Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor did A Prairie Home Companion for 40 years, wrote fiction and comedy, invented a town called Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average, even though he himself grew up evangelical in a small separatist flock where all the children expected the imminent end of the world. He’s busy in retirement, having written a memoir and a book of limericks, is at work on a musical and a Lake Wobegon screenplay, and continues to do The Writers Almanac, sent out daily, free, to Internet subscribers. He and his wife Jenny Lind Nilsson live in Minneapolis, not far from the YMCA where he was sent for swimming lessons aged 12 after his cousin drowned, and he skipped the lessons and went to the public library instead and to a radio studio to watch a noontime show with singers and a band. Thus, our life course is set. ‘Fans laughed, applauded and sang along throughout Sunday night’s two-hour show’ (Jeff Baenen, AP News) ‘His shows can, for a couple of hours, transform an audience of even so-called coastal elites into a small-town community with an intimacy only radio and its podcast descendants can achieve’ (Chris Barton, LA Times) ‘[Keillor is] an expert at making you feel at home with his low-key, familiar style. Comfortable is his speciality.’ (Betsie Freeman, Omaha-World Herald) Recommended age: 14+