By Emily Randall
Northeast News
Jan. 13, 2010

A new creative voice is coming to Historic Northeast.

The Latino Writer’s Collective, a group of Kansas City writers, will begin having monthly readings at the Kansas City Museum’s StoryTarium this Saturday. The readings of poetry and short stories to an intimate audience will be free events.

“We just wanted to bring in more programming that would be geared to more people in the area,” said Danilo Aguilar, a member of the collective and the Scarritt Renaissance community organizer through Westside Housing Organization. “We wanted people in the neighborhoods to experience the Kansas City Museum and open its doors in ways people normally wouldn’t experience.”

The collective does other regular readings around Kansas City, and Aguilar said they are usually festive and well attended. The monthly events in the Storytarium are geared toward a diverse audience — not only the Hispanic community. Readings will be in English.

The Latino Writers Collective is a group that aims to help hone and polish its members’ writing for publication. The collective also organizes projects, such as reading series, to showcase national and local Latino writers. The group’s mission is to “foster an environment where the voices of Latino students, blue collar workers, professionals and homemakers can finally be heard, contributing their experience and vision to the larger community.”

Aguilar said the collective hasn’t seen much participation from writers in Historic Northeast’s growing Hispanic community as of yet, but that could be one effect of the readings at the museum.

“That’s why we’re now going into the area to see if we can start attracting people toward the literary world,” he said. “Hopefully [it will] stir up young people as well as adults to do some writing.”

This Saturday’s reading will begin at 6 p.m. The Storytarium is located on the north side of the Kansas City Museum’s grounds, next to the Visitors Center. To learn more about the Latino Writers Collective, see www.latinowriterscollective.org.

Kansas City writers to
showcase talent in Northeast