Garrison Keilor, MPR In Mediation Talks

Garrison Keilor

Garrison Keillor is in mediation with Minnesota Public Radio after his former employer fired him for allegations of “inappropriate behavior” with a co-worker late last year.

As initially reported by the Associated Press, Keillor said in a recent Facebook post that he was on day two of negotiations at a law firm in Minneapolis.

“Lawyers arguing, [and] a negotiator moving from office to office to talk with the four parties involved, and it all goes so slowly that you lose track of time,” he wrote in the Friday post. “And though the issues they’re resolving will have an impact on my life, I sit here and think about the future, about a screenplay, a novella that’s on the verge of completion, about going to Prague in June. If I were 50, I’d be scared, but when you’re 75, you’re free. What can they do to me? My love is waiting for me in a New York snowstorm and I’ll be on an early morning flight to get there and what happens after that is nothing to worry about.”

MPR spokeswoman Angie Andresen said the company and Keillor are talking about “issues related to the transition of their business relationship,” according to The Star-Tribune.

In an e-mail Monday, Keillor said, “The mediation is not, God help us, yet completed. More on Thursday. It’s a simple divorce case.”

MPR announced in November it was cutting all ties with the longtime host of radio’s “A Prairie Home Companion.” Officials at the network said they were notified of allegations relating to Keillor’s conduct while he was responsible for producing PHC.

Keillor told the Star Tribune in November that he put his “hand on a woman’s bare back.”

The show, which he handed off last year to Chris Thile, was renamed “Live From Here” — Keillor holds the “Prairie Home Companion” trademark — and Keillor’s old broadcasts no longer will be aired.