Keillor, Garrison (Edward)

(born Aug. 7, 1942, Anoka, Minn., U.S.) U.S. radio entertainer and writer. He began writing for The New Yorker in college and worked as a staff writer there until 1992. In 1974 he created and hosted the public-radio humour and variety show A Prairie Home Companion, about the fictional Minnesota town Lake Wobegon. He then created a new program, The American Radio Company (1987–91), but revived A Prairie Home Companion in 1993. His books include Lake Wobegon Days (1985), Leaving Home (1987), The Sandy Bottom Orchestra (1996), and Me (1999).

Keillor, (Gary Edward) Garrison (1942– ) radio host, writer; born in Anoka, Minn. Raised in a strictly religious home, he began hosting a morning music show for Minnesota Public Radio in 1968 and publishing fiction pieces in the New Yorker in 1969. With a voice as folksy and mesmerizing as an old-time preacher, he rode to fame on a public radio variety show, A Prairie Home Companion (1974–87), set in the imaginary Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon. After a break to concentrate on writing—he produced many fiction pieces and essays, some for the New Yorker, and a novel: WLT: A Radio Romance (1991)—he returned to public radio with another variety show, The American Radio Company (1989).