Imagination & Place

Mission: To publish creative works which are grounded in place and soar with imagination.

Imagination & Place: An Anthology
July 1, 2009

Imagination & Place: An Anthology, published by Imagination & Place Press

This eclectic anthology offers poems, essays, and fiction that broaden the conversation about place and its relation to the natural world and human culture. Edited by Kelly Barth, it features works by Harley Elliott, Benjamin Grossberg, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Linda Rodriguez, and others.

Front cover painting(detail): Josh Adams, Untitled, 17" x 17.875", oil on panel, 2008.

Kansas Publisher Established

In 2008, the Committee on Imagination & Place of the Lawrence Arts Center announced the establishment of the Imagination & Place Press (I&PP).

The first I&PP book, Imagination & Place: An Anthology, with a 2009 publication date, includes works of prose and poetry. For this book, writers and artists were encouraged to think, feel, dream, and imagine place in complex and innovative ways.

"Although Kansas abounds in writers, few publishing opportunities exist for them in the state. By publishing writers and artists from around the country in an annual volume, the Imagination & Place Press will create a regional and national context for Kansas writers and artists, placing their work in relation to a broad spectrum of contemporary writings and images. We hope that by emphasizing topics of imagination and place, writers and artists will be inspired to create new understanding of environments and of our experience of life," said Elizabeth Schultz, a member of the Imagination & Place committee.

While the first I&PP book addresses the general topic of imagination and place, plans call for future books on imagination and place along with emphasizing sub-themes. The second book will be titled Imagination Place: Ownership. Other possible themes include transportation, food, dwellings, community, the Other, and erotics.

Writer Kelly Barth will serve as I&PP editor; Laurie Ward, managing editor; Paul Hotvedt and Blue Heron Typesetting, production designer; Rick Mitchell, Lawrence Arts Center gallery director, publisher's representative; and Denise Low and Schultz, consultants. All are of Lawrence and I&P committee members.

The Committee on Imagination & Place was organized in 1999 to consider ideas related to human imagination and concepts of place. Imagination & Place conferences, exhibitions, publications, lectures, and projects are interdisciplinary and arts-based. Previous publications include The Wakarusa Wetlands in Word & Image, Imagination & Place Artists and Writers Portfolio, 2004, and Cottonwood 59/60: Kansas Conference on Imagination & Place.

Since 1975, the Lawrence Arts Center, a nonprofit organization, has served the community of Lawrence, Kansas, by nurturing love of the arts through education, exploration and expression, with arts programs and services for individuals of all ages, interests, and backgrounds.

"The Wakarusa Wetlands in Word & Image", 2005

Edited by Denise Low, Images edited by Rick Mitchell; with works by 29 national and local writers and 13 visual artists celebrating the area also known as Haskell-Baker Wetlands, located on the edge of Lawrence, Kansas.

Click here for how to purchase(PDF).

From The Wakarusa Wetlands in Word & Image:

Terry Tempest Williams: "How do we speak on behalf of the peace of wild things? It's going to take every angle. We all know it takes a legal angle. We know that it takes an angle of education. It takes an angle of vigilance. It takes an angle of love. And biology. And I think more than anything, it takes an angle of reverence-reverence for life, defined by our understanding, recognizing our own limitations as human beings."

George W. Brown, 1856: "The descent into the Wakarusa is quite precipitous on the east side, and the waters were high. I know considerable time was spent in crossing, and getting out into the timber which skirted its western bank for a considerable distance. Finally we emerged into the prairie, known as the Wakarusa Bottoms."

Denise Low: "When Williams suggested a volume such as this book, I understood her concept to be a celebration of the Wakarusa (Haskell-Baker) Wetlands. This collection opens with a remembrance of this generous writer's visit, with excerpts relevant to the Wetlands from her 2003 talks in Lawrence, Kansas. The call for submissions reached both national and Lawrence area writers and artists-many talented people of vision."

Rick Mitchell: "Images can transform thinking. Familiar places that go scarcely noticed on a day-to-day basis can attain new status through quality of attention-the kind paid by artists to subjects they love. These thirteen artists lend us their sharpened vision, heightened awareness, and perfected craft for the purpose of enhancing and transforming our thinking about the subtle, beautiful, fecund, yet fragile Wakarusa Wetlands."

The Wakarusa Wetlands in Word & Image includes works by writers Kelly Barth, Wendell Berry, Kirsten Bosnak, George W. Brown, Michael Caron, Brian Daldorph, Jimm GoodTracks, Sue Halpern, Suzan Shown Harjo, Nancy Hubble, Becky Kasenberg, W.P. Kincaid, Patrice Regier Krause, Kenneth Lassman, Denise Low, Jim McCrary, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Michael Poage, Judith Roitman, Richard Schoeck, Elizabeth Schultz, Steve Semken, Robert Stewart, Amber Tucker, Laurie Turrell Ward, T.F. Pecore Weso, and Terry Tempest Williams; interviews with N. Scott Momaday and Luci Tapahonso; and images from artists Jon Blumb, Wally Emerson, D.W. Gates, Kyle Gerstner, Lisa Grossman, Maril Hazlett, Kathleen J. Hird, Paul Hotvedt, Tom Mersmann, Rick Mitchell, Jerry Sipe, Thomas Soetaert, and Mary Tuven. Published as a community project of the Committee on Imagination & Place.

Renowned author and environmental activist Terry Tempest Williams writes:

“Congratulations! The Wakarusa Wetlands in Word & Image is absolutely beautiful and deeply moving. Please give my love and gratitude to everyone involved. I am so honored to be associated with it. You were far too generous.
The other night I sat down and read the entire book. By the end, I was weeping. It is such a powerful expression of love and concern in the name of community--through Beauty.
You have given the Wetlands a collective story through translations--Eternal presence on the page. Now may they continue to flourish in Peace.
Please thank Denise for including my words.”