David Beard
David Abazs shares creative gardening strategies
David Abazs at the Mount Royal Branch of the Duluth Public Library.
David Abazs, executive director for the University of Minnesota Extension Northeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, shared some insights on gardening at the Mount Royal Branch of the Duluth Public Library on Monday. (more…)
Emily Gaarder appears on the SongWriter podcast
Duluth musician and scholar Emily Gaarder appears on the “Ali Selim + Carla Kihlstedt” episode of Song/Writer podcast released March 23. Gaarder is one of the visions behind local band The Rhizomes. (more…)
Just Me: A project to increase connection to nature and embolden bicycle use as transportation
My friend and former student Kevin Stanke recently shared his final project in the Master of Professional Studies program at the University of Minnesota Duluth. His work sets out to increase people’s connection to nature and to embolden bicycle use as a primary form of transportation. He’s given me permission to share it here. (more…)
Tolkien Reading Day 2026
I have just learned that the Tolkien Society sponsors an annual Tolkien Reading Day on March 25. The text below is a press release. Would anyone like to help plan a Duluth event for next year? (more…)
Former Duluthian Nik Nerburn exhibits at MIA
Still from Nik Nerburn’s “Going Out For Cigarettes.”
The Minneapolis Institute of Art has announced former Duluthian Nik Nerburn will have work on exhibit there March 21 to June 21. (more…)
At the RSDP meeting there was a lamb waiting to vote
The Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships program in the University of Minnesota is a model for university-community interactions, and I feel lucky to be a part of it. Our “statewide coordinating committee” meeting was held March 5, and the room was on fire. (more…)
Lisa Fitzpatrick recognized with environmental film award
Lisa Fitzpatrick creates a tiny tableau of the St. Louis River estuary in “River Creatures,” an artwork that is part of “The River Speaks” exhibit at Wussow’s Concert Cafe, organized by the St. Louis River Alliance. (Image via the St. Louis River Alliance’s Instagram page.
Duluth-based artist, animator and climate advocate Lisa Fitzpatrick was recognized with an Outstanding Environmental Film Award at the Short. Sweet. Film Fest., an event in Cleveland, Ohio that highlights short features. Her submission, Love Song for Earth, was part of the festival’s environmental program on March 4. (more…)
S.M. Garbers has published her first novel, Reaper of Resistance
Former Duluthian Samantha Garbers, writing as S.M. Garbers, has published her first novel. Reaper of Resistance was released on Jan. 16 and develops Garber’s passions as a writer, student and human being. (more…)
Harbor City named an ESEA Distinguished School
I’ve seen two (kind-of) stepchildren attend Harbor City. The school makes good things happen on a tiny budget. It is celebrating recognition as an ESEA Distinguished School. (more…)
Minnesota State Arts Board announces application deadlines
The Minnesota State Arts Board has posted application deadlines for all of the grant programs it will offer in the fiscal year 2027 grant cycle. Deadlines, decision dates, and grant periods can be found on the Arts Board calendar. (more…)
Sixteen thousand people read my little project?
I am proud to learn that a journal I have co-edited for the past decade has a new mechanism for reporting its readership. I have always known that this journal was important to me — I am ecstatic to learn that it might mean something to other people — 16,000 people downloaded articles just this year.
If you would like to be a writer or a reviewer for this journal, reach out. We are going places. (more…)
Former Duluthian Miles Spangrud releases debut novel
My friend and former Duluthian Miles Spangrud will see their debut novel released by Two Gun Publishing. Flesh and Bone: A Historical Western is interesting to me because Western feels like one of those genres that keeps happening no matter how far outside the field of my vision it is. Like Art Bell, maybe. Always there, and I only stumble into it once in a while, this time because the author was local. (more…)
Our Changing Relationship to Lake Superior, 1975-2025
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald. (Image via the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)
A new collection of works by Duluthians speaks to their changing relationship to Lake Superior. I am including the intro, which I wrote, below. For more, visit openrivers.lib.umn.edu. (more…)
Call for writing and artwork for ‘Going the Distance’
Duluth Publishing Project, in collaboration with the University of Minnesota Duluth and Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador, is compiling a collection of creative works — visual art, poems and nonfiction writing — on the theme of “Going the Distance.” Students enrolled in classes at the colleges will edit and create the final product. (more…)
When Duluth was Country
Duluth was once a Midwestern center for country-western music. I’m going to share some fragments of it, and I want readers to help me with three things: 1. Are any PDDers alive who remember these things? 2. Are they still rolling and just not on my radar? These come from a book I bought at Gabriel’s back in the day. (more…)
Save Our Signs: Grand Portage Monument and Voyageurs Park
My colleague is curating photos for the Save Our Signs project, and just heard Grand Portage National Monument and Voyageurs National Park have basically no signs recorded yet. (more…)
Author, artist and entrepreneur Richard Comely spoke at UMD
I’m tired.
I woke early on Wednesday to Zoom briefly with the Arrowhead Regional Development Commission on a an exciting upcoming project (this is a teaser sentence for a future post) and then to meet Richard Comely at Perk Place Coffeehouse. (more…)
Minnesota Poets — but who are the Duluthians?
I’ve been going through public library discards, looking for Duluth authors in the mix. (I teach a course in Minnesota authors that leans hard into Duluth authors.) (more…)
Duluth artist on view in Fergus Falls
I was in Fergus Falls at Kaddatz Galleries. There, nestled amongst the regional artists with increasingly national reputation, was an exhibition of student work. And nestled therein was a Duluthian, Reagan Cheshire. (more…)
A View from Montreal Pier: The R/V Blue Heron
Not long after I disembarked from the research vessel Blue Heron in June, it was announced that a new form of life had been discovered inside the propeller shaft. A life form, hidden inside the extreme environment of the engine, cold and dark — it feels like how the Venom movies started. It feels maybe a little Lovecraftian, maybe, this shapeless life form, in the black goo.
My colleagues laugh at me for thinking in such melodramatic terms. But really, ever since that ride, I just keep learning how cripplingly limited my understanding of Lake Superior, and of our relationship to it, really was. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it.
Finding the Blue Heron
The Blue Heron is docked in Superior on Montreal Pier, a research facility maintained by the University of Wisconsin-Superior. The site itself is a weird mishmash of history. The Montreal Pier, Quebec Pier and Allouez Bay are all a reminder of the deep affect French Jesuits and fur traders had on the Superior region.
By the early twentieth century, these piers were incredible sites of commerce. Superior was in competition with the Minneapolis area as the center of wheat and grain production, and several major companies built grain elevators and mills on the piers — Lake Superior Mills, Anchor, Listman, Cargill, and Belt Line. Most of these structures were destroyed in fires. (more…)
Rob Adams making new art in Florida
Rob Adams was most notable in Duluth for his art installation representing shipwrecks on the Great Lakes using Battleship game boards. Catch up with the former Duluthian in this radio interview about his new exhibit at Florida Mining Gallery in Jacksonville, Florida.
One more contribution to the literary history of Duluth
My students were busy over the past two years. Tales of Migration is the second of their book projects, a collection of migration tales that include submissions from the students, from Duluth, and from around the world.
I am looking for themes for the spring 2026 project. I am oscillating between calling for an anthology, like this, or for calling for chapbooks and short essays and comics that could be published by my students, chapbook style.
Not just excavating, but creating the literary history of Duluth
I post a lot about books found at the Duluth Public Library sale, or at the former Gabriel’s books, as part of the general project in my class to excavate the literary history of Duluth and to work with the UMD archives to preserve it. (more…)
North Country Cadence in the literary history of the Duluth
For some reason, the Duluth Public Library decided to deaccession some of its reference Minnesota collection. (more…)
Arrowhead Regional Arts Council 2025 Grant Recipients
The Arrowhead Regional Arts Council has announced its most recent grant recipients. (more…)