State of the Arts Blog

Report: Garrison Keillor reconsidering retirement

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Is he or isn't he? Nine months after saying he'd retire as host of A Prairie Home Companion in the spring 2013, Garrison Keillor again said he's reconsidering.

In the Sioux City Journal report Thursday, Keillor tells the paper he thought about leaving A Prairie Home Companion.

And then it panicked me ... which got me to rethinking the whole brilliant idea. The show is going well. I love doing it. Why quit?

David O'Neill, APHC's marketing director, said in an email to MPR News that Keillor has no specific plans to retire.

The story comes two weeks after Hartford Courant columnist Colin McEnroe posted an item raising questions of his retirement plans.

Keillor in McEnroe's post:

I'm starting to doubt that myself. I've been thinking about it, thinking: what else would I do? And I can't come up with anything....If I didn't do it I would wind up in a tiny walk-up apartment with a couple of cats.

Keillor's first public mention of retirement came in this interview in the AARP Bulletin in March.

I am planning to retire in the spring of 2013, but first I have to find my replacement. I'm pushing forward, and also I'm in denial. It's an interesting time of life.