Lannan also moved in literary
circles, maintaining a long-
time friendship with the writer
Nelson Algren and offering
financial support to Poetry
magazine, based in Chicago.
After Lannan’s death in 1986,
the foundation received an
endowment from his estate,
and Patrick Lannan Jr. took
the lead in expanding its activ-
ities and its reach.
Throughout the late 80s
and the 90s, the foundation,
then based in los Angeles,
launched much of the work it
does today, instituting annual
literary awards in fiction, non-
fiction and poetry; collecting
and gifting contemporary art;
offering grants to non-profit
arts organizations; funding
projects encouraging educa-
tion, environmental protec-
tion, legal rights and the
preservation of languages in
Native American communi-
ties; and, through its Cultural
Freedom Program, offering
prizes, grants and fellowships
to recognize people and
organizations promoting free-
dom of imagination, inquiry
and expression. In 1997, the
foundation moved its offices to
Santa Fe, N.M., where it is
now based.
The Lannan Residency
Program in Marfa began to
take shape in the mid-90s
when Patrick Lannan made a
trip to see Donald Judd’s work.
“I was really impressed with
what I saw in Marfa,” Lannan
says. “I found the town
charming, and of course it was
incredibly beautiful.” Soon
after this visit, Lannan
returned with other members
of the foundation’s board.
That trip resulted in the pur-
chase of the first Lannan
house. In 1999, the English
poet, Peter Reading, occupied
that house as the program’s
first writer-in-residence.
Still, the program didn’t
take off immediately. “It was
problematic because we were
far away, in L.A. and then
Santa Fe, and the program
didn’t have a structure yet,”
says Lannan. It wasn’t until
Douglas Humble came to
Marfa to act as residency
manager about a year later
that the program took on its
current streamlined shape.
“Under Doug’s guidance,”
says Lannan, “the program
has evolved into what we’d
hoped for: a beautiful environ-
ment with lovely houses that
give writers the time and space
to write.”
Unlike many residency pro-
grams, writers can’t apply for
this one. Instead, they’re invit-
PATRICK LANNAN JR.,
The Lannan Foundation is one of
the foremost supporters of the
literary arts in the United States
today. Founded in 1960 by Patrick
Lannan Sr. and led since 1986 by
Patrick Lannan Jr., the foundation
provides, among its many pro-
grams, Marfa-based residencies to
writers from around the world.
ed by the board. Asked how
writers are chosen, Lannan
says, “We have a web of con-
tacts, and we check on it peri-
odically, asking for suggestions.
Sometimes names are com-
pletely new to us and some
we’ve known. In either case,
we look into them, and if we
find them interesting, we’ll
make them an offer.” The pro-
gram has grown, not only in
the number of writers it offers
residencies, but in name
recognition over the years. “In
the beginning,” says Lannan,
“It was a lot harder to get peo-
ple to take the bait because
they thought, ‘Oh, West
Texas!’ but now everyone
knows Marfa.”
In fact, many residents
draw inspiration from the
West Texas landscape and the
local community. David
Hinton, poet and translator of
Chinese poetry, remarked at a
recent reading that his atten-
tion had been drawn to the
subject of water during his
time in Marfa. Struck by its
absence in the desert land-
scape, Hinton began to reflect
on and write about water. The
poet Tryfon Tolides spent time
during his recent residency at
the Chinati Foundation, look-
ing at Judd’s work and writing
in response to it. Toward the
end of his stay, he read both at
the Marfa Book Company
and at Chinati.
Another unique feature of
the Lannan Residency is that
it entails no social obligations.
As a matter of tradition, writ-
ers are invited to read at the
Marfa Book Company, but
they’re under no obligation to
do so, says book store owner
Tim Johnson. The reading,
explains Johnson, takes place
at the end of the writers’ time
here, in order to afford them
as much privacy as possible
during their stay. Most writers
do agree to the readings, and
the result, says Johnson, is that
the book store and Marfa are
home to “one of the better
reading series going.” Alice
Jennings, who frequently inter-
views residency writers for
Marfa Public Radio’s “Talk at
Ten” interview program,
agrees. “It’s yet another exam-
ple of the world coming to
Marfa,” she says.
Happily for the town and
for the writers, this decade-old
residency program seems to
be here to stay. “We want to do
anything we can to help writ-
ers write,” says Patrick
Lannan, “and we’re commit-
ted, on a long-term basis, to
doing that in Marfa.”
Bed & Breakfast
and Ecology
Resource Center
Flowers
By Kate
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arrangements
432.386.4165
Ave C & N 3rd • Marathon, TX
Quilts
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Paintings of the Big Bend
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hours vary, please call first
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Alpine Community
Credit Union
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you are the owners of the Credit Union.
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Cenizo
Third Quarter 2009
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