flier by Cole Sarar

The first poem in the project, written by Sarar, takes a Choose Your Own Adventure style.

Call 612.223.POEM, and you are greeted with Cole Sarar's voice. If you press "1," you can hear the project's latest poem, or press "2" to explore the archives. The first piece in that back catalog, "The Beast," offers further options: Thirty seconds in, the poem stops and asks you to choose again.

"Press '1' if the library door is locked," Sarar's recorded voice says over the phone. "Press '2' if the library door swings open easily."

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Award-winning author, cult favorite, prolific blogger/Tweeter, and beekeeper Neil Gaiman will embark on his last U.S. signing tour during this summer to celebrate the release of his latest novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Yesterday, Gaiman announced the first round of tour dates and locations around the country, which includes a pit stop in Minnesota.

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Matt Peiken, Kao Kalia Yang, and Guante, with Opine Season's banner and logo.

In early February, nine writers gathered at Pizza Luce to talk about what their new website, a writers' co-op focused on op-eds, would look like. One month later, they launched Opine Season.

In their two weeks of publishing so far, each of the nine core writers has, as on a newspaper's opinion page, laid claim to a specific day of the week. Mondays belong to Guante and Colleen Kruse, Tuesdays to Lolla Mohammed Nur and Matt Peiken. On Wednesdays, Vina Kay, Chaun Webster, and Ricardo Levins Morales weigh in, and on Thursdays, Kao Kalia Yang and Brian Lambert.

The writers come to the project with varying degrees of experience: Yang, for instance, is the author of the acclaimed memoir The Latehomecomers, while Ricardo Levins Morales is primarily a visual artist. But each is motivated to contribute, as Guante (a.k.a. Kyle Tran Myhre) explains it, in order to "feature voices and views you wouldn't get from the two big papers."

"Sure, the internet is full of opinions," Guante continues.  "But I think the thing that drew me to this project was the idea of solidarity: a dozen different writers from different communities, with different readerships, sharing different ideas -- but all connected to the Twin Cities -- coming together at one site to cross-pollinate those ideas and readerships. That's a powerful thing."

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Last month, the Valentine's Day spirit was in our hearts thanks to our feature about adorable couples around the Twin Cities. So, we decided to ask readers to share their own stories.

Your submissions brought meaning to Shakespeare's infamous line, "The course of true love never did run smooth." But they also showed how the most unpredictable run-ins can often make the best stories. You can't always choose how you meet your special someone -- whether it's at a bar, the zoo, or a friend's house -- but at least you can get some good memories out of the experience.

After nearly 100 votes, readers resoundingly chose the couple from "The Late Shift" story, Kiki and Aaron Rogers, who met during a chance encounter in Kiki's bed after she got home from work. We got in touch with Kiki, and talked about how that fateful night became the beginning of a life together.

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How We Met: Vote on readers' love stories [POLL]
How They Met: Twin Cities couples on the moment they found love
Slideshow: How They Met: Awesome outtakes from adorable couples

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Here's how the vote broke down.

When a state Senator introduced a bill mid-February to designate "Minnesota Blue," by Keith Haugen, the official state poem, we challenged you to write a few lines better than "Do wolves still howl at your full moon / Is Viking Land still Mother Nature's dream."

You did. We narrowed the submissions down to four, and then put the finalists up to a vote.

Nearly 200 readers weighed in, and now, we're ready to crown Minnesota's new state poem (City Pages edition).

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courtesy Coffee House Press

These two Coffee House Press titles are up for the award.

Earlier this week, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation announced that, after reviewing more than 350 works, three writer-judges had selected five finalists for the foundation's prestigious fiction prize. Two of those five picks claim local Coffee House Press as their publisher.

"To have even one finalist for the PEN/Faulkner is a remarkable achievement," Coffee House's publisher, Chris Fischbach, wrote us in an email from the AWP conference in Boston. "To have two on the list is something else altogether."

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- Spotlight on Coffee House Press: Ed Bok Lee and Bao Phi
- Minnesota ranks 8th in the country for 2013 NEA grants
 

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For our special Valentine's Day issue of City Pages, we showcased a bunch of extraordinary Minnesota couples who touched our hearts with stories of how they met. But we knew there were tons of couples out there who had stories just as romantic and funky as the ones we highlighted.

We asked readers to tell us how they met, and they delivered. From a hilarious late-night Goldilocks situation to rogue snowballs, these couples have gotten past funny, awkward, and weird meet-cutes to show that sometimes true love does conquer all.

We chose the best submissions, and now it's your turn to tell us who's got the ultimate romantic tale for the chance to win a date package.

See also:
How They Met: Twin Cities couples on the moment they found love
How They Met: Awesome outtakes from adorable couples [Slideshow]

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Wikimedia Commons and jodi0327 via Flickr

Our quarter and our flag.

After Sen. Bruce Anderson (R-Buffalo township) introduced a bill to make Keith Haugen's tepid "Minnesota Blue" the state poem, we asked you to do better.

And you did -- mostly. The submissions we got to our "Write the State Poem" contest included lines like: "birdhouses not from ikea, your grandfather made them/ menisota and womenisota equally," and "As if Portland is Minneapolis" (a poem that ended with, "You just got Ninja Mind Fucked").

Now, we've winnowed down the pool to four (those two didn't make the cut), and it's up to you to vote on which work should represent our 10,000 lakes in the poetry world.

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- If Minnesota is going to have a state poem, we want it to be yours [CONTEST]
- 50 Reasons Minnesota is the best state in America

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Wikimedia Commons and jodi0327 via Flickr

Our quarter and our flag.

Senator Bruce Anderson, a conservative Republican from Buffalo Township, introduced a bill in the Minnesota Senate this morning to officially designate a state poem, the AP reports.

We already have a state... everything, from a drink to a mushroom (milk and morels, of course). A poem would round out the mix nicely.

But here's the thing. Anderson's pick is the 1985 poem "Minnesota Blue," by Keith Haugen. For starters, that title brings to mind a cop show. It goes downhill from there.

See Also:
- Minnesota Book Awards Poetry Finalists
- Macalester students take top honors with slam poetry team [VIDEO]

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This evening Paper Darts, a literary arts magazine and independent publishing press, will be shaking things up at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. PD's literary manager Courtney Algeo says this will be the largest lit focused event the museum has ever done. For the party, Jennifer Davis will offer a live art making project where guests can participate in the process, and visual artist Allen Brewer, who has an MAEP show coming up, will have guests write out descriptions of works of art that he will then use to make his own piece. There will also be an interactive activity where revelers will be invited to choose their own adventure based on the writings of four authors: Ed Bok Lee, John Jodzio, Maggie Ryan Sandford, and Katie Heaney. Theater of Public Policy will be on hand with storytelling, performing in the museum's historic elevator. The evening will conclude with music by hip-hop group Kill the Vultures.  More »