Introduction:

The purpose of the Comparative Infrastructure Project is to create a birds-eye view of various literary ecosystems in cities across the country. From this macro perspective, we can then create implicit and explicit comparisons with a particular focus on comparing each infrastructure to Houston’s.

Read our methodology and key, explore the toggle to see the summaries of infrastructures, and read the summary at the bottom of the page to understand where Houston is strong and where Houston is lacking in regards to literary infrastructure.

 

Methodology:

The cities selected were based on size, geographic location, and student research. New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago are the three largest cities in the United States. Dallas/Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Atlanta are three major cities in the same Southeast region as Houston. Los Angeles, San Antonio, Atlanta, and Boston had literary infrastructures that were researched by students in the Literary Houston class.

To research the literary organizations in each c, relevant Google queries were used and then checked through three pages of results. This was an attempt to keep the organizations mentioned relatively objective ¹. The only editorializing of organization results occurred with the removal or organizations subjectively deemed to be too small or potentially inactively. Often these organizations only had a Facebook page or an outdated web site.

 

Key:

The main library system examines the budget, relative branch size, and highlighted successes of the largest library provider in a given metro area.

Major creative writing master of fine arts programs are key to the generation of local talent and significantly influence resulting literary infrastructures. The rank of a program is based on Poets & Writers’ rank of the top fifty programs in the United States.

Literary organizations are then categorized in buckets, either designating them as youth-centered organizations or literary organizations supporting traditionally underserved communities. From there, each organization also gives its date of founding, its budget (based upon the revenue given in the 990 form) or a  subjectively presumed estimation of its budget, and a short description of the organization.

Comparative Infrastructures Project:

To view a summary of each city’s infrastructure, click their name.

 

Findings for Houston:

After examining some of Houston’s peer cities, we can make a few observations about Houston’s literary infrastructure, separated into key strengths and opportunities for growth.

Key Strengths

• Inprint is truly unique among nationwide literary organizations in its large budget, massive pile of standing assets, and broad coverage of the literary interest. Houston is lucky to have a well-funded and relatively low barrier to entry organization that can provide as many services Inprint does.
• Houston boasts a variety of youth-focused writing programs to both ensure literacy and inspire the next generation of authors. The Barbara Bush Foundation is an established, organized initiative to encourage reading in the greater Houston area, a key prerequisite to any kind of literary infrastructure. Writers in the Schools and iWrite focus more on inspiring students to write at a young age and both these programs have substantial reach, likely servicing almost 100,000 area students a year.
• The creative writing MFA program at the University of Houston cannot be overlooked for its importance. Not only does this program provide a steady stream of talented writers to the Houston area, it also generates literary infrastructures around it. Most obviously, Inprint started to support UH writers and one of their former grantees gave them a donation of a million dollars.
• In terms of organizations, Houston has some of the most impressive Latino literary arts infrastructure of any city. This is not to say the city should rest on its laurels, but we should recognize the immense strength that our Latinx organizations bring. Nuestra Palabra has worn more hats that can be listed here, but they continue to promote Latinx literary voices with everything from workshops to book fairs. MECA Houston is an institution that celebrates Latinx culture and may soon be getting its own physical center. Finally, Arte Publico is one of the longest standing Latin-focused publishing houses in the United States.
• Overall, Houston organizations have made public access a key tenet of their operations. Organizations like Nuestra Palabra, Inprint, and Public Poetry promote programs available to the public for little to no cost. This goal of making literary engagement low cost is critically important for the growth of Houston’s literary infrastructure, as a low barrier to entry means more Houstonians will engage in the long run.

Opportunities for Growth

• Most obviously, Houston has a lacking for established literary organizations that support traditionally underserved populations. This lack is particularly obvious in the fact that there are no robust nonprofits supporting Asian or Native American arts in the city. Furthermore, the organizations focused solely on the black arts are peripheral and appear to lack solid funding channels.
• While there are many Latinx organizations, none of them have a standing community center, a common feature in many other cities. This point was repeatedly brought up during the battle over the fate of Latinx nonprofit Talento Bilingue. With MECA planning to take over the now-defunct Talento Bilingue’s center, Houston has an opportunity to develop its own center.
• Houston has a few large striving literary organizations like Inprint, Writers in the Schools, and the Barbara Bush Literary Foundation. The presence of infrastructure with seven digit budgets opens doors for patronage of smaller organizations, particularly those that can support marginalized communities. This model is akin to the one Tony Diaz proposes with his idea of community cultural capital.
• Houston doesn’t have many chapters or branches of national organizations, likely to its overlooked nature and distance from the coasts. However, Houston could pursue to integrate itself into national infrastructures by working groups like 826 (Youth), Black 2 Life (Black Arts), or PEN America (General Interest). This could bring in more support for local writers and readers, more funds, and more visibility to the city.
• Houston could also benefit from literary organizations targeting specific subsets of youth. As it stands, all three youth-focused organizations in Houston focus on youth in general, as opposed to the more specific organizations we see in other cities. Houston should look into creating more specific youth organizations akin to nonprofits like Writegirl (Los Angeles) and Young Chicago Authors (Chicago).