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A bag of cash, a list of jurors hidden in a water bottle and a juror who was followed home: It was all part of an alleged plot to bribe a juror in the Feeding Our Future court case. Five people have now been charged.

The Minneapolis Police union contract that would increase the department’s budget by millions gets a public hearing. We heard from the many stakeholders who made their voices heard in a nearly four hour meeting.

Plus, we talked to a Dakota writer about what her Two-Spirit identity means to her. We heard a conversation with an author coming to town. She wrote the best-selling book, “Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow.”

And our summer festival spotlight took us to Akeley for Paul Bunyan Days. Our Minnesota Music Minute was “Banjo Song” by folk singer Nolen Sellwood.

“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” is a New York Times best-selling book about love, art and video games.

The author, Gabrielle Zevin, will be in Minneapolis on Friday to promote the paperback launch of her book two years after release. MPR News reporter Kyra Miles spoke with Zevin ahead of the event.

For those who might not know, can you give a quick synopsis in your own words?
Zevin: I’m already laughing at that because I’ve been promoting the book for two years. And it’s kind of embarrassing to say that I still find “Tomorrow” somewhat hard to synopsis. So I’ll add to that “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” is the story of Sam Mazur and Sadie Green, who have a three-decade-long friendship and artistic collaboration. And for me, the crux of the story is maybe how difficult it is to connect even though we have ever-increasing means to do so — but the real possibility of making meaningful connections in virtual spaces.

So I’ve recommended this book to a lot of people. But I think something that I always disclaim to people when I recommend it is how perfectly imperfect the characters are. How do you go about creating these flawed but realistic characters?
You know, I don’t know if I’m trying to create people that are imperfect, but I am trying to create people and people are imperfect. I think there are some people that want to read characters that are maybe better than us in some way, but I am not that reader. I think the thing that moves me most in fiction is the sort of gap between the way we perceive ourselves and the way we perceive others.

So what’s exciting for you about this paperback launch?
It’s been two years in hardcover. And it’s been great to just see it kind of sell and sell and sell. But with a lower price point, I’m excited that it gets to even more readers, readers who maybe felt resistant to the idea [of] a literary novel about video games, will think, “Hey, now that the price is lower, maybe I’ll try a novel about video games.”

I read lit-fic, but I am really a romance reader. And while I don’t see this book as a romance, would you consider it a love story?
I mean, I think all stories are love stories or lack-of-love stories. I think, in a sense, you can find it in even the most like ostensibly just esoteric literary fiction. At core, we’re talking about: Were you loved enough? Did you love enough? And so I see all stories as love stories, even as somebody who writes literary fiction. But that said, I think the word romance has a burden that it doesn’t need to have, you know. I think the book is not a romance, not in the way people think of romance. But I do think it is about two people who have a romance of the mind, but not a romance of the body.

This book originally came out as the world was emerging from a pandemic. And now this paperback is emerging into a world where we have lots of major international conflicts going on. How do you think that will affect first time readers of this book?
I think the worlds that my characters find themselves in in the book is the world. It has all of the things in it, not necessarily the particularity of 2024, you know, but it doesn’t exist in a world that doesn’t have conflict. When the book came out in 2022, there’s a little bit that has to do with gun violence in the book, or maybe not a little bit, maybe a significant part of the book. And at the time I was doing interviews, journalists would ask me, “How did you know there would be another gun crime in the U.S. when you wrote this book?” I’m like, “because there’s always another gun crime in the U.S.” And so if you write books that are, again, more in the world, I think they they feel more maybe naturally continuous with the way we live right now.

I want to ask you what’s next. But I also know that the book has been optioned as a movie. How are you thinking everything’s gonna fit into a two-hour movie?
When we went out with th

This week our summer festival spotlight series takes us to Akeley, a small northern Minnesota town of 400 people, located just 40 miles south of Bemidji.

Akeley claims to be the birth place of Paul Bunyan. So it’s only fitting the town celebrates the giant lumberjack every summer. This year will be the 75th year of Paul Bunyan Days.

MPR News host Cathy Wurzer talked to Akeley Chamber of Commerce President Peggy Davies about the festivities, which kick off Friday and last all weekend.

During Pride month, many folks around the state are reminded, or learning for the first time, that gender and sexuality is a spectrum that goes beyond the traditional LGBTQ+ umbrella.

One identity that often gets misrepresented — or even left out entirely — is Two Spirit, an identity unique to Indigenous people.

Yanktonai Dakota poet and New Native Theatre senior artistic producer Charli Fool Bear shared what her Two Spirit identity means to her in a conversation with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.

In a city struggling to maintain police officer staffing levels, the Minneapolis City Council is holding public hearings on a tentative union contract that would make Minneapolis officers some of the highest paid in the state.

Despite pressure from the mayor and his allies to quickly approve the contract, council members want the public to have time to consider whether the city is getting enough reforms to make up for the additional 20 million dollars it will cost over the next two years.

MPR News senior reporter Jon Collins reported on the nearly four hour meeting on Tuesday night.

Prosecutors Wednesday announced jury bribery charges against three of the defendants in the recent Feeding Our Future trial along with two other people.

MPR News correspondent Matt Sepic joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to share what he heard at a news conference at the U.S Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis.