Fitzgerald in Saint Paul

Welcome Gatsby Fans!

2025 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby. To mark this milestone, The Friends will convene a variety of programs that invite us to revisit the book and consider how its themes apply today. Scroll down for events.

Arguably the most well-known work of Saint Paul native Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby explores ideas about class and society, materialism, the American Dream, and more, set in the Jazz Age of the 1920s.

As the Minnesota Center for the Book and steward of Fitzgerald’s legacy in Saint Paul, The Friends will serve as a Gatsby resource in this anniversary year and partner with community organizations and individuals to produce programs like discussions, exhibits, performances, readings, and more.

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Share your thoughts on "The Great Gatsby," F. Scott Fitzgerald, and/or related resources that you've found interesting. We may include them in an upcoming e-newsletter.

Watch the livestream of the discussion with the editors of "F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Composite Biography"

Upcoming Programs

Sep

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Exhibit: “Gatsby at 100” @ Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Tickets

Sep 13 2025 – Mar 22 2026 all-day

“Gatsby at 100” Exhibit September 13, 2025 – March 22, 2026 Minneapolis Institute of Arts 2400 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis “Gatsby at 100,” opening in fall 2025 at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, will explore how F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel shaped and was shaped by the visual art of his time. The exhibition will bring together works from Mia’s collection that embody the decadence, social upheaval, and underlying racism of Fitzgerald’s most famous novel, highlighting paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs that are rarely on view. Like Fitzgerald, artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Oskar Kokoschka, and Henri Matisse, as well as regional artists like Wanda Gág, Clement Haupers, and Frances Cranmer Greenman, endeavored to capture the contradictions of the Jazz Age, a term coined by Fitzgerald himself. Entry is free. Learn more here. Gatsby at 100 2025 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby. To mark this milestone, The Friends is convening a variety of programs that invite us to revisit the book and consider how its themes apply today. Learn more and browse programs here.

Categories: Exhibit Fitzgerald in Saint Paul

September 2025 Sep 2025

The Friends is your Fitzgerald Resource.

The Friends stewards F. Scott Fitzgerald’s legacy through programming that celebrates the life and literature of the revered author and inspires people to reflect on both his historical and contemporary significance.

In January 2020, the nonprofit organization Fitzgerald in Saint Paul (FISP) became part of The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library. The Friends has a long history of supporting readers and writers, which makes the FISP collection of events a natural fit for The Friends’ own program portfolio. With this focus, The Friends highlights and furthers our state’s literary culture by lifting up an author who helped define this rich legacy.

Other Fitzgerald Programs

Fitzgerald Short Stories with Klecko

McDermott Lectures

The annual McDermott Lecture is named for Richard P. McDermott, who helped restore Fitzgerald’s birthplace in the 1970s and remained an avid supporter of Fitzgerald activities before passing away in 2012.

2021 McDermott Lecture
Prometheus Enriched: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Dreams of America
Featuring Dr. Sarah Churchwell, Professorial Fellow in American Literature

Dr. Sarah Churchwell is the featured speaker for this year's virtual lecture. Dr. Churchwell’s research explores American myth, early 20th century language and literature, and rhetorical turns of phrase, like “America First” and “The American Dream.” She has emerged as a go-to voice as Americans reckon with their complicated history.

2020 McDermott Lecture
Philip McGowan is the editor of the new Oxford University Press edition of "This Side of Paradise." Fitzgerald’s first novel, this publication catapulted Minnesota’s native son onto the national literary scene. McGowan's keynote revisited this seminal work, along with "Flappers & Philosophers" (the author’s first short story collection). Both are celebrating centenaries in 2020.

Ongoing Fitzgerald Programs

Fitzgerald in Saint Paul - Autobumming

Kick off summer travel with a window into early 20th century road trips with two of Minnesota’s classics. Travel west with Sinclair Lewis’s protagonists in Free Air and south with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre in “Cruise of the Rolling Junk.” Join historians Mark Taylor and Patrick Coleman as they chat about what these 20th century road trips reveal about our country, their authors, and the enduring American tradition of lengthy road travel.

Fitz Bits

Fitz Bits is a series of short video lectures on the work, life, and world of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitz Bits is presented by The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library and made possible by Baird, and by the Minnesota Department of Education through a grant from the State of Minnesota.

In the first episode in this series, Fitzgerald scholar Dave Page draws connections between Saint Paul and Princeton University that inspired Fitzgerald’s seminal novel This Side of Paradise.

Dave Page is a Fitzgerald scholar and the author of F. Scott Fitzgerald in Minnesota: The Writer and His Friends at Home – as well as numerous other works on Fitzgerald. Fitz Bits is presented by The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library and made possible by Baird, and by the Minnesota Department of Education through a grant from the State of Minnesota.

In this chat, Fitzgerald scholar Dave Page lists and contextualizes mentions of tobacco usage throughout Fitzgerald’s corpus. As is so often the case with Fitzgerald’s work, there are rich stories behind the stories!

In this Fitz Bits installment, Dave Page explores the novelist’s connections – both literary and personal – to the American Civil War.

Mark Taylor is a Fitzgerald scholar and site tour guide. In this chat, Mark overviews the mutually beneficial relationship between the famous author and his accomplished editor, Maxwell Perkins.

Stu Wilson is former board chair of Fitzgerald in Saint Paul. In this Fitz Bits installment, Wilson details a weeks-long trip that the novelist spent in Montana and the impact that this summer had on his fiction.

Sister Mary Paula, the long-time historian of Visitation School in Saint Paul (currently at Visitation Monastery of Minneapolis), illuminates the McQuillan-Fitzgerald family’s long-standing association with the school...as well as a surprise Minnesota literary connection! Excerpts are from an interview given to Melissa Barker and Gail Shea.

For questions and more information, please contact:

Alayne Hopkins, Director of Programs and Services
[email protected]
651-366-6488

The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library acts as a catalyst for libraries to strengthen and inspire their communities. An independent, nonprofit organization established in 1945, The Friends invests in the Saint Paul Public Library through fundraising, advocacy, and programming; as a result, our Library is a nationally-recognized leader in serving its community. The Friends also serves libraries across the country and internationally through its consulting services, Library Strategies, and promotes literacy, reading, and libraries statewide as the Library of Congress’s designated Minnesota Center for the Book.

The need for a strong library is greater than ever.

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