Construction Announcement 2008 at The Wittliff Collections

Construction of new exhibition and public spaces is now in progress.
Exhibit and event dates updated as the renovation progresses. Please check back.

Current Exhibits at The Wittliff Collections

Closed November, Reopens second week of December 2008
THE LONESOME DOVE COLLECTION
First Floor Exhibit open regular library hours.
From hats to boots, the full outfits of Woodrow F. Call and Augustus “Gus” McCrae are just a few of the many “making of” materials on display from the popular miniseries based on Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. This interim exhibition from the Wittliff’s major Lonesome Dove production archives includes numerous props and principal costumes, set designs, costume sketches, and production notes, Bill Wittliff's screenplay drafts, script pages, and photographs, plus Gus’s muslin-wrapped “remains” that Call carried all the way back to Clara’s Orchard. Tour the Lonesome Dove Collection online.

The Lonesome Dove permanent exhibition room will reopen after construction is complete.

Fall 2008 Events at The Wittliff Collections

All of the following events are free and open to the public.

September 23, Tuesday
5:00 pm | ROOM 105/106
Texas State's MFA STUDENTS read from their poetry and fiction.

October 16, Thursday
3:30 pm | FIFTH FLOOR
SCOTT ANDERSON Reading & Book Signing
This Therese Kayser Lindsey / Katherine Anne Porter Series event is co-sponsored by the English Department and the Wittliff Collections. Anderson is a war correspondent and a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, Harper’s, Outside, and other publications. Over the years he has written from Beirut, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Israel, Sudan, Sarajevo, El Salvador, and other war-torn areas. He is the author of the novels Triage and Moonlight Hotel, and the nonfiction books The 4 O’Clock Murders, The Man Who Tried to Save the World, and, with his brother, Jon Lee Anderson, War Zones. Books for sale by the University Bookstore.

October 21, Tuesday
5:00 pm | ROOM 105/106
Texas State's MFA STUDENTS read from their poetry and fiction.

October 24, Friday
1:00 pm to 6:30 pm | ROOM 105/106
ARCHIVES MONTH CELEBRATION
The Wittliff Collections and University Archives at the Alkek Library will co-host a panel of area archivists and librarians for a conversation about designing online archival exhibits. A catered, hors d’oeuvres reception will follow. The panel is from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and the reception is from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in Room 105/106 of the library. Both are free and open to the public. Panel attendance is not required to attend the reception. Guests are asked to RSVP to southwesternwriters@txstate.edu or 512.245.2313 with names of attendees. Contact Katie Salzmann at 512.245.3861 for details.

October 30, Thursday
4:00 pm | FIFTH FLOOR
CARMEN TAFOLLA Reading & Book Signing
One of the most anthologized of Latina writers, Dr. Tafolla has published work for both children and adults in more than two hundred anthologies, magazines, journals, textbooks, and readers. Long considered one of the madrinas of Chicana Literature and a master of bilingual code-switching, Tafolla is the author of more than fifteen books, seven screenplays, and numerous articles and essays. In 1973, she became Director of the Mexican-American Studies Center at Texas Lutheran College where she initiated, among other projects, the El Premio Roberto Salinas Award to recognize students who have worked to promote human understanding and cultural harmony. Tafolla's Texas State visit is co-sponsored by the Wittliff Collections, the College of Applied Arts, and the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences. Books for sale by the University Bookstore, including her latest, The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans.

November 18, Tuesday
5:00 pm | ROOM 105/106
Texas State's MFA STUDENTS read from their poetry and fiction.

November 25, Tuesday
3:30 pm | FIFTH FLOOR
LI-YOUNG LEE Reading & Book Signing
Currently serving as the Texas State University Chair in Creative Writing, critically acclaimed poet Li-Young Lee reads from his fourth collection, Behind My Eyes, and other work. Lee is the recipient of numerous honors, among them three Pushcart Prizes, the Lannan Literary Award, and the American Book Award. His collection Book of My Nights was the winner of the Poetry Society of America’s 2002 William Carlos Williams Award; The City in Which I Love You was the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection; and Rose (1986) won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Poetry Award. Lee was born of Chinese parents in Indonesia, and he has lived in the U.S. since 1964. This event is co-sponsored by the English Department and the Wittliff Collections. Books for sale by the University Bookstore.

INSTRUCTING | ILLUMINATING | INSPIRING

THE WITTLIFF COLLECTIONS offer a dynamic archival, exhibition, programming, and research environment designed to further the cultural legacy of the region’s literary and photographic arts, and foster “the spirit of place” in the wider world. The Southwestern Writers Collection preserves and exhibits the literary papers and artifacts of principal writers, filmmakers, and musicians, including the major archives of Cormac McCarthy, Sam Shepard, and John Graves, as well as the production archives of Texas Monthly magazine, Fox’s animated series King of the Hill, and the CBS miniseries Lonesome Dove. The Southwestern & Mexican Photography Collection includes the major holdings of work by such renowned artists as Kate Breakey, Keith Carter, and Graciela Iturbide, and houses the largest archive of modern and contemporary Mexican photography in the United States. Connie Todd, Curator.