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I wanted to share some events I’ll be doing in Duluth and St. Paul over the next week. I leave the compound so little these days that this might qualify as news.

On Saturday, May 23, I’ll be delivering the John Bushey Memorial Lecture for Duluth Dylan Fest from 1-3 p.m. at Zeitgeist Duluth, 222 E. Superior Street. The event is free and open to the public. 

Then, on Wednesday, May 27, I’ll be part of a book event for “On an Inland Sea: Writing the Great Lakes.” I wrote an essay for this collection from Belt Publishing in Cleveland. I will be among four Minnesota writers appearing at SubText Books, 6 West 5th St., in St. Paul from 7-8 p.m. that Wednesday night. We’ll do a short reading and sign books.

The Dylan lecture is entitled “The Plowman: Exploring the Northern Minnesota Stories That Influenced a Young Bob Dylan.” I look at the cultural conditions that shaped Hibbing, Minnesota, when Robert Zimmerman grew up there after World War II.

My essay in “On an Inland Sea” speaks to the spiritual, economic and cultural connection between the Iron Range and the Great Lakes. The “inland seas” draw away the very earth beneath our feet. It also tugs at the imaginations of small boys growing up along the DM&IR tracks. 

I hope you take the chance to stop by if you can. I’m going to do a lot more events when my Victor Power book is done, but that still has a year in the barrel to go. 

Aaron J. Brown is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Minnesota Star Tribune. His new book about Hibbing Mayor Victor Power and his momentous fight against the world’s largest corporation will be out soon.