Writing Futures Collaborates to Share Indy Residents' Stories

Writing Futures at Marian University, in partnership with IndyGo, CityWrite, IndyGo Transit Ambassadors, and the Art Council of Indianapolis will be participating in Spirit & Place 2016 with a unique program titled, “Moving Stories.” Moving Stories will capture stories of community members who share threads of what defines Indy as their collective home. The stories collected will be shared through images and text on bus routes, at the Transit Center, and on social media for the public to relate to and enjoy November 5-13, 2016.

Moving Stories is currently recruiting volunteers to collect stories that explore the meaning of home. Working with Marian University Writing Center staff and Professor Mark Latta, volunteers will chat with community members, encouraging them to write or speak their moving stories and contribute to a public narrative art project. Volunteers will be asked to engage with community members by listening, recording, and writing the stories that emerge from supplied conversational prompts related to home and community. Volunteers will collect these stories in downtown Indianapolis, on IndyGo buses, near bus shelters, and the Julia M. Carson Transit Center from September-November, 2016.

The goal of the program is to convey that “home” to many is greater than a place where one sleeps. Home can be a neighborhood, a community group, and/or a place for leisure. These are places one feels comfortable, safe, happy, and define and shape who Indy residents are as a community. Moving stories hopes to convey that mass transit plays a vital role connecting community members to these places.

Moving Stories is up for the Spirit & Place Award of Awesomeness in the bold and daring category. To quote a Spirit & Place Festival Selection Committee member, “This isn’t an event—it’s an unexpected opportunity to happen upon.” Moving Stories is an opportunity for Spirit & Place to connect to new audiences and encourage our traditional Spirit & Place Festival fans to use mass transit. Winning the Awesomeness Award will bring prestige to the event and $1,000 to help fund the program.

Partial funding support for Moving Stories is provided by Indiana Campus Compact.