The Good Thunder Reading Series: 1981-present

The Good Thunder Reading Series began as Mankato State University’s contribution to a set of informal exchanges between faculty writers at several state universities in Minnesota. Since 1983, however, the series has committed itself to programs that balance emerging and established talent drawn from Minnesota, the Upper Midwest, and the rest of the nation. A standard schedule involves seven one-day residencies spread out over the academic year. One writer will be featured during the Robert C. Wright Minnesota Writers Residency in fall. Another writer will come for an expanded four-day schedule that includes the customary conferences with area writers, public-radio interview, craft talk, and reading—as well as a four-day writing workshop. Minnesota writers who have come in past years include Tim O’Brien, Judith Guest, Kate Green, Bill Holm, Jonis Agee, Will Weaver, Gary Paulsen, and Jon Hassler. Visitors from elsewhere include Donald Hall, Joy Williams, Louise Erdrich, James Welch, Roberta Hill Whiteman, William Kittredge, William Stafford, Carolyn Forché, and Rick DeMarinis.

With all events open to the public, the audience for the series includes a sizable student/faculty group and a like-sized group of at-large community members from Mankato and outlying rural areas in southcentral Minnesota. Given MSU’s distance from the Twin Cities metropolitan area, the Good Thunder Reading Series serves the important function of bringing vital and exciting voices to a region that otherwise has difficult access to the arts. In recent years, live-audience totals have approached 2000 per year—an impressive figure in its own right. The public response to the series is even more impressive when the estimated 90,000 radio listeners are added to the total.

While these activities operate on a continuing budget from Minnesota State University’s College of Arts and Humanities, and often with additional support from other MSU sources, the program has gotten further help in the past from the Minnesota Humanities Commission, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Poets & Writers, Inc.

[September 2006]

This year's Good Thunder Reading Series is funded by the Minnesota State University Department of English, the College of Arts and Humanities, the Office of Institutional Diversity, the Eddice B. Barber Visiting Writer Endowment, the Robert C. Wright Endowment, and individual donors. This activity is made possible in part by a grant provided by the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council from funds appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature and the McKnight Foundation. This activity is also made possible in part by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. MSU Library Services and Barnes & Noble Bookstore at Minnesota State offer additional support.