Minnesota Humanities Center

St. Paul – Dialogues of War Listening Session: Southeast Asian Experience
2022-02-24 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Join us for Minnesota Humanities Center’s Hmong and Southeast Asian Dialogues of War Community Listening Session. As part of our commitment to build and deepen relationships across the region, we are engaging audiences in new and deeper understandings of histories and cultures, borders and boundaries, and identities, we are expanding our understanding of war and conflict to hear how community members, families, and members of the public have been impacted by war. In doing so, we are creating a space to hear from those who may not be directly involved with the military, but who remain affected through their experiences, whether intergenerationally, through immigration, or refugee resettlement. In this facilitated listening session, participants will be led in a meaningful dialogue to connect with others and share their perspectives. Dinner will be provided; spaces are limited and there is no cost to attend this event. Attendees must be able to attend the full two hour session.
In order to provide for social distancing our capacity is limited to 40. For groups of 6 or more please contact Corey China directly to accommodate reserved seating.
Registration
Registration Deadline Date: Friday, February 18, 2022
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org | MHC Cancellation Policy

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Minneapolis – Dialogues of War Listening Session: Somali Community (women focused)
2022-03-31 18:00 - 20:00 | Franklin Library, 1314 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, MN, 55404, United States
Join Marian Hassan for a Community Listening Session, part of Minnesota Humanities Center’s program, Dialogues of War. In this facilitated discussion, participants will be led in meaningful dialogue to connect with others and share their perspectives as relates to their experiences with war and conflict. The Minnesota Humanities Center is committed to engaging audiences in new and deeper understandings of histories, cultures, borders, boundaries, and identities. We are expanding our understanding of war and conflict to hear how community members and families have been impacted by war whether integenerationally, through immigration, or refugee resettlement.
This Community Listening Session is being held for women of the Somali community.
Dinner will be provided; spaces are limited and there is no cost to attend this event. Attendees must be able to attend the full 2 hour session.
Registration
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org

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St. Paul – Reflection and Renewal through Poetry with Sun Yung Shin and Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen
2022-04-02 09:00 - 15:00 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
National Poetry Month is a time to celebrate poetry and the human spirit. April in Minnesota offers an annual opportunity to contemplate renewal and rebirth. Join poets Sun Yung Shin and Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen in a daylong retreat designed to support participants’ rest, reflection, renewal, and creativity. Facilitators will lead participants through somatic exercises to support mind, body, and spirit, and poetry readings and creative writing prompts to provide time and space to connect with inner and collective wholeness, spaciousness, and possibility. Participants need not have any formal creative writing training whatsoever. This is an experience not focused on writing as a profession, but as an ancient, musical, and deeply human practice available to everyone.
Continental breakfast and lunch are included.
Sun Yung Shin is a poet, writer, educator, and bodyworker. She approaches poetry as a human right and a space of moral imagination.
Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen is a poet, community artist, activist, and educator. As a creator and healer, she is committed to cultivating shared humanity through food, storytelling, and authentic connection.
Registration
If cost is a barrier, please contact Jessica Rust at jessica@mnhum.org before registering.
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org | MHC Cancellation Policy
Registration Deadline Date: Monday, March 28, 2022

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Saint Paul – MnWE 2022: “Changing the Narrative: Empowering Stories”
2022-04-07 10:00 - 2022-04-08 19:00 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
The Minnesota Humanities Center is excited to host the 2022 Minnesota Writing & English Conference and collaborate with MnWE in exploring the theme, “Changing the Narrative: Empowering Stories.” This year’s conference will open with a Thursday morning Plenary Session sponsored by the Minnesota Humanities Center.
Do you believe stories frame identities, infuse the texts we explore, and inspire our students’ and our own writing? Join our CEO, Kevin Lindsey, as he hosts a conversation with Carolyn Holbrook and David Mura about their new anthology, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World. This brilliant and rich gathering of voices on the American experience of this past year and beyond, from Indigenous writers and writers of color from Minnesota, not only provides valued witness to our present but also speaks to our collective future. This collection of stories is an ideal lens to focus pressing themes central to this year’s conference. Their conversation will include how dominant cultural narratives about race, gender, or class impact teaching and relationships with students, how educators navigate these dominant narratives, and how educators may question and resist persistent cultural narratives that reproduce inequality in the classroom.
Participate in-person at the Minnesota Humanities Center or virtually via ZOOM.
Registration
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St. Paul – Telling My Story!
2022-04-23 09:00 - 15:00 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
This full day writing retreat is open to all members of the Black community, writers at all levels and nonwriters alike. After a year and a half of conversations with 16 local writers from our Minnesota literary community, including African Caribbean, African American, and those from multiethnic parentage as well as from the continent of Africa, the Minnesota Black Publishing Arts Collaborative would like to engage the Black community in the process of naming strength and finding healing through writing. This opportunity will help provide a safe and comfortable space to start the writing process, remove some of the barriers of confidence, and provide a roadmap on where or how to start.
To make the writing process accessible and enjoyable, Ebony Adedayo (founder of the Aya Collective, a space that centers the expertise and experience of Black women, and program manager at the Jan Serie Center for Scholarship and Teaching at Macalester College) and Pamela Fletcher Bush (executive director of Saint Paul Almanac) will gently lead workshop participants in guided writing exercises and discussion that will demonstrate the love for writing and how it can be used as a tool.
Because we know that stories humanize us, the workshop will feature writers T. Aaron Cisco and Junauda Petrus-Nasah, who will read their works to illustrate how using one’s unique voice to tell personal stories brings necessary healing. They have used the pen to help them process and heal from significant events that have interrupted and or impacted their lives.
This writing retreat is being offered by the Minnesota Black Publishing Arts Collaborative in collaboration with the Minnesota Humanities Center.
Continental breakfast and lunch are included. A journal will be provided. Registration will be limited to 40 participants.
Registration
You are welcome to register using promo code COMMUNITY to waive the fee if you wish.
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org | MHC Cancellation Policy
Registration Deadline Date: Saturday, April 16, 2022

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ONLINE – Minnesota Writers Series: What We Hunger For
2022-04-25 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
Join the Minnesota Humanities Center (MHC) for readings and a discussion around the book, “What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories about Food and Family.” This book is the first text featured in MHC’s new Minnesota Writers Series, which amplifies recent publications from Minnesota authors.
The book’s editor, Sun Yung Shin, and contributors V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan, May Lee-Yang, and Ifrah Mansour will read excerpts from the book and participate in a discussion around food, community, and the immigrant and refugee experience in Minnesota. Panelists and audience members will also be invited to take part in an object-based storytelling circle. Please bring an object, or have one in mind, that helps tell the story of the role of food in your culture. It could be a kitchen tool, spice, photograph, or anything else that connects to your story of food, family, or community.
Although this event was designed with members of immigrant and refugee communities in mind, all are welcome. This event is held in partnership with the Saint Paul Public Library’s Read Brave program. A limited number of free books are also available. Contact karen@mnhum.org to reserve a copy.
This event is free but registration is required.
신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin was born in Seoul, Korea, during 박 정 희 Park Chung-hee’s military dictatorship, and grew up in the Chicago area. She is the editor of the new collection: What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories About Food and Family and the best-selling anthology A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota. She is the author of poetry collections The Wet Hex (2022), Unbearable Splendor (finalist for the 2017 PEN USA Literary Award for Poetry, winner of the 2016 Minnesota Book Award for poetry); Rough, and Savage; and Skirt Full of Black (winner of the 2007 Asian American Literary Award for poetry), co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption, and author of bilingual illustrated book for children Cooper’s Lesson and the coauthor with John Coy, Shannon Gibney, and Diane Wilson of Where We Come From, an illustrated book for children (2022).
V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan, a fiction writer and journalist, is the author of Love Marriage, a novel set in Sri Lanka and its diaspora communities. The book was longlisted for the Orange Prize and named one of Washington Post Book World’s Best of 2008. She is the cohost of Literary Hub’s Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast, which is about the intersection of literature and the news. Excerpts from her second novel, forthcoming from Random House, have appeared in Granta, Ploughshares, and Best American Nonrequired Reading.
May Lee-Yang is a Minnesota-based Hmong American writer, performance artist, and teacher. Her theater works include The Korean Drama Addict’s Guide to Losing Your Virginity, Confessions of a Lazy Hmong Woman, and Ten Reasons Why I’d Be a Bad Porn Star. Her artmaking has been supported by the Playwrights’ Center McKnight Fellowship, the Jerome Foundation, the National Performance Network, the Bush Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Loft Literary Center. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota.
Ifrah Mansour is a Somali, refugee, Muslim, multimedia artist and an educator based in Minnesota. Her artwork explores trauma through the eyes of children to uncover the resiliencies of blacks, Muslims, and refugees by interweaving poetry, puppetry, films, and installations. Her work includes the play How to Have Fun in a Civil War, the exhibition Can I Touch It, the visual poem I Am a Refugee, and the mixed-media installation My Aqal, Banned and Blessed.
Registration
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org

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St. Paul – The Impact of War, Writing Workshops Facilitated by Warrior Writers
2022-06-04 10:00 - 12:00, 2022-06-11 10:00 - 12:00, 2022-06-18 10:00 - 12:00, 2022-06-23 18:00 - 20:00 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Join Warrior Writers for a series of workshops to address the myriad experiences of war for Veterans and non-Veterans through the medium of writing. In these workshops you’ll be putting pen to paper to record feelings, memories, traumas, personal histories or whatever comes to mind in the moment. There is no such thing as correct or polished writing, and no previous experience is necessary. We’ll help you keep the pen moving!
Along with writing, the workshops will foster positive relationships between those impacted by war, and develop a deeper understanding and reclaiming of our personal and generational histories. Although the workshops are not therapy, many find this format to be cathartic and useful in the reintegration into society. Many also find the process insightful and validating as you can make sense out of your experience through writing it down.
We recommend participants attend all four sessions if possible. Refreshments will be provided for morning sessions; dinner will be provided for the evening session.
Warrior Writers is a national non-profit whose mission is to create a culture that articulates veterans’ experiences, build a collaborative community for artistic expression, and bear witness to war and the full range of military experiences.
Schedule
Saturday, June 4, 2022 – 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Session One
Saturday, June 11, 2022 – 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Session Two
Saturday, June 18, 2022 – 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Session Three
Thursday, June 23, 2022 – 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. – Session Four
Registration
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org | MHC Cancellation Policy
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St. Paul - Lunch and Learn: Juneteenth in Historical Context
2022-06-16 11:00 - 13:00 | Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center, 130 South Macalester Street, Saint Paul, MN, 55105, United States
The Minnesota Humanities Center, in partnership with the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers, welcomes the public to a boxed lunch and learn event at Macalester College’s Arts Commons on “Juneteenth in Historical Context.” Scholar Angela Tate, curator of Women’s History at Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, will provide an in-depth background on: the history and significance of Juneteenth, how celebrations differ across the Black diaspora, the holiday’s recent reemergence, and how Juneteenth fits into the long civil rights movement. Professor Duchess Harris (Macalester College) will moderate a discussion.
Registration
Registration is required. Please select whether you will be attending the in person lunch and learn or joining the virtual talk only.
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St. Paul - Juneteenth Breakfast
2022-06-17 08:30 - 10:30 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Join the Minnesota Humanities Center for a Juneteenth breakfast. Musical guest Jevetta Steele will perform, followed by a talk by Angela Tate, curator of women’s history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, who will highlight the role of women, and in particular Black sororities, in upholding Juneteenth traditions nationwide. Professor Duchess Harris will moderate a discussion.
Registration
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Golden Valley - Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story (Morning Performance)
2022-06-17 10:00 - 12:00 | Breck School, 123 Ottawa Avenue North, Golden Valley, MN, 55422, United States
In 2021, Juneteenth was written into law as a national day of observance, yet many people are unfamiliar with its meaning and the insight it offers in addressing current social injustice. Minnesota Humanities Center is honored to collaborate with Sweet Potato Comfort Pie and community to bring the significance of this day to life.
Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story written by Rose McGee is a 90-minute fictitious, two-act play that addresses a factual and traumatic time in our history – when news was deliberately withheld that Black people were no longer to be kept as slaves in this country. Storytelling and music weave together mesmerizing scenes. Although tragedy is depicted, this play within a play is tremendously uplifting. The story begins with a Prologue set in the early 1800s in a small West African village where a young mother and her small son are being abducted from their home by slave catchers. Act One: Scene One is set in present time in a popular North Minneapolis soul-food restaurant where a group of youths and adults ultimately end up discussing what Juneteenth means. Before long they all agree to attend a play about Juneteenth. The story then shifts into 1863 on the Turner Plantation in Tyler, Texas with the character Frederick Douglass as Narrator.
Although interpretation is best suited for ages 8 and up, children of all ages are welcome to attend.
Performances are free to attend, but registration is required.
Registration
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org

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Golden Valley – Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story (Reception and Evening Performance)
2022-06-17 17:30 - 21:00 | Breck School, 123 Ottawa Avenue North, Golden Valley, MN, 55422, United States
In 2021, Juneteenth was written into law as a national day of observance, yet many people are unfamiliar with its meaning and the insight it offers in addressing current social injustice. Minnesota Humanities Center is honored to collaborate with Sweet Potato Comfort Pie and community to bring the significance of this day to life.
Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story written by Rose McGee is a 90-minute fictitious, two-act play that addresses a factual and traumatic time in our history – when news was deliberately withheld that Black people were no longer to be kept as slaves in this country. Storytelling and music weave together mesmerizing scenes. Although tragedy is depicted, this play within a play is tremendously uplifting. The story begins with a Prologue set in the early 1800s in a small West African village where a young mother and her small son are being abducted from their home by slave catchers. Act One: Scene One is set in present time in a popular North Minneapolis soul-food restaurant where a group of youths and adults ultimately end up discussing what Juneteenth means. Before long they all agree to attend a play about Juneteenth. The story then shifts into 1863 on the Turner Plantation in Tyler, Texas with the character Frederick Douglass as Narrator.
Although interpretation is best suited for ages 8 and up, children of all ages are welcome to attend. A special reception with light refreshments and emphasis on the significance of voting precedes the 7:00 p.m. show from 5:30 p.m. to 6:50 p.m.
Performances are free to attend, but registration is required.
Registration
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org

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St. Paul – Minnesota Writers Series: We Are Meant to Rise
2022-06-21 19:00 - 20:30 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Join the Minnesota Humanities Center (MHC) for readings and an interactive round table discussion around the book, “We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World,” which was published by University of Minnesota Press with More Than a Single Story.
The book’s editors, Carolyn Holbrook and David Mura, will be joined by contributors Anika Fajardo, Samantha Sencer-Mura, Suleiman Adan, and Tess Montgomery, to discuss the heavy task of writing about the past few years as writers of color, from COVID-19 and the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes to the community’s response to the murder of George Floyd. The panel, which includes two sets of family members, will also discuss how we talk about trauma and share stories generationally. Audience members will be invited to join in on the conversation at various points in the evening.
This event is part of the MHC’s new Minnesota Writers Series, which amplifies recent publications from Minnesota authors, and is being co-sponsored by Saint Paul Almanac.
This event is free but registration is required.
Registration
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org

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Minneapolis - Celebrate the Diversity of Latinx Language, Poetry, and Culture with Palabristas
2022-09-01 18:00 - 20:30 | El Colegio High School, 4137 Bloomington Ave S, Minneapolis, MN, 55407, United States
Minnesota is home to over 345,000 people of Latino/a/e/x descent – the fastest growing cultural community in the state. We often refer to all communities originating from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean countries as ‘Latin,’ without realizing the great diversity in culture, language, traditions and social customs in each one of these communities: Mexican, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Ecuadorian, Cuban, Colombian, Chilean, and others.
Build your cultural awareness as we learn about celebrate the diversity of Latino/a/e/x language, poetry, and culture with members of Palabristas – a community spoken word Latinx-Minnesotan collective. Activities will include poetry and spoken word performances, conversation and food sharing, and a creative writing activity. This event will be hosted at El Colegio – a Chicano-Latino South Minneapolis High School.
Registration
This event is open to anyone from middle school age through adult.
While there is no cost to attend, registration is requested.
Space is limited to 50 participants.
K-12 educators will receive 2 clock hours.
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St. Paul - Shoua and the Northern Lights Dragon: Musical Performance and Discussion
2022-09-25 13:30 - 15:00 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Join us for a brand-new musical performance by Chione Quintet based on Twin Cities author Ka Vang’s Shoua and the Northern Lights Dragon. This short chapter book, published by the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans (CAPM) and the Minnesota Humanities Center in 2012, tells the story of Shoua, a Hmong American girl who discovers her voice as she saves an injured dragon while camping in the north woods of Minnesota. Hear this story set to beautiful and evocative music composed by fellow Minnesotan, Jocelyn Hagen, with narration by Ka Vang. Chione Quintet combines musical character themes with American Sign Language and will share the stories of each of their instruments and the ensemble they create–the wind quintet!
Hear from Sia Her, Executive Director of CAPM, about the project that led to the publication of this wonderful book and five others – The Reading Together Book Project, which addresses the importance of children’s books that speak to the rich and diverse cultural identities reflected in the U.S. You will also hear from author Ka Vang about the significance and impact the book and performance have had on her.
Children of all ages are welcome! There is no cost to attend, but registration is required. Refreshments from a local Asian market will be served.
Chione [kiōn] is a Twin Cities-based woodwind quintet comprised of innovative and cross-disciplinary women. The unique and evolving medium provides an outlet to explore and create new sounds while redefining and rediscovering lesser-known music. Chione is committed to collaborating with professionals of all genres and creative outlets, with particular interests in commissioning new pieces and performing works by women artists. Throughout each endeavor, Chione aims to reach a wide range of audiences with the hopes of inspiring contemporary and aspiring artists as well as supporters of the arts.
Registration
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St. Paul - Minnesota Writers Series: After Effects: A Memoir of Complicated Grief
2022-09-29 18:00 - 20:00 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
The Minnesota Humanities Center welcomes the next author in our Minnesota Writers Series, Andrea Gilats, who will be reading from her book, “After Effects: A Memoir of Complicated Grief.” In addition to talking about her own experience with grief following the death of her husband, Gilats will also discuss how the process of writing helped with her own healing and understanding. Following the reading, the author will be joined by Dr. Ben Trappey, co-director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for the Art of Medicine (CFAM), for a discussion on complicated grief and the healing benefits of writing, both physical and emotional.
Registration
While this program is free and open to all with registration, part of the CFAM’s mission is to cultivate creativity, curiosity and empathy in physicians and physicians-in-training through the arts and humanities. Medical professionals in attendance will have the opportunity to discuss their own complicated relationships with grief, perhaps intensified during our pandemic-ravaged world of loss and isolation.
A reception with heavy appetizers will begin at 6 p.m., followed by the talk from 6:30-8 p.m.
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POSTPONED - Mankato - Poetry in the Parks
2022-10-01 10:00 - 16:00 | Blue Earth County Library, 100 East Main Street, Mankato, MN, 56001, United States
What does nature mean to you? Students in grades 5-8 are invited to join Minnesota’s Poet Laureate Gwen Westerman and fellow poet Michael Torres* for a daylong writing workshop at Minnesota State Parks. Alongside the poets, students will explore the beauty of nature and write their own poems. Students will receive instruction and encouragement to write in their home languages as well as English.
Each workshop will run from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. and has space for 20 students in grades 5 – 8 (academic year 2022-23). Pens and notebooks will be provided, and students will be given prompts in advance. Refreshments will include morning and afternoon snacks and lunch.
Bus transportation will be provided from Blue Earth County Library to Minneopa State Park.
*At select locations

POSTPONED - Austin - Poetry in the Parks
2022-10-15 10:00 - 16:00 | Austin Public Library, 323 4th Avenue Northeast, Austin, MN, 55912, United States
What does nature mean to you? Students in grades 5-8 are invited to join Minnesota’s Poet Laureate Gwen Westerman and fellow poet Michael Torres* for a daylong writing workshop at Minnesota State Parks. Alongside the poets, students will explore the beauty of nature and write their own poems. Students will receive instruction and encouragement to write in their home languages as well as English.
Each workshop will run from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. and has space for 20 students in grades 5 – 8 (academic year 2022-23). Pens and notebooks will be provided, and students will be given prompts in advance. Refreshments will include morning and afternoon snacks and lunch.
Bus transportation will be provided from Austin Public Library to Myre Big Island State Park.
*At select locations

St. Paul - Armed With Language: Film Talk
2022-10-20 18:00 - 20:00 | Plank Museum and Visitors Center at Historic Fort Snelling, 200 Tower Avenue, St. Paul, MN, 55111, United States
In the height of WWII, Historic Ft. Snelling was home to a little-known Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS). Thousands of Nisei men and women (second generation Japanese Americans) were trained as linguists and translators and played a crucial role in helping the U.S. to end the war. They served in the U.S. military despite the fact that tens of thousands of Americans of Japanese descent were being imprisoned in concentration camps for the supposed security risk they posed to the country.
Their story is shared in the 2021 TPT documentary, Armed With Language. Join producer Katie O’Rourke as she engages the film’s writer David Mura, and Karen Tanaka Lucas who is featured in the film, in a reflective conversation, a year on from its debut. Along with viewing some of the film footage, Katie, David and Karen will explore why this history has remained so hidden from public knowledge, their personal stories and connections with MISLS, and the complicated histories that intertwine at the site of Historic Ft. Snelling. The conversation will end with a Q&A session with audience members.
Hosted by Historic Ft. Snelling, in partnership with the Minnesota Historical Society, TPT Twin Cities, and the Twin Cities Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). This is a free event.
Registration
Doors of the Plank Museum and Visitors Center at Historic Fort Snelling will open at 5:15 p.m.; the event will begin at 6:00 p.m.in the Event Space on the second floor; audience members are invited to bring their curiosity and questions to share with the speakers.
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POSTPONED - Worthington - Poetry in the Parks
2022-10-29 10:00 - 16:00 | Nobles County Library, 407 12th Street, Worthington, MN, 56187, United States
Poetry in the Parks has been postponed. Please check back for updated offerings.
What does nature mean to you? Students in grades 5-8 are invited to join Minnesota’s Poet Laureate Gwen Westerman and fellow poet Michael Torres* for a daylong writing workshop at Minnesota State Parks. Alongside the poets, students will explore the beauty of nature and write their own poems. Students will receive instruction and encouragement to write in their home languages as well as English.
Each workshop will run from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. and has space for 20 students in grades 5 – 8 (academic year 2022-23). Pens and notebooks will be provided, and students will be given prompts in advance. Refreshments will include morning and afternoon snacks and lunch.
Bus transportation will be provided from Nobles County Library to Blue Mound State Park.
*At select locations

St. Paul - Objects of War: A Storytelling Circle
2022-11-05 10:30 - 12:30 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Join the Minnesota Humanities Center on Saturday, November 5 at 10:30 a.m. for a storytelling circle centered around “Objects of War.” Whether dog tags of a family member lost in service, a good luck charm kept by a soldier, or a family heirloom that traveled across the world by a refugee, objects can hold deep meaning for those who have been impacted by war.
Participants are invited to bring their own object to share that helps them tell the story of their own connection to war, whether direct or indirect. Moderated by a Veteran and a refugee, the conversation will examine why we hold on to certain material objects, and how they can help us better understand the human experience of war. Noted photographer Xavier Tavera will be on hand to photograph interested participants with their objects. Co-sponsored by the Minnesota Historical Society and the Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans.
Registration
Registration is required for this free event. Open to the public; lunch will be provided.
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St. Paul - Minnesota Writers Series: The Latitude of a Mercy
2022-12-10 14:00 - 16:00 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Poet Stefan Lovasik is the next featured author in our new Minnesota Writers Series. Lovasik, a Viet Nam combat veteran, has published three poetry collections. His most recent, The Latitude of a Mercy, was published by New York Quarterly Books. His work has appeared in national magazines such as American Literary Review, Consequence and New York Quarterly. He is a facilitator for Warrior Writers-Twin Cities and a staff editor for Pedestal Magazine. Lovasik’s work brings into striking focus the landscape of war; the lasting physical, moral and psychological consequences of it; and the resilience of the human spirit. He will discuss his latest collection, the power of writing as a tool for healing, and his work on his upcoming memoir. Introducing the poet and doing her own reading will be fellow Veteran Chante Wolfe, who is part of a Warriors Writers group with Lovasik.
Co-sponsored by Veterans For Peace.
Registration
This event is free, but registration is required.
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Online - Woman Life Freedom (3 part series)
2023-01-18 17:30 - 19:30, 2023-01-25 17:30 - 19:30, 2023-02-01 17:30 - 19:30 | Online
Illustration by Roshi Rouzbehani
*$30 is the fee for all three sessions. Participants must attend all three sessions.
This winter, MHC will be hosting a timely virtual course, Woman, Life, Freedom: The Iranian Women’s Revolution in Transnational Context, with Dr. Yalda Hamidi from Minnesota State University-Mankato. The Iranian Feminist Movement of the moment is the first female-led movement in the Middle East and the world, which received global support and transnational solidarities, and incited several national and regional feminist resistance movements in Afghanistan, Turkey, India, and more. Understanding this movement can change our knowledge of the “other women” and how we perceive them in America and will challenge how we locate our feminist demand here in Minnesota.
This virtual course will meet for three weeks, and participants will learn more about Iranian history and culture, women’s rights in Iran, and the current women’s revolution, using pre-assigned readings and primary resources to guide their discussions. Key speakers will also be involved in each session to contribute their perspectives and engage participants in conversation.
Yalda Hamidi (She/Her/Hers) is an Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at Minnesota State University Mankato and a member of the Ms. Committee of Scholars. She identifies as a teacher, mentor, storyteller, sister, and auntie. At MNSU Mankato, Yalda teaches transnational feminism, feminist pedagogy, and queer identities courses. In her research, she writes about the importance of politics of location for understanding the feminism/s of non-white and non-Western women. Yalda’s non-academic work strives to share the stories of Iranian women championing and fighting intersectional systems of oppression.
View Full Bio
Schedule:
January 18, 2023 – 5:30-7:30 p.m.
January 25, 2023 – 5:30-7:30 p.m.
February 1, 2023 – 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Registration
*$30 is the fee for all three sessions. If cost is a barrier, please contact Jessica Rust at jessica@mnhum.org.
Participants must attend all three sessions. Educators will receive 6 CEUs for this course. All are welcome to participate.
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org | MHC Cancellation Policy
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St. Paul - Minnesota Writers Series: The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself Book Launch
2023-02-08 19:00 - 20:30 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Join us in celebrating the release of David Mura’s new book, “The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself: Racial Myths and Our American Narratives”, released in January of 2023 by University of Minnesota Press. Following a reading of selections from the new book, Mura will be joined by best-selling author and President of Innocent Technologies Alexs Pate for a discussion on the issues of race, history and education. A book signing will follow the talk. Part of the Minnesota Writers Series. Co-sponsored by University of Minnesota Press.
About the book: From the country’s founding through the summer of Black Lives Matter in 2020, Mura’s new book unmasks how white stories about race attempt to erase the brutality of the past and underpin systemic racism in the present. Mura shows how deeply we need to change our racial narratives to dissolve the myth of Whiteness and fully acknowledge the experiences of Black Americans. Poet Douglas Kearney has said of Mura’s new book that it “offers what so many Americans claim they want: a rigorous education in perceiving themselves stripped of their dearest myths.”
About the author: David Mura is a poet, writer of creative nonfiction and fiction, critic, and playwright. He is author of “A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity, and Narrative Craft in Writing” and the memoirs “Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei” and “Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality, and Identity”. He is coeditor, with Carolyn Holbrook, of “We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World” (2021). He lives in Minneapolis.
Registration
This event is free, but registration is required.
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St. Paul - Remembering - A Black Writers' Retreat
2023-03-25 09:00 - 15:00 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Since the pandemic overwhelmed the world, we have become saddled with grief, fear, and disillusionment stirred up by continuous violence, strife, and misunderstanding. Everywhere we turn, we are striving to counter despair with joyous living. This retreat will center around remembering as an act of joy that provides opportunities for healing and recovery in ways that forgetting does not.
To make the writing process accessible and enjoyable, Pamela Fletcher Bush (writer, creative writing teacher, editor, CEO & Publisher of Saint Paul Almanac) and Ebony Aya (founder of the Aya Collective, a space that centers the expertise and experience of Black women, and program manager at the Jan Serie Center for Scholarship and Teaching at Macalester College) will lead workshop participants in guided writing exercises and discussion on a journey of Remembering.
Special Minnesota guest author Michael Kleber-Diggs will share how using one’s unique voice sets the writer and reader on a journey of discovery.
This full-day writing retreat is being offered by In Black Ink in collaboration with the Minnesota Humanities Center. It is open to all members of the Black community, writers at all levels and nonwriters alike. Registration is limited to 40 participants.
Continental breakfast and lunch are included. A journal will be provided.
Registration
You are welcome to register using promo code COMMUNITY to waive the fee if you wish.
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org | MHC Cancellation Policy
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St. Paul - Minnesota Writers Series: Wild Things
2023-03-31 19:00 - 21:00 | Minnesota Humanities Event Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Join us on Trans Day of Visibility for a conversation with author Lynette Reini-Grandell, author of “Wild Things: A Trans Glam Punk Rock Love Story,” in a deeply personal conversation with her trans spouse, Venus de Mars. The two will discuss the themes and stories in the book, which follows the two through the art, literary, and indie rock worlds of Minneapolis and New York in the 1990s and early 2000s as they learn, change, and grow together, navigating the transition, the communities they found, and the hostility they faced. Part of the Minnesota Writers Series. Sponsored by RECLAIM, whose mission is to increase access to mental health care so queer and trans youth may reclaim their lives from oppression in all its forms.
About the Author
Lynette Reini-Grandell is the author of “Wild Verge” (Holy Cow! Press, 2018), “Approaching the Gate” (Holy Cow! Press, 2014), and the forthcoming memoir, “Wild Things: A Trans Glam Punk Rock Love Story” (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023). Other work has appeared in Alligator Juniper, The Understanding between Foxes and Light, Poetry Motel, Revolver, Poetry City U.S.A., and Seminary Ridge Review, among others. She has been nominated for a Pushcart and received grants for her work from the Finlandia Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She performs with the Bosso Poetry Company and the jazz/poetry collective Sonoglyph. Her work is often inspired by Finnish folk culture and song, and she frequently collaborates with Nordic Roots artists in multimedia performances. She lives in Minneapolis on the ancestral homeland of the Dakota people.
Registration
If cost is a barrier, please contact Jessica Rust at jessica@mnhum.org before registering.
Registration Questions: registrations@mnhum.org | MHC Cancellation Policy
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