Watch the "Spirit of Place" video about the Collection

About the Southwestern Writers Collection

A Place of Inspiration

An extraordinary collection of rare and unique treasures awaits visitors to the Southwestern Writers Collection, a distinguished archival repository that collects and preserves the works of the region’s renowned writers, filmmakers, and musicians.


Celebrating the Southwest’s unique heritage, the Writers Collection explores the relationship between art and place with public exhibitions, research opportunities, and lively events that bring together many of today’s leading voices in the arts.


Bill and Sally Wittliff founded the Writers Collection in 1986 with the first of many gifts: papers from author and folklorist J. Frank Dobie which included diaries, journals, manuscripts for published and unpublished books, personal correspondence, candid snapshots, and memorabilia. In the years since, the Writers Collection has grown tremendously – thanks to university support, the work of staff members, the continuing efforts of the Wittliffs, and the gifts of hundreds of individual donors – resulting in a rich assemblage that commands international attention.

 

Above: The Collection's 1555 edition of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca's La relación y comentarios, considered the first written work on what is now Texas and the Southwest.

 

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