelves, as well. Traditionally, May is a banner month in the publishing industry, and this year’s no different: The calendar positively brims with books worth consuming, enough to last you the rest of the year if you really put your mind to reading all of them.

Which, of course, puts this humble preview series in a tight spot. There's simply no way to include every notable book coming our way, at least, not without turning this thing into a tome of Tolstoyan proportions. All this to say, below, you will not find the new books expected from Elizabeth Strout, Ayelet Waldman, Walter Mosley, Jodie Graham and plenty of other worthy wish list additions it was painful to leave off.

The deserving dozen that did make the cut, listed below, boast a slew of fresh talents, long-awaited returns and at least a few books you'll surely see again on lots of year-end favorite lists come December.

‘John of John,’ by Douglas Stuart (May 5)

When Stuart won the Booker Prize for “Shuggie Bain,” the jury chair called his debut novel "a moving, immersive and nuanced portrait of a tight-knit social world, its people and its values." That's an apt description of his third novel too — only, here that world is found on Scotland's Western Isles.

That's where weaver John Macleod tends his croft, guards his secrets and maintains an uneasy relationship with his young adult son, John-Callum (better known as Cal), newly returned from the mainland. Stuart renders father and son — their whole community on the far side of nowhere — with the acuity of an anthropologist and the bittersweet sympathy we reserve for our dearest, most confounding loved ones.

‘One Leg on Earth,’ by 'Pemi Aguda (May 5)

Dread rises like a tide in Aguda's Lagos. A National Book Award finalist for her 2024 collection, “Ghostroots,” the Nigerian-born author returns to the big city for her first go at full-length fiction. Lagos thrums with the menace of a sharp-toothed grin, gaping as wide as the city's appalling income gap.

Newly arrived is wide-eyed Yosoye, eager to molt her provincial youth and embrace her plum assignment helping plan a luxe development on dredged land just off shore. But beneath this dream gig lurks a nightmare: Pregnant women are drowning themselves in epidemic numbers, and Yosoye sways uneasily on the cusp of understanding why.

‘Backtalker: An American Memoir’, by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (May 5)

Even if you don't recognize her name, it's likely you've already encountered Crenshaw's ideas. The law professor and public intellectual coined the concepts of intersectionality and critical race theory, both of which lately have become outsize bywords on classroom syllabi, newspaper opinion pages and statehouses across the country.

In this memoir, though, Crenshaw eschews the scholarly register for a more intimate approach, viewing the country and the convoluted discourse that defines it through the arc of her own personal story.

‘Offseason,’ by Avigayl Sharp (May 5)

Sharp's premise could really go any number of ways: A young woman, life is in disarray, takes a job at an all-girls school in an empty seasonal tourist town. That setup could start the logline to a horror-comedy, a mumblecore portrait of the Millennial in Winter, or a riff on the trope of the unlikely teacher doing anything it takes to get through to these kids, darn it!

In truth, it's none of these things. Or all of them, actually, but only if you can picture it interpreted by a conscientious extraterrestrial — at once intensely observant and ineffably askew. It's a funny, sad, discomfiting, unabashedly weird book that I inhaled and haven't managed to stop thinking about yet.

‘The Calamity Club,’ by Kathryn Stockett (May 5)

Back in 2009, Stockett told NPR's All Things Considered one big difference between first and second novels: "When you're writing your second book, you can't help but think how it's going to make the readers feel."

At the time, she was 10 months removed from the publication of her first novel, “The Help,” ultimately sold millions of copies, got a Hollywood adaptation, prompted a lawsuit (later dismissed) and continues to elicit plenty of contentious discourse. No wonder Stockett couldn't help but think how her next book was going to make readers feel.

Seventeen years later, that novel arrives at last, with a new story of unlikely friends and social rebels in segregated Mississippi, this time during the Great Depression.

‘Radiant Star,’ by Ann Leckie (May 12)

Welcome back to the intergalactic Radch Empire, best recognized by its warships that ventriloquize their artificial intelligence through the zombified bodies of its slaves/crew members.

An alarming concept, perhaps, for readers unfamiliar with Leckie's “Ancillary Justice trilogy,” which won just about every major award in science-fiction. But don't fret if you don't know the difference between the word "Radchaai" and an especially lusty sneeze: While set in that universe, the book is intended as a self-contained one-off.

So even newbies can enjoy this lightfooted tale of religious intrigue and Terry Pratchett-esque misadventure, beneath the surface of a sunless planet way out in the empire's boonies.

‘Glyph,’ by Ali Smith (May 19)

Last year, when Smith told NPR's Scott Simon that "as human beings, we need dimension," the Scottish author meant it as a metaphor: She was illustrating the dehumanizing effects of authoritarianism in her previous novel, “Gliff” (not a typo). It's grimly fitting that her homophonically titled followup takes that idea rather literally.

The novel opens with a pair of stories passed down by elderly World War II survivors, one of whom describes the corpse of a soldier flattened — deprived of dimension — by his own armored convoy. The ghastly story comes to haunt the pair of sisters who heard it, in this obliquely linked meditation on family, imagination and the unshakable taint of war.

‘Canon,’ by Paige Lewis (May 19)

Strap in, folks. Spelled as it is, the title refers to the ways we delineate religious truth and artistic worth — but boy, there are times when reading this book feels like being shot out of a cannon, too.

Lewis' debut novel thrusts its pair of leads into heroic, perhaps even divinely ordained heroic arcs that seem rather ill-suited to them. Not that that will stop them, in this clash of good and evil as epic as it is silly.

‘Palaces of the Crow,’ by Ray Nayler (May 19)

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the crows come out looking better than their human counterparts in Nayler's latest work of speculative fiction. Consider its setting: the woods of what today is Lithuania but was, during World War II, a no-man's-land over which Nazi and Soviet soldiers washed back and forth like a brutalizing tide.

That's where four young teens struggle to survive scenes of our species at its absolute worst — rapacious, unscrupulous, murderous. Make no mistake, things get bleak. But there's hope here too, in a different kind of murder: the vast flock of hyperintelligent corvids on whom the motley group comes to depend.

‘All Them Dogs,’ by Djamel White (May 19)

It wasn't exactly prudent for Tony Ward to come home. The narrator of White's debut novel had been lying low in England after a spasm of gangland violence claimed several lives, including his beloved mentor.

But then, ol' Wardy isn't exactly what you'd call prudent. Insecure is more like it — and lonely, reckless and riven by contradicting desires.

The young enforcer makes for a volatile but compelling vessel for this taut Dublin-based crime drama, in which his return sets in motion a fast-paced tale of underworld revenge and star-crossed love that never waits for readers to catch their breath.

‘The Land and Its People: Essays,’ by David Sedaris (May 26)

Do NPR listeners really need an introduction to Sedaris? The prolific essayist is practically a public radio institution at this point, with his frequent appearances on Fresh Air and his "Santaland Diaries" becoming an annual holiday tradition on Morning Edition.

At this point, you either love the humorist or can't stand his style — and let's be frank, the correct choice here is love. His latest collection is replete with the wry wit, cringey awkwardness and earnest — but flawed — stabs at self-improvement.

‘The Midnight Train,’ by Matt Haig (May 26)

The engine of Haig's fiction is possibility – the promise held out by other places, other times, other lives, if only there were a way to access them. Often, his characters do find a way, whether through a surprise bequest or a condition that grants near-immortality or, as in his most famous novel, a vast otherworldly library.

In his follow-up to “The Midnight Library,” the means of accessing those possibilities is literally an engine: a train that takes its lead, Wilbur, on a journey across time and space to relive some of the defining moments of his life and wonder where they could have led if only he had lived them differently.

Copyright 2026, NPR

The theme for this spring member drive show is family. We mine the Big Books and Bold Ideas archives for the best conversations with authors who’ve used their own histories as inspiration.

They include:

• Luis Alberto Urrea, whose novel, “Good Night, Irene” was inspired by his mother’s wartime experiences — which he didn’t learn the whole truth about until after her death.

• Poet Safyia Sinclair, who chronicled how her father’s Rastafari faith controlled her childhood home in her memoir, “How to Say Babylon.”

• Christine Kuehn and her explosive book, “Family of Spies,” which uncovers how her grandparents were Nazi spies who were instrumental in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Subscribe to the Thread newsletter for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Subscribe to Big Books and Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Opera’s saddest clown, “Hollywood in the ceramics world,” Asian Phoenix Fest and a bank of art — find out more in this week’s MN Shortlist.

Artist reception for Krystl Louwagie at Clarkfield State Bank of Art — May 8

At the Clarkfield State Bank of Art, an art space in southwestern Minnesota, is a gallery wall full of cheeky and intimate self-portraits by Marshall-based artist Krystl Louwagie.

Seeing so many self-portraits in one space reveals the many moods and stages of an artist’s life. In several of the mixed-media pieces, Louwagie sports a pandemic-style face mask; in others, she holds a guitar or draws herself comics-style, a face fragmented in many cells.

The reception starts at 6 p.m. and will include an artist talk and an open mic. Louwagie will teach a class there on May 23. The Clarkfield State Bank of Art, housed in a century-old former bank, features a different local artist on three-month rotations. —Alex V. Cipolle

The St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour — May 8-10

Mothers and pottery lovers rejoice! The annual St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour, now in its 34th year, always lands on Mother’s Day weekend and has become an unofficial celebration of the holiday.

The pottery crawl spans seven ceramic studios dotting the hills around the upper St. Croix River, and the wares are mostly on display in the great outdoors. It’s a bit of a fairy tale to peruse handmade art among tall grasses, tulips and backyard groves.

While each stop on the self-guided tour is hosted by a local artist, the work of 68 artists from across the nation will be on view. International ceramic enthusiasts also flock to the event. As one Londoner told MPR News in 2021: “This is Rome; this is Hollywood in the ceramics world.” —Alex V. Cipolle

Minnesota Opera’s ‘Pagliacci’ at the Ordway — May 8-17

Opera’s saddest clown has a moment in the Minnesota spotlight for the next few weeks. “Pagliacci” was composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo in the late 1800s and follows an Italian clown as he grapples with murderous rage after the revelation that his wife is having an affair.

“Pagliacci” in some ways is so synonymous with dramatic opera that it has been referenced dozens of times in pop culture, including in “The Simpsons,” “Seinfeld” and “Batman.” —Jacob Aloi

Asian Phoenix Festival at Arbeiter Brewing — May 9

The south Minneapolis brewery hosts its annual festival to mark Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. According to Arbeiter, it is one of the two percent of breweries owned by Asian Americans in the U.S.

Arbeiter says of the festival: “The Asian Phoenix represents resilience, revitalization and harmony. She is the opposing force to the dragon. The Phoenix has also become an important symbol to our South Minneapolis neighborhood as we work to renew and rebuild what was lost after the spring 2020 uprising.”

Arbeiter is just a few doors down from the Minneapolis Police Department Third Precinct building, which burned and then was decommissioned in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. The fest will include performances and art by TaikoArts, Cypher Side, JangmiArts, Lora Hlavsa, Tshab Her, The Paper Lantern Project and more. —Alex V. Cipolle

Bent Paddle Festiversary — May 9

The annual “Festiversary” of the Duluth-based brewery Bent Paddle returns with local acts, food and, of course, beer. The performance lineup includes Minneapolis rock band “Kiss the Tiger,” Duluth comedic band “Berserk Blondes!” and North Shore folk outfit “Tin Can Gin.” A petting zoo, chalk art and a gym open house are also on tap. —Jacob Aloi

“Rosy Simas: A:gajë:gwah dësa'nigöëwë:nye:'” at the Walker Art Center — May 13-16

This performance series by renowned choreographer Rosy Simas combines dance, art installation and community engagement. It is the culmination of a two-year artist residency at the Walker, and a companion to the exhibition of the same name “A:gajë:gwah dësa’nigöëwë:nye:’ (i hope it will stir your mind)” that runs through July 5. The Minnesota-based Simas, who is a member of the Heron clan of the Seneca Nation, explores notions of peacemaking and a “deep listening to the earth, stars and ancestors.”

The performance will be accompanied by the score of French composer François Richomme, which uses “sounds of Seneca lands, which bathes the audience and performers in a shared aural experience.”

Simas developed the series in part during Operation Metro Surge. She told Minnesota arts reporter Sheila Regan for Hyperallergic: “I have had serious moments of paralysis, for six to eight hours at a time, and that has been going on since January. And it’s not just because of this recent occupation, but it’s cumulative in many ways.” —Alex V. Cipolle

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what’s exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above.

Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.

WideSpot Performing Arts Center

Shaun Duvall of Wabasha recommends a great opportunity for live music in her town: the monthly concerts from WideSpot Performing Arts Center.

During the school year (September through May) WideSpot hosts concerts at the Broadway Theater — the old middle school auditorium on Broadway Ave. — in Wabasha. The series ends for the year on Saturday, May 9, with a concert by Americana band City Mouse. The Mankato band has been performing for more than 50 years.

Shaun says: I think it'll just be fun! More than anything, it's just a place for local people to get together and visit and connect. And that's one of the great things about small towns, is when you can just spend time with each other.

— Shaun Duvall

Shaun says there are regular chances to hear live music in the summer, too: the Meet Me Under the Bridge concert series happens every Friday at 7 p.m. from June 12 – Aug. 28 at Heritage Park.

‘Los Profanadores de La Calle Arenas’

Actor, theater maker, and retired Macalester professor Harry Waters Jr. recommends that everyone see Teatro del Pueblo's “Los Profanadores de La Calle Arenas.” Set 50 years in a hotter, drier future, the play centers on a family of gravediggers in the Caribbean.

The play was written by Lelis Brito and co-directed with Alondra Alamilla Benitez, with music by Carlisle Evans Peck.

The show is performed entirely in Spanish, with English subtitles, at Park Square Theatre in St. Paul, May 8 – 17.

Harry says: What's interesting about this piece, which is why I recommend going to see it, is that Lelis has brought us to a place where we're re-experiencing how to tell stories. There's a moment in the show that the audience will actually get to leave and visit the space differently.

I think it's really important for people now to broaden our perspectives when we're talking about performance now, that we're looking at decolonizing the way performance is presented. And I think this is an opportunity where Lelis Brito and Teatro are shifting the needle.

— Harry Waters Jr.

‘The Bountiful Table’

Mark Hiemenz of St. Louis Park is a singer and church choir director. He recommends a delicious concert: Caritas Vocal Ensemble, an a cappella group of 12, will perform a full menu of songs about food in a concert called “The Bountiful Table.”

Concerts are Sat. May 9 at New Branches Building in Minneapolis, Sat. May 16 at Grace Episcopal Church in Minneapolis, and Sun. May 17 at Incarnation Lutheran Church in Shoreview. All concerts are from 3 to 4 p.m. Donations will be accepted for local food shelves.

Mark anticipates a performance full of humor and the joy of sharing music together.

Mark says: Caritas actually began as one person's response to 9/11, so the group has always sung concerts and partnered with local organizations.

For example, these concerts are going to support local food shelves. So Caritas really believes in the power of music to show communities how important it is to be together.

— Mark Hiemenz

Actor Michael Horse laughs when he says he lives in “Twin Peaks.”

He’s actually lived in Two Harbors, Minn., for the last four years or so. He can see similarities between the small towns among the trees.

Horse played Deputy Hawk in the fictional television series, a mystery drama that aired in 1990 and 1991, and again in 2017.

The show built a cult following since it went off the air. And though the fictional town of Twin Peaks was set in Washington state, Minnesota had a lasting impact on the series.

In other words, those similarities Horse sees are no coincidence.

Series co-creator Mark Frost spent 10 years in Minnesota as a teenager and young adult.

“Oddly enough, we first set the series and the very first draft that we did in North Dakota,” Frost says. “The working title was ‘Northwest Passage.’”

Frost's family lived in the Prospect Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, and Frost attended Marshall-University High School, rubbing elbows with an eclectic mix of people and cultures. Frost says he was introduced to people on every side of the tracks.

As a high schooler, he interned at the Guthrie Theater and was production assistant for founder Tyrone Guthrie's last show, “Uncle Vanya,” in 1969, an experience he calls formative.

“The place is in my heart forever,” Frost said.

Frost’s dad, Warren, appeared in Twin Peaks as small-town physician Doc Hayward, but in the Twin Cities he built a career for himself at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre, well-known for appearances in performances like “Sleuth” and “Equus” in the 1970s and 80s.

Warren Frost also taught in the theater department at the University of Minnesota, where he influenced a great number of future actors and writers — including future “Twin Peaks” showrunner Bob Engels and actor Chris Mulkey.

In the series, Mulkey played Hank Jennings, a charismatic criminal with multiple murders under his belt.

Mulkey is a former Catholic school boy, educated at Cretin Military Academy in St. Paul. He went into the University of Minnesota as a wrestler who needed an elective and picked acting on a whim.

That first acting class at the U rekindled a sense of play he remembered from childhood.

Mulkey later worked at the Children's Theatre, then part of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and released a film, Loose Ends, deeply inspired by what he calls a colorful upbringing in St. Paul. He has appeared in hundreds of television shows and movies since then.

But he almost didn't audition for “Twin Peaks.”

“I felt vulnerable because I didn't understand David Lynch's style,” he said. “And so I said, ‘I don't think I should go … because I don't really understand where they're coming from.’”

Ultimately, the role of Hank fit him like a glove. Under that bad boy exterior, there was a sense of Midwest likability.

It's a Minnesota Nice that fit the Twin Peaks world — the way even criminals had to get along with their neighbors.

That atmosphere inspired co-creator Mark Frost, too. He'd visit friends' cabins in the North Woods.

“That informed a lot of the surface of Twin Peaks and the familiar levels of it, the quotidian part of daily life,” Frost said.

The deep woods surrounding Twin Peaks were as much of a character in the show as the deep ensemble cast. Frost's collaborator, co-creator David Lynch, grew up with a father in the U.S. Forest Service.

But while Twin Peaks’ woods are spooky, that’s not the feeling Frost got from the forests of Minnesota.

He felt a sense of darkness from his family’s lake cabin on the East Coast, and it was that feeling he wrote into the Twin Peaks universe.

Michael Horse, the actor and Two Harbors resident, says if Two Harbors has a seedy side, he hasn’t seen it.

Horse grew up in Southern California and Arizona and describes moving to New York City at 15. He and his wife, Pennie Opal Plant, are both part Yaqui, an indigenous people of Mexico. He thought they'd end up retiring there.

But Horse and Opal Plant are both longtime environmental and social justice activists. Opal Plant encouraged their move for climate change reasons.

“She said, ‘This is the spot,’” Horse said. “And every day she gets smarter and smarter, you know.”

He speaks about his new home warmly, including its tiny rock ’n’ roll radio station. He’s also a ledger artist — that’s his art in the 2017 Twin Peaks revival — and he has tapped into the local arts scene in the Duluth area.

Before Twin Peaks co-creator David Lynch died in 2025, Horse and Lynch got coffee.

Horse said Lynch didn’t want to talk film at all. He wanted to hear about Horse’s new home.

“[Lynch] says, what kind of trees do you have, Michael?” Horse recalled.

“And I said, ‘Oh, I've got all these different kind of pines, and I've got .... the birch.’ And he went, ‘Oh, how lucky you are.’”

He also has pine martens — or pine weasels, as they’re called in Twin Peaks. Horse saw one in his front yard and rang up series co-creator Mark Frost.

“And I went, ‘I thought you guys made that up anyway.’ [He said] ‘No, it's a real thing.’ I go, ‘Well, I got one in my front yard.’”

Frost has lived in California since the late 1970s, but he tries to make it back to Minnesota at least once a year.

For the last few decades, Frost has focused on writing books. His newest, “The Yankee Sphinx,” was released this week and tells a fictionalized story based on his uncle, who worked closely with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt through the Great Depression and World War II.

It’s a story of resilience through hard times, and Frost said Minnesotans may find that relevant after “Operation Metro Surge.”

“You've got to find a way to rise above it and to focus on the good,” he said.

“And, more importantly, focus on what you can do as an individual to combat it. And that answer is different for everybody.”

Chris Mulkey, the actor who played Hank Jennings, also lives in California but kept a house in the Twin Cities for a number of years. He still has family here and comes back often. He’s working on a third installment of the “Loose Ends” series.

“Minneapolis has always been a sense of inspiration for me,” he says.

Then he pauses for a moment. “Minnesota, I should say. My friends in St. Paul would go, ‘Hey, what about us?’”

Sometimes, girls just wanna have fun, right? I've been in a springtime mood of wanting to dive into a cartoon-colored ball pit of comic novels with spunky heroines.

And I found some good ones; but what I also found is that, much like the classic screwball comedies of yore, escapism in these playful novels links arms with edgy social commentary.

‘Yesteryear,’ by Caro Claire Burke

“Yesteryear,” an intricately-plotted debut novel by Caro Claire Burke, has been getting lots of attention — and deservedly so. The main character here is an online trad wife named Natalie Heller Mills.

On camera, Natalie revels in activities like spending four hours making a loaf of sourdough bread and then adorning it with a nativity scene made out of herbal stick figures — from her own garden, naturally.

A little of this goes a long way for those of us who share the attitude of the late Joan Rivers. Rivers famously quipped: "I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again." Amen.

So imagine my glee when Natalie — who only plays at being a pioneer woman — wakes up one morning to the realization that she's been transported back to the year 1855! Welcome to the real pioneer life where, if you want milk for your morning gruel, you'd better hustle out to the barn and find a cow.

If Burke had only stuck to this plotline, “Yesteryear” would be a fun one-note snark at retro lifestyle influencers; but instead, it tells a more ambitious, suspenseful, and, yes, ultimately melancholy story of its heroine's aspirations and capitulations to ideas of how women should live their lives.

‘American Fantasy,’ by Emma Straub

I thought Gary Shteyngart's brilliant 2024 essay in The Atlantic about his agonizing seven nights aboard The Icon of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, had ruined me for all other tales of enforced frivolity on the ocean; but I was wrong.

Emma Straub's latest novel, “American Fantasy,” starts off sharing Shteyngart's cynicism and ends up affirming the right of women — especially middle-aged women — to party without self-consciousness or apology.

Our main character here is a 50-year-old divorced woman named Annie who's been persuaded by her younger sister to join her on a four-day themed cruise. The "theme" is on board: namely, a gone-soft-'round-the-middle boy band of the '90s named Boy Talk that both Annie and her sister loved.

Almost every other passenger aboard is a woman of a certain age, otherwise diverse in "race, political views, ability, income bracket," even sexual orientation. All were rabid Boy Talk fans. The cruise production manager, a gay woman named Sarah, reflects that:

These were the guys who had launched a million sexual awakenings, and even if they had awakened something other than heterosexuality, they had still been present, like distant guardian angels of puberty.

Straub tells the story of the cruise through the eyes of Sarah, Annie and one of the band members, a thoughtful guy named Keith who, like Annie, is at a crossroads. This is a novel that makes the radical move of honoring, rather than ridiculing, female fandom.

Here's Straub's description of Annie's epiphany about her own fandom as she's standing in a packed crowd during a Boy Talk performance:

[T]he music was a direct vein to her own childhood, the least complicated part of her life. ...
All around Annie, women were dancing and singing, and for a second, she closed her eyes and thought, No one else will ever understand this, except, of course everyone standing beside her, who all understood it perfectly.

‘Enormous Wings,’ by Laurie Frankel

I've shared the premise of Laurie Frankel's forthcoming novel, “Enormous Wings” with a few friends. Based on how instantly they entered the book's title into their cellphones, the premise is all you need to know about this wild-but-all-too-timely story about female autonomy or lack thereof. So here goes:

Frankel's heroine, Pepper Mills, is 77 and a reluctant new resident of the Vista View Retirement Community in Austin, Texas. Surprisingly, she meets a nice man there and has sex. And, then, through a medical fluke that Frankel almost makes plausible, Pepper finds herself pregnant.

Her doctors expect the pregnancy to end in miscarriage; when it doesn't, Pepper seeks an abortion. But, she lives in Texas and she's now such a media sensation that it's almost impossible for her to leave the state.

Complicated, gutsy and entertaining, “Enormous Wings” pokes fun at life's unpredictability and stokes anger at situations that aren't at all funny.

Copyright 2026, NPR, Fresh Air

In the shadow of grain elevators in Clarkfield, a southwestern Minnesota town of some 900 people, a bank built 116 years ago sits transformed. What once was one of the town’s first financial institutions is now a creative space that invests in the local community.

Clarkfield residents Betsy Pardick, Tim Pehrson and Ruby the dog walk the renovated space filled with sculptures, paintings, some taxidermy and remnants of the original Beaux-Arts building, like a hulking fireplace mantel.

Pardick, a hair stylist, said she learned to sheetrock for the project, and Pehrson said they had to fix up holes in the floor.

“You could have fallen through,” Pehrson said.

The Clarkfield State Bank is now the Clarkfield State Bank of Art. The renovated building features not only a salon for Pardick but also a stage, art gallery and space for art classes.

Southwest Minnesota is dotted with these emerging multi-use art spaces that utilize older buildings — a growing trend seen in rural and small-town communities across the state — challenging a common misconception that vibrant art scenes only exist in big cities.

Pardick, who is also an artist and musician, wanted to open the space because Clarkfield and the surrounding area has “a lot of creative people, but they just don't have a space or an outlet to go to do it.”

“It's a safe space to exercise your art or your ambitions,” Pehrson adds.

About 30 miles northwest of Clarkfield is the Madison Mercantile, which opened in 2021 in a former hardware store. The Mercantile, which has a gallery space for local artists, bills itself as “part-coffeehouse, part-creative space, part-small business incubator.”

Drive 14 miles east of Clarkfield, where farmland slowly gives way to the ancient rock of the Minnesota River Valley, and arrive at another arts hub: Granite Falls. The town of about 2,700 is home to the Granite Area Arts Council, operating out of the historic K.K. Berge Building, and a new art space called The YES! House.

“There should be spaces like this in every small town,” said Ash Hanson, a rural arts advocate. Hanson is the founder of the Department of Public Transformation, the rural arts nonprofit behind The YES! House.

“We're a group of artists that came together and slowly made this happen, and we believe that lots of other artists have this same kind of dream and can make these things happen,” Hanson said.

The numbers: ‘It competes with sports’

In this corner of Minnesota alone, the arts and culture industries generated about $29.1 million in 2024, according to a report by MN Citizens for the Arts, a statewide arts advocacy organization, and the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council.

Arts in southwest Minnesota

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“The arts bring in millions and millions of dollars to communities,” Hanson said. “It competes with sports; it’s a big number.”

The report also finds that this region, as of 2024, is home to 119 arts and culture nonprofits, 3,217 artists and cultural workers and an audience of 279,319, including both local residents and visitors.

“Investing in the arts in rural communities not only can be an attractor for outsiders but help people who live here feel really psyched about where they live and not want to leave,” Hanson said.

Full (art) house

Much like the bank-turned-art-gallery in Clarkfield, The YES! House in Granite Falls had past lives. The building used to be a post office and, later, a drug store. The art space officially opened April 25 in a historic 1900s brick building, after 10 years of renovations and a $1 million capital campaign.

Luwaina Al-Otaibi, The YES! House program director, gives a tour of the new space. The basement features a media lab, recording studio and workspaces. On the ground floor are gallery walls with a lighting and hanging system, a performance venue, a climbing wall and a cafe-style coworking space. The top floor features two fully furnished apartments for the artist-in-residence program, which hosts local artists as well as artists from across the region for two-week stints.

“The other day, we had the apartments full, stuff going on on the main floor and then a meeting in the basement,” Al-Otaibi said. “That was a moment for me, to have the whole building with people in it. And for me, it's really about the people.”

Even though The YES! House officially opened in April, the venue has been hosting events during the renovation process: theater productions, music readings, open mic nights, art exhibitions, sound bathing and yoga sessions.

Al-Otaibi said they’ve hosted about 150 visiting artists in the apartments since 2022, including Betsy Pardick of the Clarkfield State Bank of Art and local artist Nicole Brenny, both alums of the River Valley Ripple program for artists of southwest Minnesota.

“The thing that was really life-changing for me on my artistic journey was the support,” Brenny said. She said the residency was one of her most prolific creative periods, making a short film and a stack of cyanotypes from photos she took in Chile where her grandmother grew up.

Being a rural artist can feel like “a creative vacuum,” Brenny said, but places like The YES! House provide community and an “external motivating factor.”

Al-Otaibi said showing artists that it’s possible to stay in their communities and find support rather than leaving for bigger cities is key to the mission.

“It's a really vibrant ecosystem, and not just in Granite Falls, but in the region, of people having that craving to start creative spaces like this — like Betsy at the bank, or Madison Mercantile,“ Al-Otaibi said. “That's really important to be able to support our artists here and make them feel like there is an audience for it here, and that they are heard and wanted.”

“And, it’s more affordable to live and you can be really close face-to-face with your audience a lot more,” Hanson adds.

Say YES!

Hanson, who is from Aitkin County in north central Minnesota, is a theater artist herself, which is what first brought her to Granite Falls. In 2013, she helped produce “Paddling Theatre: From Granite Falls to Yellow Medicine,” a site-specific musical that spanned 8 miles of the Minnesota River and 11,000 years of the region's history, while audience members watched from canoes.

The production was so popular, they did several more, partly because of the support of longtime mayor Dave Smiglewski, Hanson said.

Smiglewski, who died in 2023, spoke to the University of Minnesota alumni association about the project at the time. “It’s not just about art; it’s about life here and enhancing our experiences as residents and citizens,” Smiglewski said. “We don’t have to look to other locations for entertainment and quality of life.”

“Mayor Dave Smiglewski was a huge advocate for this kind of work, and such a great supporter of place-based art,” Hanson said.

Hanson pushed for a small-town artist residency program and a network for rural artists across the country, which eventually became the Department of Public Transformation and The YES! House.

“What better place than the place that said yes to us. We wanted to say yes to Granite Falls,” Hanson said.

Community through art

The YES! House is not the only organization in town with an artist residency program. The Granite Area Arts Council, which was established in 2008, has been hosting its own artists-in-residence for about five years, said council president Tamara Isfeld.

“What we lean into the most is building community through art,” Isfeld said.

The Granite Area Arts Council

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Isfeld looks out the window of the K.K. Berge Building, about a block from The YES! House. Below is the river and dam, where the town’s famous pelicans bathe in the April sun, and a riverwalk full of public art, murals and mosaics and a “fairy village” — community projects led by the council and Isfeld, who is also a local art teacher at Yellow Medicine East high school.

A few years ago, Isfeld started noticing a trend: Out-of-towners were coming to look at the public art.

“I was like, what?! That was something brand new, where public art was making an impact here in the little economy in Granite Falls,” Isfeld said.

The council has a gallery, an “art lounge” full of art supplies, as well as a shop where more than 60 regional artists sell their wares on commission. They also do programming, including a recurring Makers Market and the artist residencies.

This year, the council’s artist residency program was selected as one of seven sites across the U.S. for the inaugural Transatlantic Rising Stars Project, a cultural exchange organized and funded by the European Union Delegation to the U.S.

“It’s the first of its kind. They wanted to bring artists into the United States as a cultural exchange to share with people in everyday walks of life what it's like to create art, what is it like to live in a community,” Isfeld said. “We feel pretty lucky.”

Artists-in-residence

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For the next three years, the council will host an artist from the European Union for two months. For 2026, that is Benedetta Cocco, a fiber artist from Sardinia, who arrived in Granite Falls on April 9 and will stay until May 29. Cocco has been collaborating with the community and local blacksmith artist Talon Cavender-Wilson.

They're creating a sculpture piece, and that will go to D.C.,” Isfeld said. In June, the artwork will go on display in Washington, D.C. for State of the Arts Night at the Eaton DC hotel. For the piece, Cocco asked community members to share small mementos that could be woven into a textile.

“I wanted to create a textile monument with the help of the community,” Cocco said.

Cocco said she immediately felt at home in Granite Falls.

“People are really cheerful and sunny,” Cocco said. “I really appreciate this kind of kindness and this kind of culture.”

Arts year-round, from SquidFest to haunted houses

Isfeld said there will be more artists-in-residence from around the region and nation arriving this summer and fall.

Clarkfield State Bank of Art will host an artist reception May 8 for their current artist on display, Krystl Louwagie of Marshall.

There will also be the annual SquidFest, a community-wide Granite Falls art festival, Aug. 15 at Memorial Park.

This summer, a new art space called Alma’s North Arts is slated to open in a renovated 19th-century church. Alma’s is a project of Sarina Otaibi, sister to Al-Otaibi and program director for the Activate Rural program at the Department of Public Transformation; it will be a partner of the arts council and provide lodging for artists-in-residence (Cocco is already staying there).

Come October, the Meander Art Crawl across the Upper Minnesota River Valley will have stops at more than 30 artist studios, and then there is the community- and artist-built haunted house at The YES! House, which Al-Otaibi said is the biggest event of the year.

Hanson wants these spaces and events to foster an exchange with artists from bigger cities.

“What I would like the urban audience to know about rural artists is that we really see this as a two-way street,” Hanson said. “Visit some of these rural communities and connect with the local artists that live there.”

There was a familiar face on the red carpet Monday night at the Met Gala in New York, one of the biggest fashion events in the world.

Supermodel Heidi Klum arrived as a walking marble sculpture, a veil draped across her face topped with a flower crown. Klum’s look showed an uncanny resemblance to the most popular artwork at the Minneapolis Institute of Art: the “Veiled Lady,” created in 1860 by Victorian-era sculptor Raffaelle Monti.

“I got a lot of messages,” said Max Bryant, the Mia associate curator of decorative arts and sculpture in European arts. “Because the sculpture is really one of the most beloved works in our collection.”

Bryan clarified that the direct inspiration for Klum was a different sculpture by Monti, the “Veiled Vestal,” which is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Klum confirmed in an Instagram post.

“I went walking around in the Met and Raffaele Monti, he’s done most of the sculptures from the 1800s. So I looked and I was like, ‘Wow, this is so beautiful,’” Klum told Vogue. “I was like, ‘I want to become her!'”

The way Klum’s costume was designed, by manipulating latex and spandex to create a gauzy veiled illusion, echoes what the Italian sculptor did with marble.

“It’s an amazing creation. It demonstrates a real advanced art form of prosthetics,” Bryant said. “In a way, it's really true to the spirit of Raffaelle Monti himself.”

The “Veiled Vestal” and the “Veiled Lady” are directly linked.

“Monti made a lot of versions of the same subject,” Bryant said. “I would say ours is the most popular and celebrated version of the work.”

In the 1970s, Mia curator Merribell Parsons acquired the “Veiled Lady” for the permanent collection.

“At the time, I don't think anybody would have anticipated the popularity of this work with our audience, but nevertheless, it has remained,” Bryant said.

The “Veiled Lady” has become a fan favorite, gaining popularity with recreations: in ice for the annual Ice Sculptures at Mia event and in seeds many times over for the crop art exhibition at the Minnesota State Fair.

“I don't think there was one definitive moment that it goes viral in the popular consciousness of Minnesota. But clearly, by now in 2026, it is arguably the most popular work in our collection,” Bryant said. “It seems like she's more than a symbol of just the museum, almost of Minneapolis itself.”

The “Veiled Lady” is on permanent display in Gallery 357 at the museum.

Minneapolis’ Research in Action CEO Brittany Lewis says that too often, institutions conduct research on communities without including them, and that their findings never reach the people they are supposed to help.

Lewis is out with a book Tuesday that outlines a different framework. It’s called "Building a New Table: A Community-Centered Handbook for Transformative Social Change." She talked with MPR News host Nina Moini about how she realized she wanted to put her new book into the world and what it looks like when research does not effectively include the communities they are supposed to be focused on.

Lewis will celebrate the launch of her book at the Loft Literary Center on Tuesday at 6 p.m.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

On Monday night, extravagantly dressed celebrities and designers made their grand ascent up the Met Gala's staircase, marking the start of fashion's biggest night and raising money for New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute.

Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour are the 2026 Gala co-chairs. Lauren Sánchez Bezos is an honorary co-chair.

"Fashion is Art" is the dress code for this year's Gala, and attendees are expected to follow it while viewing "Costume Art," the Costume Institute's spring 2026 exhibition.

"Costume Art" opens to the public on May 10 in the Met's new Condé Nast gallery spaces. It features century-spanning fashions on various body types, juxtaposed with art objects from the Met's collections. Curator in Charge Andrew Bolton says the exhibition seeks to connect "artistic representations of the body with fashion as an embodied art form."

Here are some of the red carpet outfits from the night:

Copyright 2026, NPR

The arts aren’t just something extra — they’re a central part of how people in Minnesota connect with each other and experience their communities.

Two out of every three Minnesotans attended a concert, visited a gallery or saw live theater in the past year. That engagement adds up. Arts and culture generate an estimated $1.6 billion in annual economic impact across the state, according to the Creative Minnesota 2025 report.

So what shows are drawing in audiences right now? And what challenges are facing arts organizations behind the scenes?

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with two colleagues who cover arts and culture in Minnesota.

Guests:

• Jacob Aloi is a newscaster and arts and culture reporter for MPR News. He’s a member of the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association. He’s contributed to PRX's The World, American Theater Magazine and NPR's Here and Now. He previously hosted a show on Frogtown Community Radio in St. Paul.    

• Alex V. Cipolle is a senior arts reporter and critic, covering arts and culture for MPR News. She previously covered the arts in the Pacific Northwest and southwest France and has written for publications including The New York Times, Fast Company, Frommer’s and Hyperallergic.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Minnesota’s Chris Tungseth reached the final five — but he will not be this season’s “American Idol.”

Tungseth, a construction worker from Fergus Falls, was one of two singers eliminated from the reality TV show on Monday night.

The episode was themed “Class of 2006: Reunion,” and brought back original judges Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul. In the lead-up to their big night under the spotlight, Jackson mentored the contestants, while Abdul sat in as a guest judge on the live show. Monday also featured “American Idol” contestants from years past dueting with this season’s participants.

Tungseth sang two songs in the lead up to the final tally: Noah Kahan’s “Northern Attitude,” followed by a duet of Garth Brooks’ “The Thunder Rolls,” with 2006 “American Idol” contestant Bucky Covington.

“Bucky is the perfect person for me to sing with just because he has such a sweet rock vibe, and I want to lean into that this week,” Tungseth said in a video montage before his performance. “I want this to be big and he knows how to make it big.”

After Tungseth’s duet with Covington, “American Idol” judge Carrie Underwood said Tungseth had looked the most comfortable on stage that she’d seen all season.

“That was awesome,” she said.

Judge Luke Bryan followed up by calling Tungseth’s rendition of the country song “great,” and “one of the best vocals” he’d heard him perform. But, for the “American Idol” voters, it wasn’t enough, with Tungseth and fellow contender Braden Rumfelt being sent home.

Tungseth gained popularity among viewers this season with his down-to-earth demeanor and Chris Stapleton-like vocal sound. He also shared personal challenges he’s faced, including his father’s passing from leukemia in 2023, and his mother’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis, which led to her living in a nursing home.

Although Tungseth did not advance Monday, the city of Fergus Falls will hold a celebration for him in the coming weeks. The live “American Idol” season finale airs May 11.

City officials, arts leaders and north Minneapolis community members ceremonially broke ground on a multi-million dollar amphitheater Monday. The Community Performing Arts Center amphitheater is a 8,000 capacity concert venue set to open in summer of 2027.

“We’re going to have extraordinary music playing,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey as he envisioned what opening day would look like. “The river will be right here, the downtown will be the backdrop. The sun will be setting, and we’ll all recognize the kind of work and the partnership that went into making this beautiful vision happen.”

The amphitheater will be operated by the Port of Minneapolis, a collaboration between music venue First Avenue and the Minnesota Orchestra.

“We’re so excited to put these shovels in the ground and build the next great Minneapolis treasured destination, and an economic engine for the northside,” said First Avenue president and CEO Dayna Frank.

Part of each ticket sold at the amphitheater will be reinvested into the community, through a partnership with the African American Community Development Corporation, also known as AACDC

“Today is more than about a project on the riverfront. It is about community. The community that has insisted on its own future, and shaping that future,” said AACDC chair Keith Baker.

The amphitheater is part of the larger Upper Harbor Terminal redevelopment project — a 48 acre city-owned site that will eventually include mixed-income housing, commercial business spaces and nature spaces along the Mississippi waterfront.

“There was this notion that maybe the northside doesn’t deserve great things,” said Frey. “But I think the people on the northside know, and now everybody throughout our city knows … the northside deserves great things.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Part of the joy of reading historical fiction is discovering moments or voices in our past that resonate today.

For Sophia Terry of Bank Street Books in Mystic, Conn., the novel that had her turning pages — and then diving into internet research to learn more — was "The Lilac People" by Milo Todd. It comes out in paperback this week.

The novel weaves between two starkly different timelines in the life of Bertie, a trans man living in Germany. In the early 1930s, Bertie works with Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute for Sexual Science, where his work uplifts a thriving queer community in Berlin.

Ten years later, Bertie and his girlfriend are in hiding, living on a farm under assumed names. A young trans man winds up on their property, still dressed in the prison clothes from the camp in which he escaped, and the couple takes him in.

The fall of the Nazis and the arrival of the Allies, though, does not signal the end of danger for Bertie and other queer people.

Terry recommends this novel for lovers of Anthony Doerr’s “All the Light We Cannot See” and others who enjoy WWII or queer history.

“It was such a powerful debut novel. It’s a chapter of history and voice that you so rarely get to hear from, but it's as much about hope and resilience as [about] these darker chapters of history.”

When Tara Menon describes the underwater world that surrounds an island off the coast of Thailand, her language is both restrained and lush.

“The reef is busy with color,” she writes, “Fiery scorpion fish, yellow frog-fish, red snappers, white-and-orange clown fish, a shoal of electric-blue angelfish, fat black sea cucumbers, powder-blue surgeonfish. Sand suspended between the dimpled surface glitters in the sunlight.”

Her prose, like the story, exemplifies the contrast between the simple joy of true friendship and the aching loss left behind when that gift is stripped away.

Menon’s novel, “Under Water,” unfolds before and after the devastating Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, that surged across the Indian Ocean and killed more than 225,000 people. But the heartbeat of the story is the friendship between two girls who each have to navigate a stinging loss.

Menon joins Kerri Miller for a conversation about writing, the elegance of restraint and how to avoid sentimentality when building a story around childhood friendship and exuberant nature, on this week’s Big Books and Bold Ideas.

Guest:

• Tara Menon is an assistant professor of English at Harvard University. Her debut novel is “Under Water.”

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