Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor (born August 7, 1942) is an American
authorAn author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
,
storytellerStorytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
, humorist, and
radio personalityA radio personality is a person with an on-air position in radio broadcasting. A radio personality can be someone who introduces and discusses various genres of music, hosts a talk radio show that may take calls from listeners, or someone whose primary responsibility is to give news, weather,...
. He is known as host of the
Minnesota Public RadioMinnesota Public Radio , is the flagship National Public Radio member network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, Classical Music and The Current, MPR operates a 42-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest serving over 8 million people...
show
A Prairie Home CompanionA Prairie Home Companion is a live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor. The show runs on Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m. Central Time, and usually originates from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, although it is frequently taken on the road...
(also known as
Garrison Keillor's Radio Show on
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's BBC Radio 4 Extra, as well as on
RTÉRTÉ is the abbreviation for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the public broadcasting service of the Republic of Ireland.RTE may also refer to:* Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey...
in
IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
,
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
's
ABCThe Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
, and Radio New Zealand National in
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
).
Personal life
Keillor was born in
Anoka, MinnesotaAt the 2000 census, there were 18,076 people, 7,262 households and 4,408 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,709.0 per square mile . There were 7,398 housing units at an average density of 1,108.7 per square mile...
, the son of Grace Ruth (
néeA married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Denham) and John Philip Keillor, who was a carpenter and postal worker. The family belonged to the
Plymouth BrethrenThe Plymouth Brethren is a conservative, Evangelical Christian movement, whose history can be traced to Dublin, Ireland, in the late 1820s. Although the group is notable for not taking any official "church name" to itself, and not having an official clergy or liturgy, the title "The Brethren," is...
, a
fundamentalist ChristianChristian fundamentalism, also known as Fundamentalist Christianity, or Fundamentalism, arose out of British and American Protestantism in the late 19th century and early 20th century among evangelical Christians...
denomination Keillor has since left. He is six feet, three inches (1.9 m) tall and has Scots and
NorwegianNorwegians constitute both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegian people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in United States, Canada and Brazil.-History:Towards the end of the 3rd...
ancestry. Keillor is a member of the
Democratic-Farmer-Labor PartyThe Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party is a major political party in the state of Minnesota and the state affiliate of the Democratic Party. It was created on April 15, 1944, with the merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Farmer–Labor Party...
. In 2006 he told
Christianity TodayChristianity Today is an Evangelical Christian periodical based in Carol Stream, Illinois. It is the flagship publication of its parent company Christianity Today International, claiming circulation figures of 140,000 and readership of 290,000...
that he was attending the Episcopal church in
Saint PaulSaint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
, after previously attending a Lutheran church in New York. He graduated from the
University of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
with a
bachelor's degreeA bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in English in 1966. While there, he began his broadcasting career on the student-operated radio station known today as Radio K.
Keillor has been married three times:
- To Mary Guntzel, from 1965 to 1976. The couple has one son, Jason, born in 1969.
- To Ulla Skaerved (a former exchange student from Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
at Keillor's high school whom he famously re-encountered at a class reunion), from 1985 to 1990.
- To violinist Jenny Lind Nilsson (b. 1957), who is from his hometown of Anoka, since 1995. They have one daughter, Maia Grace Keillor, born December 29, 1997.
Between his first and second marriages, he was also romantically involved with Margaret Moos, who worked as a producer of
A Prairie Home Companion.
The Keillors maintain homes on the
Upper West SideThe Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...
of
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and in
Saint Paul, MinnesotaSaint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
.
One of his brothers, the historian
Steven KeillorSteven James Keillor is a Minnesota historian and author. He has a Ph.D in American History from the University of Minnesota and is an adjunct professor at Bethel University in Arden Hills, Minnesota. He is the brother of Garrison Keillor and lives in Askov, Minnesota.- Bibliography :- External...
, is also an author.
On September 7, 2009, Keillor was briefly hospitalized after suffering a minor stroke.
Ancestors
In his book
Homegrown Democrat (2004), Keillor mentions some of his noteworthy ancestors, including Joseph Crandall, who was an associate of
Roger WilliamsRoger Williams was an English Protestant theologian who was an early proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state. In 1636, he began the colony of Providence Plantation, which provided a refuge for religious minorities. Williams started the first Baptist church in America,...
(who founded the first American
BaptistBaptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
church as well as
Rhode IslandThe state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
); and
Prudence CrandallPrudence Crandall , a schoolteacher raised as a Quaker, stirred controversy with her education of African-American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut...
, who founded the first African-American women's school in America.
Career
Radio
Garrison Keillor started his professional radio career in November 1969 with Minnesota Educational Radio (MER), now
Minnesota Public RadioMinnesota Public Radio , is the flagship National Public Radio member network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, Classical Music and The Current, MPR operates a 42-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest serving over 8 million people...
(MPR) and distributing programs under the
American Public MediaAmerican Public Media is the second largest producer of public radio programs in the United States of America after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and operates radio stations in Minnesota, California, and Florida. Its station brands are Minnesota Public Radio,...
(APM) brand. He hosted
The Morning Program in the weekday drive time slot of 6 to 9 a.m. on KSJR 90.1 FM at
St. John's UniversityThe College of Saint Benedict , for women, and Saint John's University , for men, are partnered liberal arts colleges respectively located in St. Joseph and Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Students attend classes and activities together, and have access to the resources of both campuses...
in Collegeville, which the station called "A Prairie Home Entertainment." The show's eclectic music was a major divergence from the station's usual
classicalClassical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
fare. During this time he also began submitting fiction to
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, where his first story, "Local Family Keeps Son Happy," appeared on September 19, 1970.
Keillor resigned from
The Morning Program in February 1971 to protest what he considered an attempt to interfere with his musical programming. The show became
A Prairie Home Companion when he returned in October.
Keillor has attributed the idea for the live Saturday night radio program to his 1973 assignment to write about the
Grand Ole OpryThe Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, that has presented the biggest stars of that genre since 1925. It is also among the longest-running broadcasts in history since its beginnings as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM-AM...
for
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, but he had already begun showcasing local musicians on the morning show, despite limited studio space for them, and in August 1973
The Minneapolis Tribune reported MER's plans for a Saturday night version of
A Prairie Home CompanionA Prairie Home Companion is a live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor. The show runs on Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m. Central Time, and usually originates from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, although it is frequently taken on the road...
with live musicians.
A Prairie Home CompanionA Prairie Home Companion is a live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor. The show runs on Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m. Central Time, and usually originates from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, although it is frequently taken on the road...
debuted as an old-style variety show before a live audience on July 6, 1974, featuring guest musicians and a cadre cast doing musical numbers and comic skits replete with elaborate live sound effects. The show was punctuated by spoof commercial spots from such fictitious sponsors as Jack's Auto Repair ("All tracks lead to Jack's where the bright shining lights show you the way to complete satisfaction") and Powdermilk Biscuits, which "give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done." Later imaginary sponsors have included Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery ("If you can't find it at Ralph's, you can probably get along without it"), Bertha's Kitty Boutique, the Ketchup Advisory Board (which touted "the natural mellowing agents of ketchup"), the American Duct Tape Council, and Bebop-A-Reebop Rhubarb Pie ("sweetening the sour taste of failure through the generations"). The show also contains parodic serial melodramas, such as
The Adventures of Guy NoirGuy Noir is a fictional private detective regularly featured on the public radio show A Prairie Home Companion. Played by Garrison Keillor, the character parodies the conventions of the pulp fiction novel and the film noir genre. Guy Noir works on the twelfth floor of the Acme Building in a city...
, Private Eye and
The Lives of the Cowboys. After the show's intermission, Keillor reads clever and often humorous greetings to friends and family at home submitted by members of the theater audience in exchange for an honorarium.
Also in the second half of the show, the broadcasts showcase a weekly monologue by Keillor entitled
The News from Lake Wobegon. The town is based in part on Keillor's own hometown of Anoka, Minnesota, and in part on
FreeportFreeport is a city in Stearns County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 632 at the 2010 census. It is part of the St. Cloud Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Freeport is located in Oak Township, T125N R32W §3...
and other towns in
Stearns CountyAs of the census of 2000, there were 133,166 people, 47,604 households, and 32,132 families residing in the county. The population density was 99 people per square mile . There were 50,291 housing units at an average density of 37 per square mile...
, where he lived in the early 1970s.
Lake WobegonLake Wobegon is a fictional town in the U.S. state of Minnesota, said to have been the boyhood home of Garrison Keillor, who reports the News from Lake Wobegon on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion....
is a quintessential but fictional Minnesotan small town "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."
A Prairie Home Companion ran until 1987, when Keillor decided to end it; he worked on other projects, including another live radio program, "The American Radio Company of the Air" — which had almost the same format as
A Prairie Home Companions — for several years. In 1993 he began producing A Prairie Home Companion
again, in a format nearly identical to the original's, and has done so since. On A Prairie Home CompanionA Prairie Home Companion is a live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor. The show runs on Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m. Central Time, and usually originates from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, although it is frequently taken on the road...
,
Keillor receives no billing or credit (except "written by Sarah BellumThe cerebellum is a region of the brain that plays an important role in motor control. It may also be involved in some cognitive functions such as attention and language, and in regulating fear and pleasure responses, but its movement-related functions are the most solidly established...
," a joking reference to his own brain); his name is not mentioned unless a guest addresses him by his first name or the initials "G. K.," though some sketches feature Keillor as his alter ego, Carson Wyler.
A Prairie Home Companion regularly goes on the road and is broadcast live from popular venues around the United States, often featuring local celebrities and skits incorporating local color. Keillor also sometimes gives broadcast performances of a similar nature that do not carry the "Prairie Home Companion" brand, as in his 2008 appearance at the
Oregon Bach FestivalThe Oregon Bach Festival is an annual celebration of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and his musical legacy, held in Eugene, Oregon, United States, in late June and early July. The artistic director is German organist and conductor Helmuth Rilling and the Executive Director is John Evans,...
. In March 2011, Keillor announced that he would be retiring from "A Prairie Home Companion" in 2013.
Keillor is also the host of
The Writer's AlmanacThe Writer's Almanac is a daily radio and on-line program and podcast of poetry and historical interest pieces, usually of literary significance. It is hosted by Garrison Keillor and is produced and distributed by American Public Media...
which, like A Prairie Home Companion,
is produced and distributed by American Public MediaAmerican Public Media is the second largest producer of public radio programs in the United States of America after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and operates radio stations in Minnesota, California, and Florida. Its station brands are Minnesota Public Radio,...
. The Writer's Almanac
is also available online and via daily e-mail installments by subscription.
Writing
Keillor has written numerous magazine and newspaper articles and more than a dozen books for adults as well as children. In addition to writing for The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
,
he has written for The Atlantic MonthlyThe Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
and Salon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
.
He also authored an advice column at Salon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
under the name "Mr. Blue." Following a heart operation, he resigned on September 4, 2001, his last column being titled "Every dog has his day":
Illness offers the chance to think long thoughts about the future (praying that we yet have one, dear God), and so I have, and so this is the last column of Mr. Blue, under my authorship, for Salon. Over the years, Mr. Blue's strongest advice has come down on the side of freedom in our personal lives, freedom from crushing obligation and overwork and family expectations and the freedom to walk our own walk and be who we are. And some of the best letters have been addressed to younger readers trapped in jobs like steel suits, advising them to bust loose and go off and have an adventure. Some of the advisees have written back to inform Mr. Blue that the advice was taken and that the adventure changed their lives. This was gratifying.
So now I am simply taking my own advice. Cut back on obligations: Promote a certain elegant looseness in life. Simple as that. Winter and spring, I almost capsized from work, and in the summer I had a week in St. Mary's HospitalSaint Marys Hospital is one of two hospitals in Rochester, Minnesota operated by the Mayo Clinic, the other being Rochester Methodist Hospital. St Marys has a 61-bed emergency department but no obstetrics department, while Rochester Methodist lacks an emergency department but contains an obstetrics...
to sit and think, and that's the result. Every dog has his day and I've had mine and given whatever advice was mine to give (and a little more). It was exhilarating to get the chance to be useful, which is always an issue for a writer (What good does fiction do?), and Mr. Blue was a way to be useful. Nothing human is beneath a writer's attention; the basic questions about how to attract a lover and what to do with one once you get one and how to deal with disappointment in marriage are the stuff that fiction is made from, so why not try to speak directly? And so I did. And now it's time to move on.
In 2004 Keillor published a collection of political essays, Homegrown Democrat,
and in June 2005 he began a column called "The Old Scout", which ran at Salon.com and in syndicatedPrint syndication distributes news articles, columns, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. They offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content of which they own/represent copyrights....
newspapers. The column went on hiatus in April 2010 "so that he [could] finish a screenplay and start writing a novel".
Keillor wrote the screenplay for the 2006 movie A Prairie Home CompanionA Prairie Home Companion is a 2006 ensemble comedy elegy directed by Robert Altman, and was his final film, released just five months before his death...
, directed by
Robert AltmanRobert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
. (Keillor also appears in the movie.)
Bookselling
On November 1, 2006, Keillor opened an
independent bookstoreAn independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned.-Literary and countercultural history:Author events at independent bookstores sometimes take the role of literary salons. The bookstores themselves, "have historically supported and cultivated the work of independent...
in the historic Cathedral Hill area of
Saint Paul, MinnesotaSaint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
. "Common Good Books, G. Keillor, Prop." is located at the southwest corner of Selby and N. Western Avenues (in the
Blair Arcade BuildingBlair Flats, also known as the Blair Arcade Building, is a Victorian residential building designed by Hermann Kretz and William H. Thomas in 1887; it is located in Saint Paul, Minnesota in the Historic Hill District; construction materials are sandstone-and-brick; it has been used as apartments,...
, Suite 14, in the basement, below Nina's Coffee Cafe). Cathedral Hill is in the Summit-University neighborhood. The bookstore's opening was covered by the
St. Paul Pioneer PressThe St. Paul Pioneer Press is a newspaper based in St. Paul, Minnesota, primarily serving the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Circulation is heaviest in the eastern metro region, including Ramsey, Dakota, and Washington counties, along with western Wisconsin, eastern Minnesota and Anoka County,...
.
Voiceover work
Probably owing in part to his distinctive North CentralNorth–Central American English is used to refer to a dialect of American English. The region is also known as Upper Midwest among some linguists. It is also sometimes called the Minnesota Accent or Great Lakes Accent. It is widely spoken in the Upper Midwest and the northern portion of the...
accent, Keillor is often used as a voiceoverVoiceOver is a screen reader built into Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, iOS and iPod operating systems. By using VoiceOver, the user can access their Macintosh or iOS device based on spoken descriptions and, in the case of the Mac, the keyboard. The feature is designed to increase accessibility for blind...
actor. Some notable appearances include:
- Voiceover artist for Honda UK's "the Power of Dreams" campaign. The campaign's most memorable advertisement is the 2003 Honda Accord
The Honda Accord is a series of compact, mid-size and full-size automobiles manufactured by Honda since 1976, and sold in a majority of automotive markets throughout the world....
commercial
Cog"Cog" is a British television and cinema advertisement launched by Honda in 2003 to promote the seventh-generation Accord line of cars. It follows a chain of colliding parts taken from a disassembled Accord. Wieden+Kennedy developed a GB£6 million marketing campaign around "Cog" and its...
, which features a
Heath RobinsonWilliam Heath Robinson was an English cartoonist and illustrator, best known for drawings of eccentric machines....
contraption (
Rube Goldberg MachineA Rube Goldberg machine, contraption, device, or apparatus is a deliberately over-engineered or overdone machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction...
for those in the USA) made entirely of car parts. The commercial ends with Keillor asking, "Isn't it nice when things just work?" Since then, Keillor has voiced the tagline for most if not all UK Honda advertisements, and even sang the voiceover in the 2004 Honda Diesel commercial "
GrrrGrrr is a 2004 advertising campaign launched by Honda to promote its newly launched i-CTDi diesel engines in the United Kingdom. The campaign, which centred around a 90-second television and cinema advert, also comprised newspaper and magazine advertisements, radio commercials, free distributed...
". His most recent ad was a reworking of an existing commercial with digitally added England flags to tie in with the
World CupThe 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which won the right to host the event in July 2000. Teams representing 198 national football associations from all six...
. Keillor's tagline was "Come on, England, keep the dream alive."
Voice of the Norse god OdinOdin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
in an episode of the Disney animated series HerculesHercules is an animated series based on the 1997 film of the same name and the Greek myth. The series follows teenage Hercules training as a hero as well as trying to adjust to life. With his free-spirited friend Icarus, his future-seeing friend Cassandra and his teacher Philoctetes , he battles...
.
Voice of Walt WhitmanWalter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
and other historical figures in Ken BurnsKenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs...
's documentary series The Civil War and Baseball.
Controversies
In 2005, Keillor's attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter to MNSPeak.com regarding their production of a T-shirt bearing the inscription "A Prairie Ho Companion."
In 2006, after a visit to a
United Methodist ChurchThe United Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination which is both mainline Protestant and evangelical. Founded in 1968 by the union of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, the UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley...
in
Highland Park, TexasHighland Park is a town in central Dallas County, Texas, United States. The population was 8,842 at the 2000 census. Located between the Dallas North Tollway and U.S. Route 75 , four miles north of downtown Dallas....
, Keillor created a local controversy with his remarks about the event, including the rhetorical suggestion of a connection between event participants and supporters of torture and a statement creating an impression of political intimidation: "I walked in, was met by two burly security men ... and within 10 minutes was told by three people that this was the Bushes' church and that it would be better if I didn't talk about politics." The security detail is purportedly routine for the venue, and according to participants, Keillor did not interact with any audience members between his arrival and his lecture. Supposedly, before Keillor's remarks, participants in the event had considered the visit to have been cordial and warm.
In 2007, Keillor wrote a column that in part criticized "stereotypical" gay parents, who he said were "sardonic fellows with fussy hair who live in over-decorated apartments with a striped sofa and a small weird dog and who worship campy performers." In response to the strong reactions of many readers, Keillor said
I live in a small world -- the world of entertainment, musicians, writers -- in which gayness is as common as having brown eyes .... And in that small world, we talk openly and we kid each other a lot. But in the larger world, gayness is controversial ... and so gay people feel besieged to some degree and rightly so .... My column spoke as we would speak in my small world, and it was read by people in the larger world and thus the misunderstanding. And for that, I am sorry. Gay people who set out to be parents can be just as good parents as anybody else, and they know that, and so do I.
In 2008, Keillor created a controversy in St. Paul when he filed a lawsuit against his neighbors' plans to build an addition on their home, citing his need for "light and air" and a view of "open space and beyond". Keillor's home is significantly larger than others in his neighborhood and would still be significantly larger than his neighbors' with its planned addition. Keillor came to an undisclosed settlement with his neighbors shortly after the story became public.
In popular culture
His style, particularly his speaking voice, is often the subject of
parodyA parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
.
The SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
parodied Keillor in
an episode"Marge on the Lam" is the sixth episode of The Simpsons fifth season, which originally aired on November 4, 1993 on Fox. When Marge invites her neighbor, Ruth Powers to attend the ballet with her, the two become friends and begin to go out, making Homer jealous as he wants Marge to spend time with...
in which Homer is shown watching a Keillor-like monologist on television; Homer hit the set exclaiming "Stupid TV! Be more funny!".
One Boston radio critic likens Keillor and his "down comforter voice" to "a hypnotist intoning, 'You are getting sleepy now'," while noting that Keillor does play to listeners' intelligence. Keillor rarely reads his monologue from a script.
One of the audio bumpers that begin each hour of
Dennis MillerDennis Miller is an American stand-up comedian, political commentator, actor, sports commentator, and television and radio personality. He is known for his critical assessments laced with pop culture references...
's radio talk show features a short clip of Keillor introducing a broadcast of APHC
, followed immediately by snoring.
In the bonus DVD material for the album Venue SongsVenue Songs is a 2004 album by the group They Might Be Giants. Although technically it is a live album, as all the tracks were performed live, it is different than a standard live album in that, instead of live versions of the band's popular songs, it is composed of all new songs...
by band
They Might Be GiantsThey Might Be Giants is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years Flansburgh and Linnell were frequently accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG became a full band. Currently, the members of TMBG are...
,
John HodgmanJohn Kellogg Hodgman is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All, he is known for his personification of a PC in contrast to Justin Long's personification of a Mac in...
delivers a fictitious newscast in which he explains that "The Artist Formerly Known as Public Radio Host Garrison Keillor" and his "legacy of Midwestern pledge-drive funk" inspired the band's first "venue song."
Pennsylvanian singer-songwriter
Tom FlanneryTom Flannery is an American singer-songwriter and playwright from Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States. Allmusic has called him "one of the most gifted songwriters to emerge at the turn of the century." After three critically acclaimed albums he...
wrote a song in 2003 entitled "I Want a Job Like Garrison Keillor's."
The
Homestar RunnerHomestar Runner is a Flash animated Internet cartoon. It mixes surreal humor with references to retro pop culture, notably video games, classic television, and popular music.The cartoons are nominally centered on the title character, Homestar Runner...
cartoon "Date Nite" features an Easter egg found by clicking on the period in "end." at the end of the cartoon. In it, a Public Radio wrestling event is advertised in which Keillor "...wrestles his own soothing voice in a steel cage."
Awards and other recognition
- Keillor received a Medal for Spoken Language from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1990.
- In 1994, Keillor was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.
- He received a National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to important resources in the humanities.The award, given by the...
from the National Endowment for the HumanitiesThe National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
in 1999.
- "Welcome to Minnesota" markers in interstate rest areas near the state's borders include statements such as "Like its neighbors, the thirty-second state grew as a collection of small farm communities, many settled by immigrants from Scandinavia and Germany. Two of the nation's favorite fictional small towns -- Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
's Gopher Prairie- Plot summary :Carol Milford is a liberal, free-spirited young woman, reared in the metropolis of Saint Paul, Minnesota. She marries Will Kennicott, a doctor, who is a small-town boy at heart....
and Garrison Keillor's Lake WobegonLake Wobegon is a fictional town in the U.S. state of Minnesota, said to have been the boyhood home of Garrison Keillor, who reports the News from Lake Wobegon on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion....
-- reflect that heritage."
- In 2007, The Moth, a NYC-based not-for-profit storytelling organization, awarded Garrison Keillor the first The Moth Award - Honoring the Art of the Raconteur at the annual Moth Ball.
- In September 2007, Keillor was awarded the 2007 John Steinbeck Award
The John Steinbeck Award, 'In The Souls of the People', is an annual award given to an individual that has contributed to society in the spirit of John Steinbeck...
, given to artists who capture "the spirit of Steinbeck's empathy, commitment to democratic values, and belief in the dignity of the common man."
- Keillor received a Grammy Award in 1988 for his recording of Lake Wobegon Days
Lake Wobegon Days is a novel by Garrison Keillor, first published in hardcover by Viking in 1985. Based on material from his radio show A Prairie Home Companion, the book brought Keillor's work to a much wider audience and achieved international success...
.
- He has also received two CableACE Award
The CableACE Award was an award that was given from 1978 to 1997 to honor excellence in American cable television programming...
s and a George Foster Peabody AwardThe George Foster Peabody Awards recognize distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organizations and individuals. In 1939, the National Association of Broadcasters formed a committee to recognize outstanding achievement in radio broadcasting...
.
Lake Wobegon
- Lake Wobegon Days
Lake Wobegon Days is a novel by Garrison Keillor, first published in hardcover by Viking in 1985. Based on material from his radio show A Prairie Home Companion, the book brought Keillor's work to a much wider audience and achieved international success...
(1985The year 1985 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire*Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale*Jean M. Auel - The Mammoth Hunters*Iain Banks - Walking on Glass...
), ISBN 0-14-013161-2; a recorded version of this won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Non-musical Album in 1988The 30th Grammy Awards were held March 2, 1988. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year.- Award winners :*Record of the Year**Paul Simon for "Graceland"*Album of the Year...
- Leaving Home
Leaving Home: A Collection of Lake Wobegon Stories is a short story collection written by Garrison Keillor, a humorous fictional account of life in small-town Minnesota set in the fictitious heartland town of Lake Wobegon. It was first published in hardcover by Viking Penguin, Inc...
(1987The year 1987 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tom Wolfe was paid $5 million for the film rights to his novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the most ever earned by an author, at the time.-Fiction:...
; collection of Lake Wobegon stories), ISBN 0-670-81976-X
- We Are Still Married (1989
The year 1989 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 24 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a US$3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.-Literature:...
; collection including some Lake Wobegon stories), ISBN 0-670-82647-2
- Wobegon Boy (1997
The year 1997 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tom Clancy signs a book deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. , giving him US$50 million for the world-English rights to two new books . A second agreement gives him another US$25 million for a...
), ISBN 0-670-87807-3
- Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 (2001
The year 2001 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The film version of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic book, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, is released to movie theaters...
), ISBN 0-571-21014-7
- In Search of Lake Wobegon (Photographs by Richard Olsenius, 2001), ISBN 0-670-03057-6
- Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon
Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon is a novel by Garrison Keillor, a humorous fictional account of life in the fictitious heartland town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. It was first published in hardcover by Viking Press in September 2007....
(2007The year 2007 in literature involves some significant new books.-Events:*November 19 - First Kindle e-book reader released.*December 11 - Terry Pratchett informs fans on-line that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.-Literature:...
), ISBN 0-670-06356-8
- Liberty: A Novel of Lake Wobegon (2008
The year 2008 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 1 - In the 2008 New Year Honours, Hanif Kureishi , Jenny Uglow , Peter Vansittart and Debjani Chatterjee are all rewarded for "services to literature".*June 15 - Gore Vidal, asked in a New York Times...
), ISBN 0-670-01991-7
- Life among the Lutherans (2009
The year 2009 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*8 October - Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller wins the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature....
), ISBN 978-0-8066-7061-4
- Pilgrims: A Wobegon Romance (2009
The year 2009 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*8 October - Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller wins the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature....
), ISBN 978-0-670-02109-3
Other
- Happy to Be Here
Happy to Be Here is a collection of short stories by Garrison Keillor, first published in hardcover by Viking in 1981. It is Keillor's first attempt at publishing a full-length book. Many of the stories first appeared in magazines Keillor wrote for between 1969 and 1981.The work focuses mainly on...
(1981The year 1981 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction given for the first time...
), ISBN 0-06-811201-7
- WLT: A Radio Romance
WLT: A Radio Romance is a 1991 novel by Garrison Keillor, about people associated with a fictional Minneapolis radio station called WLT. The events of the book span from the early years of radio broadcasting until the early years of television....
, (1991The year 1991 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Douglas Coupland publishes the novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularizing the term Generation X as the name of the generation....
), ISBN 0-670-81857-7
- A Visit to Mark Twain's House audio (1992), ISBN 0-942110-82-X
- The Book of Guys (1993
The year 1993 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Professor Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, becomes the longest running book on the bestseller list of The Sunday Times....
), ISBN 0-670-84943-X
- The Sandy Bottom Orchestra (with Jenny Lind Nilsson, 1996), ISBN 0-7868-1250-8
- Me, by Jimmy "Big Boy" Valente (1999
The year 1999 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*June 19 - Stephen King is hit by a Dodge van while taking a walk. He spends the next three weeks hospitalized...
), ISBN 0-670-88796-X
- Good Poems (2002
The year 2002 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*March 16: Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrested and jailed poet Abdul Mohsen Musalam and fired a newspaper editor following the publication of Musalam's poem The Corrupt on Earth that criticized the state's Islamic...
), ISBN 0-670-03126-7
- Love Me (2003
The year 2003 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Peter Ackroyd - The Clerkenwell Tales*Atsuko Asano - No...
), ISBN 0-670-03246-8
- Homegrown Democrat (2004
The year 2004 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Canada Reads selects Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Last Crossing to be read across the nation....
), ISBN 0-670-03365-0
- Good Poems for Hard Times (2005
The year 2005 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*February 25 - Canada Reads selects Rockbound by Frank Parker Day as the novel to be read across the nation....
), ISBN 0-670-03436-3
- 77 Love Sonnets (2009), ISBN 0-14-311527-8
- A Christmas Blizzard (2009), ISBN 978-0-670-02136-9
- Good Poems, American Places (2011), ISBN 0-670-02254-3
Contributions to The New Yorker
| Title |
Department |
Volume/Part |
Date |
Page(s) |
Subject(s) |
| Notes and Comment |
The Talk of the Town |
60/47 |
7 January 1985 |
17-18 |
A friend's visit to San Francisco and Stinson Beach, CaliforniaStinson Beach is a census-designated place in Marin County, California, on the west coast of the United States. Stinson Beach is located east-southeast of Bolinas, at an elevation of 26 feet . The population of the Stinson Beach CDP was 632 at the 2010 census.Stinson Beach is about a 35-minute...
. |
External links
- A Prairie Home Companion radio website Garrison Keillor's public radio show
- A Prairie Home Companion movie website The movie written by Garrison Keillor and directed by Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
- Minnesota Zen Master - a detailed profile of Garrison Keillor, published in The Guardian, March 6, 2004.
- Kingdom of the Frown - A feature article from The Reykjavík Grapevine on Garrison Keillor
- At Home With Garrison Keillor: Where All the Rooms Are Above Average New York Times June 1, 2006
- Garrison Keillor Charlie Rose
Charlie Rose is an American television interview show, with Charlie Rose as executive producer, executive editor, and host. The show is syndicated...
interviews
- Garrison Keillor at City Arts & Lecture on Fora.tv
- An interview with Garrison Keillor (www.everydayyeah.com)
- Garrison Keillor - The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes PBS American Masters
- Speech by Keillor at Concordia University February 15, 2011