Writing & C/Siting Houston

Writing & C/Siting Houston is a collaborative project bringing together Houston writers, folklorists, historians and the like to share the special places that make the Bayou City unique. In the summer of 2011, Writing & C/Siting Houston asked 12 Houstonians to craft a written portrait of a distinctive urban setting of personal significance to them. The contributors explored particular neighborhoods, parks, street corners, restaurants and other community-based locales to get at the ways and especially the wheres through which Houston is known to and cherished by its residents. These pieces of literary placemaking offer diverse insights into how Houstonians construct and connect with their home at a grassroots level.

The 12 Writing & C/Siting Houston pieces that resulted were shared in two readings and a symposium over the fall of 2011. Eight of the pieces were published in CITE 87 as a special section entitled Placemaking from the Bottom Up. Currently, a website is being developed to share these in text and audio format and to map these special places for inquisitive readers.

This summer works by Miah Arnold, Leah Lax, Phillip Lopate, Lupe Mendez, William Monroe, Harbeer Sandhu and Gary B. Wilkins were commissioned. On Wednesday, February 6, authors Miah Arnold, Phillip Lopate and William Monroe will read their works at Honors Common at M.D. Anderson Library, University of Houston.

Writing & C/Siting Houston is a cooperative undertaking of the Houston Arts Alliance Folklife + Traditional Arts Program, the Cultural Enrichment Center at University of Houston-Downtown and Houston Folklore Archive of the University of Houston. Writing & C/Siting Houston has been funded in part with support from the City of Houston Mayor's Special Initiative Program of Houston Arts Alliance, Texas Commission on the Arts, Humanities Texas, National Endowment for the Arts and Houston Endowment Inc.