Why We Exist
Hi, my name is Fungai, founder of Literary MA. This project is still in its beta phase as I put together a team to run it and get the resources needed to set it off properly.
Literary MA was created to document, celebrate and promote writers and literary culture across Massachusetts, and to build bridges with writers and literature lovers elsewhere in the world. Through this website, social media, and other platforms we plan to carry out activities to achieve this.
We’re Dreamers & Doers
We’re a group of lit-crazy people who have seen how powerful community and media can be at promoting a strong literary culture. We have this idea of how writers can be celebrated and how readers can be cherished, of how the words we write and speak can be the center of healing, the foundation of our community and torches of enlightenment. Literary MA is our way of bringing this idea to life around Massachusetts and beyond its borders.
We’d love to work with you…
We are always on the look out for volunteers to help with research, admin, documentation, and other activities. We are also excited to hear about possible collaborative projects. What’s your idea? We’d love to talk to you about how we can work together.
Some of Our Projects
Here are some of our activities-in-progress and plans for the future.
Writers at the Core
We link writers to tools, resources and opportunities to help them hone their craft. We help build strong communities of writers and encourage storytelling by documenting, celebrating and challenging writers in Massachusetts. We are also working on programs that will present new opportunities to historically marginalized writers.
Very Open Libraries
By explaining the multitude of resources that libraries around Massachusetts offer, we help make libraries more accessible and useful to members of the public, students, and researchers. We also spread the news about events and programs at various libraries.
Literary Places Showcase
We list bookshops, publishers, writer-and-reader-friendly coffee shops, and other literary places on our site and promote their events on our website and social media platforms at no cost to the organizers.
Literary Tourism Promo
There are over 300 historic literary sites around Massachusetts. These include museums, the homes of well-known authors, bookshops, and monuments. We showcase these places of interest and suggest literature-centered tours and activities around Massachusetts and beyond.
Bridges Across Literature
One of our big plans is to work on programs that will link writers in Massachusetts with writers in other parts of the world to encourage collaborative projects, explorations of other lived experiences and to open up creative possibilities for everyone invovled.
Lit Histories & Futures
We are working on a program to present some of the most notable events in the State’s literary history on our site and to use the lessons from the past and the present to help lay a solid, equitable foundation for future writers and readers in Massachusetts.