Photo Credit: eli.pousson

Photo Credit: juliejordanscott

The Charles Dickens Walk 4: Heart of the City by Badaude

I’m beyond excited to announce a new Kickstarter project to support Writers’ Houses. Please take a moment to check it out!

I’ve traveled to London this month for the purpose of expanding the website’s content and to start its second iteration. My goal is to visit at least 15 of Great Britain’s writers’ houses in 15 days, photograph them, document them, learn their facts, stories, and mythologies, and bring the information back to the website. This research expedition will also fuel my own writing and a future book project about writers’ houses.

I’ll visit the Bronte Parsonage, Jane Austen’s home, Shakespeare’s birthplace, Dylan Thomas’s boathouse, Keats’s home, and many more distinguished writers’ houses.

Thus far, the website has been a costly, but wonderful, labor of love. It is the only website of its kind and I have loved every minute of it. But travel and research in the United Kingdom is knock-your-breath out expensive and the website is in need of an update. Your support of this Kickstarter project will allow me to undertake this far-flung expedition to procure new content and photography for the site and help get the new iteration of Writers’ Houses off the ground.

This is also a literary pilgrimage I want to share. To that end, I’ve partnered with the incredible visual writer and artist Badaude to illustrate my journey in the form of personalized post cards. Supporters have the opportunity to receive postcards from my journey, limited edition prints and, finally, a detailed story map of my attempt to visit 15 writers’ houses in 15 days.

Badaude is the author of London Walks. She writes and illustrates a weekly column in the Times and her work appears regularly in the Guardian and The Idler. She has exhibited at the Port Eliot Festival, Shakespeare and Company, and the Wellcome Collection. Her blog, badaude.typepad.com, is an official Webby Honoree. Her work is also available for purchase at The Tate.

I’ve set a minimum goal of $3,500, which will cover the cost of the trip. But, if I am able to raise more, it will all go to making needed improvements to this site.

As this website’s regular readers know, writers’ houses are my obsession and I look forward this journey with such generous, adventurous readers. Thank you.

Photo Credit: Claude et Sylvie en VR

Photo Credit: archer10

Photo Credit: elh70

A panopoly of artifacts, whimsies, and fantastic eccentricities from a beloved children’s book author and illustrator with a dark sense of humor.

Photo Credit: Ann Althouse

Willa Cather's Table at Mark Twain's 70th birthday at Delmonico's. Cather is third from left.

After 10 years in New York, I’ve finally started to understand a thing or two about this city. One thing that I’ve learned several times over and am constantly reminded of is that New York University rules Gotham’s real estate. The University’s shaping the New York cityscape is beyond question, but it also has a cloak of invisibility on it. Once they’ve demolished and redeveloped, the city moves forward leaving hidden architecture and stories peering out from the alleys and corners of its buildings. Of course, NYU’s bullish expansion had a direct impact on the preservation of historic sites and buildings. In 2000, for example, a storm erupted around NYU’s plans to demolish Edgar Allan Poe’s house at 85 West 3rd Street. The facade was spared, but barely, and questionably.

Today, Writers’ Houses welcomes poet, essayist, and novelist Terese Svoboda as a new Guest Curator. The title of Svoboda’s new novel, Bohemian Girl, is inspired by Willa Cather’s short story of the same name. In her essay for Writers’ Houses, Svoboda hits the pavement in search of Willa Cather’s New York, and discovers a buried Bohemia. Cather’s New York is much changed by NYU’s mark on the city, but Svoboda finds that glimpses remain. Lucky for us, they glitter in the asphalt.