Conjuring Houdini's Papers: Swann Grant Travel Funding

I spent my summer crying over books. I can’t imagine this is too atypical when speaking to a community of readers and writers. But specifically, I spent a week of my summer crying over escape artist Harry Houdini’s books and other writings in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Harry Houdini (1874-1926) was a writer. It can be easy to forget his intellectual pursuits because even most of his biographers relegate his career as a writer to be secondary to his career as a performer, escapist and magician. Yet, Houdini wrote. A lot. He wrote seven books (mostly on magic), edited a monthly magic magazine, wrote short stories, professional articles on magic, movie treatments for his silent film career, and letters (so many letters), professional and personal, especially love letters to his wife Bess. Houdini left behind a lot more than strait-jackets, leg irons and lock picks. The Houdini Papers are thankfully preserved and collected at UT Austin’s Harry Ransom Center, and I am grateful to have been a recipient of the Swann Grant this summer, which funded my travel, research and tears.

I’m writing an alternate history novel where Houdini doesn’t die in 1926, and I’ve known since I discovered the archive that I would need to visit the Ransom Center. I had done so much Houdini biographical research and yet still struggled with major gaps in understanding Houdini and Bess as people.

When I decided to apply for the Swann Grant, I first spoke with a student who won the award last year to get more information and ask questions on their experience. Then, I met with Dr. Carla Thomas, a medievalist. If I can offer new students any advice, it’s to reach out to your professors, even the ones you haven’t taken a course with and even the ones whose research does not seem to line up with your own. In passing, Carla had once told me she would be more than happy to speak with me about digging around in archives. I made an appointment to meet with her and voiced my concerns. I had never been to an archive before, and while I vaguely understood the genre of the research proposal, I couldn’t quite determine how to write such a proposal for creative work. Carla left me with very practical advice on how to articulate the research I had already completed and show how the specific materials in the archive would contribute to my novel.

At the Ransom Center, even though I was allowed to take (but not share) pictures on my phone, I spent most of my time deciphering Houdini’s handwriting, or copying Houdini’s handwriting by hand into my own notes. As a writer who does a lot of my drafting by hand, it mattered that if I was touching and reading his letters, then I was writing his words. What did those sentences feel like scratched from my pencil? Archival work became even more of a physical experience.

But the best part of the receiving the Swann Grant, was getting to hold the physical published copy of Houdini’s book, A Magician Among the Spirits (1924). This is the only copy in existence with Houdini’s notes for a subsequent edition that was never sent to print—Houdini died before the project could be completed. In reading his revisions—the slash of red ink, the physical inserts of pages glued into the book’s gutter, the asterisks delineating details for new material—I was struck by what I had already known as integral to my understanding of his character all along. Houdini was a writer. And I am so proud and honored to be in that company.

Cheryl Wollner is a second year MFA student studying fiction. Their work has appeared in the anthologies Today, Tomorrow, Always; Hashtag Queer Vol. 3 and The Best of Loose Change. If you ask, they will tell you how Houdini really died (it was not performing a trick).

Observing like a Writer

When I received the writing advice to slow down in my prose, it felt like (unintentional) life advice. But life advice, I’m sure we all can take. 

            Whether you’re reading this as a current/former/hopeful MFA student or as a writer of any stripe, it’s safe to assume you’re a busy person. Fair chance, writing isn’t your only obligation and to slow down seems impossible because you can’t drop your job(s), children, classes, teaching, spouse/partner, etc. And you can’t drop your writing (I’d hope).

            But you can slow down in your writing, particularly when thinking about setting and details.

            I should have realized sooner that my aversion to sitting in a setting and providing a reader with the unfolding details of a place was a reflection on my aversion to sitting in a setting and taking in the unfolding details of a place in my life. I eat breakfast during my office hours, with a book in one hand and a pen in the other. I meet a friend for lunch and my mind is confetti on the next dozen things that need to get done (the next scene to write, the next paper to grade, the next paper to write, etc) and so place becomes transitory. At lunch with this friend, I won’t be able to recall afterwards whether the chairs were wood or metal, whether the table had both ketchup and mustard but no mayonnaise, whether all the Splenda was gone, but the Sweet n’ Low was packed too tight. If I can’t slow down and notice the details in my life, why was I surprised that I couldn’t slow down and provide those details in my prose?

            Chances are, I’m not alone in moving through the world as if each space is only a bus depot to hop to the next transitory location.

            I know mindfulness is a buzz word that can feel cheapened recently, but there’s something to say about writerly mindfulness. We learn how to read as writers and (hopefully) read to feed our creative work. Reading becomes part of the work of writing. We learn to dedicate slowness with published work and understand that if we don’t read (and don’t read with the purpose to learn and expand possibilities) then we don’t improve. We learn to read mindfully. Can we also learn to observe mindfully? Can observation become the deliberate work of a writer? I’m a fan of carrying a notebook everywhere, but even then, I don’t take down every detail of every room I enter—that’s exhausting for one, and also when you notice everything you can’t hone in on what’s important. But, I can take down one or two ideas. Just the ketchup bottle alongside the mayonnaise packets. Just the Sweet n’ Low with the bent pink corners.

            But even then, taking notes can still be exhausting or cumbersome. Another observation technique is to build your observations into the work you already do as a reader. When I read as a writer, I read for setting. I read for how the writer walks me through a room (or not), how the writer directs my attention. I observe and take notes on the places I would never think to set a story or place a scene.

            I don’t expect any of us to get less busy, but I hope that slowing down can create writerly mindfulness so we can observe with intention. I hope that observation can become a part of your writing life, something as integral as reading. The places we inhabit are not transitory and I, at least, needed a reminder of that, in my life, as well as in my prose.

Cheryl Wollner is a first year MFA student in fiction, currently working on an alternate history novel about Bess and Harry Houdini. She 100% believes in magic.