Where Pen Meets Place
Find your next creative calling, explore a neighborhood new to you or get a new view through the eyes of authors like Adrian Matejka, Mari Evans, Kurt Vonnegut and more.
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Barton Towers
Etheridge Knight “The Idea of Ancestry”
Booth Tarkington House
Booth Tarkington The World Does Move
Catacombs
Maurice Broaddus Pimp My Airship
Central State Hospital
Multiple Works
Crossroads of America
Kurt Vonnegut Breakfast of Champions
Fletcher Trust Building
C. L. Moore “The Black God’s Kiss”
Garfield Park
Multiple Works
Indiana Avenue
Mari Evans “Ethos and Creativity: The Impulse as Malleable”
Jacob Klein Bakery and General Store
Johnny Gruelle “Raggedy Ann and the Kittens”
Kurt Vonnegut Mural
Kurt Vonnegut Marian McFadden Memorial Lecture
Lockerbie Street
James Whitcomb Riley “Lockerbie Street”
Mari Evans Mural
Mari Evans “I Am a Black Woman”
Meredith Nicholson House
Meredith Nicholson The House of a Thousand Candles
Pogue’s Run
John Green Turtles All the Way Down
Red Key Tavern
Dan Wakefield Going All the Way
Shortridge High School
Madelyn Pugh Multiple Works
Skiles Test Nature Park
Susan Neville “Blue”
The Pyramids
Adrian Matejka “Ascendant Blacks”
Woodruff Place
Booth Tarkington The Magnificent Ambersons
Indiana Avenue
39.775720, -86.166634
The historic Indiana Avenue neighborhood was once the center of Black culture and entrepreneurship in Indianapolis. In her essay, Mari Evans critiques the racist practices used by developers and the city to disinvest and subsequently push out Black residents and businesses for the development of IUPUI and other projects.
Report Back.
Read the location passage. What questions would you ask the author? What would help you understand the author's viewpoint?
Added TEXTure.
Writing is about more than just words. Look around to discover what textures are most prevalent in this place. Do a texture rubbing using a piece of paper and a crayon or pencil.
In the Margins.
What inspires you most about this place? Draw a quick doodle of it in the margin of one of your books.
Found sound.
Walk around the location and record the sounds of surroundings. Did what you hear depend on what time you visited?
Backward / Forward.
Cities change—what did your location look like in 1920? What will it look like in 2120?
Footnotes.
Find another perspective by walking to a different spot around this location. Do you notice anything new? Which of your five senses notices a change first?
Strike a Prose.
Write a short passage describing how this place inspires you.
Love Letter / BreakUp Letter.
Think about your relationship with the place you’re visiting or perhaps with your own neighborhood. Is it time to commit? Or time to let go? Write a letter as if you’re speaking directly to the place you have in mind.
Field Notes.
Explore your stream of consciousness by writing down every thought that enters your mind.
