Minnesota Brown

Minnesota Brown: Modern Life on the Iron Range

Category: writing

  • The dawn of Winter’s Empire

    The dawn of Winter’s Empire

    Each year around this time elements of Winter take hold in the social fabric — cooling the temperatures, stripping the leaves. Winter-inspired political thinkers and writers organize within our institutions. They prepare the people for the idea of winter, tout winter virtues, indoctrinate our youth. Winter won the elections. Winter runs the trains. Winter forms the plans.…

  • MPR: When your high school is torn down, progress seems like a mixed blessing

    I’ve got the feature commentary at Minnesota Public Radio today. This is a longer piece about my feelings seeing a picture of the old Cherry School being torn down and replaced. I mentioned this last week, with the picture. Read and recommend the essay over at MPR. It helps! Related posts: No related posts.

  • No time for politics, a glimpse ahead to my summer of letters

    As fires burn across this world, we endure. I have been posting a little less frequently than I’d like but about as often as I can afford right now. Life is busy and as many of you know I have young children and a real job (which is not this). I took some time off…

  • The night I stole an hour from time

    The night I stole an hour from time

    From 1996 to 1998, the years I was in senior high school, I worked weekend overnight shifts as an easy listening DJ at 97.9 WEVE in the iron mining town of Eveleth, Minnesota. Specifically, I’d come home from school on Friday afternoon, prepare a bowl of Campbell’s soup and cheese sandwich, take a sleeping pill…

  • Spend your weekend submitting poems, stories, art to Dylan Days 2011

    Dylan Days 2011 will be May 26-29 in Hibbing, Minnesota, the Iron Range hometown of Bob Dylan. Dylan fans travel from around the world for storytelling and nostalgia while others simply enjoy a grassroots series of arts, music and writing activities. This is my 10th year as co-chair of Dylan Days, specializing in the literary…

  • The Almanac Trip, or "So now I guess I really should write a novel"

    The Almanac Trip, or "So now I guess I really should write a novel"

    If you missed my segment on TPT’s Almanac this weekend here’s the link (My bit is at the :30 mark, halfway through). The trip to the Twin Cities was a success and a welcome February diversion. We got home Saturday night before the big snow storm hit Sunday. As I wrote last week, Almanac is…

  • Brown on the Air: ALMANAC and HOT STOVE LEAGUE

    Brown on the Air: ALMANAC and HOT STOVE LEAGUE

    I’ll be rocking public broadcast media to its very core this weekend. Tonight at 7 I’m on TPT’s Almanac in St. Paul which airs in northern Minnesota on WDSE Channel 8. Cathy Wurzer will interview me in her series on regional writers. Tomorrow morning you can catch my weekly essay on “Between You and Me”…

  • Almanac and the big city, here we come

    Almanac and the big city, here we come

    This Friday at 7 p.m. I’ll be in St. Paul appearing on TPT’s Almanac, the popular news magazine program that airs live on PBS affiliates across Minnesota. Cathy Wurzer will interview me as part of her series on regional authors for my book “Overburden: Modern Life on the Iron Range” and varied other writings. For…

  • Welcome to MinnesotaBrown.com

    Welcome to MinnesotaBrown.com

    Over the past month this blog has come to be the go-to source for information about the House District 5B Special Election. If you found the blog this way you might assume that all I do here is Range politics. Well, there’s more to it than that and I hope you consider following this blog…

  • Love Reads Rough: the 2011 Hibbing Winter Frolic Medallion Mystery

    I’m happy to report that the 2011 Winter Frolic Medallion was located last weekend. For the second straight year the Staudahar family of Hibbing found the translucent disc which comes with a monetary prize. Congratulations! I wrote this years clues with my recurring “Sal Winter, Private Investigator,” mystery theme. Enjoy the entire story here: Love…

  • A Prairie Home Companion seeks new host?

    Garrison Keillor has benched himself as tonight’s “A Prairie Home Companion” program host. Folk musician Sara Watkins will take his place. Keillor will make appearances in sketches and perform his customary “News from Lake Wobegon” monologue, however. Speculation is that Watkins is getting a tryout as Keillor mulls retirement in the next year, though the…

  • In which I explain the bog blog concept

    Before Twitter and Facebook there was a time when blogging was the hip thing to do. This period lasted just a few years, from 2004 into 2007. By the end of it I was doing community ed classes about blogging and that’s how you know a trend died. While blogging is still relevant, it’s now…

  • Inside the Christmas tree

    Inside the Christmas tree

    In honor of Christmas I’m sharing some bonus content this week. Here’s an essay I wrote for KAXE a couple weeks ago. The topic for the show that week was “Christmas Trees.” Inside the Christmas tree By Aaron J. Brown HOST INTRO: It’s Between You and Me on KAXE. Today, with the holiday season upon…

  • Cold. Here. Snow to come

    Cold. Here. Snow to come

    There’s a snow storm coming. Every few weeks in the winter a snow storm comes to Minnesota. I love Minnesota. I love this strange state because living here with the snow storms, which so frighten people from other places, is hard and good.The cold, too, reminds us of our location and status. Here. Cold. You…

  • MPR: "The giant, Mesabi, places a bet"

    Minnesota Public Radio features a guest commentary of mine over at their website today. Titled “The giant Mesabi places a bet,” the piece is cut from the same flank of much of my writing but refined for the big city audience. This is the result of my lecture at MPR earlier this month. If this…