Saturday, March 19, 2005
Asylum... in Vega$$$!
The Press Citizen of Iowa City reports we've become the fifth US Asylum City for writers:
Based in Las Vegas, the asylum network provides safe havens for writers who are under threat of death, torture or imprisonment in the native countries. Iowa City will join Las Vegas, Ithaca, N.Y., Santa Fe, N.M., and Pittsburgh as network host cities.... The City of Asylum network started in the United States in 2000 out of the Paris-based International Parliament of Writers. Host cities provide the writers with a monthly stipend of $2,500, a furnished residence, health insurance and other amenities. Writers stay in the host city for one or two years, according to the asylum's national Web site.
Las Vegas? Is the stipend paid in $100 poker chips?
This is such a splendid idea that I can only hope that other cities will be quick to pick up on it. There are some that you'd think would be asylum cities.... San Francisco? Eugene? Madison? ... Are their city councils are looking at this?
Based in Las Vegas, the asylum network provides safe havens for writers who are under threat of death, torture or imprisonment in the native countries. Iowa City will join Las Vegas, Ithaca, N.Y., Santa Fe, N.M., and Pittsburgh as network host cities.... The City of Asylum network started in the United States in 2000 out of the Paris-based International Parliament of Writers. Host cities provide the writers with a monthly stipend of $2,500, a furnished residence, health insurance and other amenities. Writers stay in the host city for one or two years, according to the asylum's national Web site.
Las Vegas? Is the stipend paid in $100 poker chips?
This is such a splendid idea that I can only hope that other cities will be quick to pick up on it. There are some that you'd think would be asylum cities.... San Francisco? Eugene? Madison? ... Are their city councils are looking at this?
