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).

Q&A for Swann Summer Funding

Generally speaking, artists aren’t known for their salaries. As grad students pursuing fine arts degrees, we know this well. The proverbial image of a writer typing furiously into the night, bottle of fine whiskey close at hand, should perhaps be replaced by this: me, stunned by a humbling reflection of myself in the darkness of my zero-percent-battery computer screen, eyes baggy and brow furrowed, with a forkful of 99-cent tuna lunch making its way to my mouth.

The good news is, the MFA at FAU has many good funding opportunities for interested parties. Along with teaching assistantships and stipends, the Thomas Burnett Swann Summer Writing Fund is an opportunity for MFA candidates to pitch their summer writing plans for a chance at supporting cash.

As one of last summer’s Swann recipients, I, tuna girl, will now answer the following questions in the hope that you too can benefit from this (truly invaluable) opportunity:

Q: Why did you apply?

TG: $$$. I was yearning for certain writing opportunities but didn’t have the finances to pursue them.

Q: What was the application process like?

TG: Pretty straightforward. The first step was attending an informational meeting, where Dr. McKay outlined the application process. (This was announced by email in the spring, and took place on a Friday afternoon.) Next, we had several weeks to fill out an application form, and submit said form to Dr. McKay, along with a rough budget outline and a summary of our intended summer plans and how they would inform our writing.

Q: What would you have liked to know before applying?

TG: One helpful tip I did know before applying, thanks to a savvy older student, was that you can submit a ‘Plan A’ and a ‘Plan B’ if your first plan may tentatively fail. In my case, my Plan A was to intern with a high-profile, NYC-based publishing house or literary journal (my applications were in but were pending); Plan B was a self-designed ‘Micro-Retreat’ in which I would spend 2-3 days at an Airbnb location in order to ‘get away’ and focus solely on my writing, and gain new story fodder from the new people and environment.

Q: Where did you go?

TG: Asheville, North Carolina, and the Florida Keys. (It’s not New York City, but I wouldn’t change a thing.) The internship in NYC fell through, so Plan B was the plan for me. I was able to stay in Asheville for two nights, and stretch a bit of my cash to Key West (I’d never been, and its resume of writer-residents was too good to pass up).

            Q: How did the trip affect your writing?

            TG: I definitely got what I asked for. One of my Airbnb hosts was so strange (I won’t say which), he’ll probably be muse-worthy for the rest of my life. Both places were eclectic and arts-supportive; in Asheville, I spent an entire morning writing on a back porch with mountain views, which later became a setting for a story. On that same porch, I spent one long, candlelit evening in a rocking chair and watched the bugs flirt with the flames. One tragic moth was engulfed entirely, and the moment brought Annie Dillard's “The Death of a Moth”, which I had recently read, into truer beauty than the first time I read it indoors. In Key West, I rode a scooter around the island to Hemingway’s house, enjoyed the beach once favored by Tennessee Williams, and revised another short story that is probably my best one this year.

            Q: Why should other people apply for funding?

            TG: So you can set intentions for your summer, your growth, and your writing, so you can get money, so you can use the latter to actually fulfill the former, and (thanks to Thomas Burnett) to invest in creating great art.

Natalie Rowland is a second-year MFA student who has upgraded from tuna to quinoa.