The Chicago Community Trust Grants Funding to American Writers Museum
CHICAGO—September 10, 2013—Writing Chicago, a multimedia exhibit spotlighting four literary luminaries who called Chicago home—Gwendolyn Brooks, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, and Studs Terkel—will soon be traveling to city libraries and beyond.
Created by the American Writers Museum Foundation, the exhibit will showcase how these four great Chicago writers embraced the city's ethnically rich neighborhoods as both the inspiration and the subject of their writing.
Writing Chicago will travel to Woodson Regional and Hall Branch Libraries, South Shore Cultural Center, and DuSable Museum, and will be exhibited at each venue for two- to four-weeks during 2014. Additional sites are likely to be added.
Programming to accompany the exhibit will be developed by members of the Chicago Literary Council.
The project, funded by The Chicago Community Trust, will be the first traveling exhibit of the American Writers Museum Foundation, a nonprofit group that is establishing the only museum in the nation devoted to American writers. The American Writers Museum is projected to open in Chicago in 2015.
Visitors to Writing Chicago will be invited to experience the works of the four writers through an exploration of their neighborhoods, ideas, stories, language, and influencers. Writing Chicago will include an interactive component through which visitors will share what Chicago writers' works mean to them. The exhibit will also include a crowd-source curating feature through which visitors may suggest ideas for future exhibits at the American Writers Museum.
The authors featured in Writing Chicago will also be represented in the American Writers Museum's Chicago Room gallery. Writing Chicago, like the Chicago Room, will tell authors' stories through images, recorded anecdotes, and their own words.
This is the second grant provided to the American Writers Museum Foundation by The Chicago Community Trust.
For 98 years, The Chicago Community Trust has been the region's community foundation, connecting the generosity of donors with community needs by making grants to organizations working to improve metropolitan Chicago. In 2012, the Trust, together with its donors, granted more than $150 million to nonprofit organizations. To learn more, visit the Trust online at cct.org.
The mission of the American Writers Museum Foundation is to establish the first national museum in the United States dedicated to engaging the public in celebrating American writers and exploring their influence on our history, our identity, our culture and our daily lives. Learn more and read the museum's concept plan at www.americanwritersmuseum.org.
