Above: Garrison Keillor, now 83, continues to be as prolific as ever. Photo courtesy of The Grand.
By Mary Ellen Mitchel
Garrison Keillor was born and raised in the small town of Anoka, Minnesota. His career began during his freshman year at the University of Minnesota, where he hosted a show for a student-run radio station to help pay for his education. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1966.
Keillor joined Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) in 1969 as a morning show host. He went on to create and host the popular Saturday evening weekly variety show A Prairie Home Companion in 1974 for MPR. The show was a blend of music, comedy and his signature storytelling.
Broadcast from the stage of St. Paul’s Fitzgerald Theater, it featured “The News from Lake Wobegon,” tales of small-town life in the Midwest, told with Keillor’s wry humor and nostalgic flair. The show earned a nationwide following on public radio for more than four decades.
Beyond his accomplishments in radio, Keillor wrote for The New Yorker for more than 20 years, contributing essays and short stories, many of which were later adapted for his show and collected in his books, including Happy to Be Here and We Are Still Married.
He is an accomplished author of dozens more great reads, including Cheerfulness, Lake Wobegon Days, That Time of Year, and The Keillor Reader, to name a few. His most recent work, Brisk Verse, features witty, philosophical and observational poems, limericks and insights on aging.
Keillor has earned Grammy, ACE, and George Foster Peabody awards, the National Humanities Medal, and a place in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Today he reaches listeners and readers through Garrison Keillor and Friends on the Substack app. His Writer’s Almanac offers daily facts and figures for the literary-minded, concluding with a relevant poem. He publishes a biweekly column and produces and hosts Garrison Keillor’s Podcast, which is also available on iHeart, Apple, and Spotify.
O&A spoke with Keillor last month to gain his insights on a variety of topics. Editor’s Note: Keillor uses contractions sparingly in his everyday speech.
O&A: How did your upbringing in the rural Midwest influence your gift for creative storytelling?
Keillor: I don’t have a gift, but I did have about 20 aunts. Is that a form of wealth? My Aunt Ruth was the best storyteller, but Eleanor, Elizabeth, Elsie, Margaret, Franny — they all told great stories. For some reason the men did not. The men were rather taciturn, and they walked very delicately when it came to the past. They claimed they couldn’t remember their childhood, but I knew this wasn’t true. The aunts remembered — and they loved to talk about family history.
As a little kid, I would lie on the floor and listen to them talk about our ancestors. We were aware of Elder John Crandall, who came to Boston in 1647 and was arrested for preaching on the city streets, because he was a Baptist. So he went to Rhode Island, and there, he was caught. The grandfather who came over from Glasgow, Scotland, because his stepmother was so censorious about the fact that he got his girlfriend pregnant? He came to America to escape the scandal.
My grandfather from Canada came from Nova Scotia to Minnesota to help out his sister, whose husband was very ill. And when he arrived, his brother-in-law promptly died of tuberculosis, leaving my grandfather to take care of her three children and a miserable, salty farm where he tried to earn a living from hunting. He stayed there and raised her kids and tried to farm; although, he was not a good farmer. He hitched up his horses and went out to cultivate and plow, with the reins in one hand and a book in the other.
Wow, these stories! They were so, so interesting, and I was completely engrossed.
O&A: Having performed on stage for nearly 50 years, do you still find connection with your audience?
Keillor: Well, I always wanted to do something for people that maybe they could not find elsewhere. Tell stories, recite poems, and do some stand up about old age, which I think of as a comedy. I also would like the audience to have a chance to recall lyrics in their heads that they perhaps have not sung or thought about since they were children. I think we may be the last generation that knows the words.
So, if I stand in front of the audience in Wilmington and sing “My Country `Tis of Thee” or “Amazing Grace” or “The Star-Spangled Banner,” these are songs my audience probably has not sung in a long time. (And they are not there to hear me sing — I’m only singing a little bass part.) But they pick it up, and they’re astonished at how good they sound. They may not remember my jokes, but they will remember that.
O&A: Although many of your stories take place in Lake Wobegon, the universal truths they reveal about human nature seem to have a timeless quality. Is this one of the hallmarks of a great story?
Keillor: The storyteller has to head in the right direction to find out what the story is about. You do not know at the beginning. You begin with faith in the story and the carrot and then come the details and the twist. Of course, a true story is different — then you need to decide what the point of it is.
I think about this: I’m 83 years old. And I am more interested in my childhood and my younger years now than I used to be. I do not think about the future at all. And I do not think about the middle of my life. I went through decades when I was so ambitious and busy that I do not remember it.
My dear wife is astonished so often at things that happened back in my 40s, 50s and 60s that I do not remember, simply because I was so busy. Stories, I think, come when one is free to be an observer. That is why many famous people’s memoirs are disappointing. They really did not see what their life was about. The best stories, I think, are told by people on the sidelines.
O&A: A passage from one of your recent books, Cheerfulness, reads: “Sometimes, in church, when peace, like a river, attendeth my way, I feel actually joyful, I truly do.” Do you believe in the afterlife?
Keillor: I do. We imagine it in earthly terms, but I think heaven is probably a single moment, and so there is no sense of time passing. And that moment is perfect. I don’t think there is physical movement. To me, the idea of movement suggests a sense of time, and I do believe that heaven is timeless.
O&A: You mentioned that you’ve had a lot of great luck in your life. Do you believe being lucky is the result of hard work, or is it an entirely random phenomenon?
Keillor: I think I can make the case that luck is random. And everything really comes down to luck. My first radio show — I got the job because nobody else wanted to work the 6 a.m. shift. And when you work the 6 a.m. shift, you realize that your listeners are not interested in hearing about the problems of the world or your problems. They want to be amused and lifted up. It’s six in the morning in Minnesota. It’s January. It’s frigid outside, and snow is falling. You know what your job is, and you go to it.
— For tickets and more information, visit TheGrandWilmington.org
