WordSpace's Future

Today at 10:40 a.m., WordSpace will sit before the Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs like the red-headed, orphan step-children we are and like to be in the arts scene here, to ask the city for a good sum of money. If we get the grant, WordSpace will not only continue after Trammell's death, but thrive in his honor. I'm getting all dolled up for the metting this morning, so are the rest of us.

Money is a non-profit's blood and bane of its existence. With an all volunteer board -- a board that does not only direct the organization but that IS the organization, and all of whom have full-time employment and complex lives -- the tension between producing programs / collecting donations and grants is a trick to negotiate. Ben Fountain did tremendous work on the grant application to OCA, and we all will honor him for that work no matter the outcome of this review meeting.

We want to do four things with this money. First, PAY OUR PERFORMERS. WordSpace means to support North Texas writing and writers not only in the symbolic sense of creating a forum, but in the real sense of giving them some cash. Second, MORE PUBLIC RELATIONS. We need better advertising, we need mailers, we need to maintain contact with those in our established audience in a much more consistent way. Third, BRING IN MORE NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED WRTIERS of a stripe not often invited by Arts and Letters and Writer's Garrett. Fourth, BUILD WIDER AND TIGHTER RELATIONS AMONG NORTH TEXAS WRITERS AND WRITING COMMUNITIES. There's great work being done here. There are lots of wildly talented writers in our universities. There are marvelous Hispanic and African American and International writers here, in the area, and we want to create a deeper exchange of ideas and conversations among all these groups. Dallas is a richly multicultural city, and more contact through the arts among all these groups can only be good for the city and its cultural life.

We are hoping to invite memebers of these communities onto our board in order to facilitate the developement of these connections and exchanges.

Money is time, so once we have some time, we can develop a consistent body of donating members in order to become much more self-supporting in the future.

This was ultimately Robert Trammell's vision of WordSpace. We intend to serve and develop that vision with all the moxy and gusto available of us. And Money = Moxy, folks.