The Michigan Center for the Book works with local groups and Friends of Libraries U.S.A. (FOLUSA) to designate Michigan Literary Landmarks in order to encourage the preservation of historic literary sites in Michigan. The Center will consider providing funding for local Literary Landmark programs that follow FOLUSA's guidelines. Please see FOLUSA's Literary Landmark site and Fact Sheet for more information.

Charles Waddell Chesnutt, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston

The Library of Michigan, the Michigan Center for the Book, the Idlewild Public Library and Broadside Press dedicated Michigan's 5th Literary Landmark on August 16, 2008. The landmark honors Idlewild residents and vacationers Charles Waddell Chesnutt, W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. The ceremony included performances of each author's work as well as the keynote by best-selling author and Idlewild resident Elizabeth Atkins. Please see the Idlewild Literary Heritage brochure and the press release for more information.

Michigan currently has four other Literary Landmarks. The sites are for James Curwood, Theodore Roethke, John Voelker and Dudley Randall.

James Curwood

The 2006 Michigan Literary Landmark is for James Curwood. It was designated on June 1, 2006 at the Curwood Castle in Owosso, his birthplace and later home. Curwood Castle is the writing studio he built along the banks of the Shiawassee River. The Landmark recognizes the popularity of Curwood's wilderness adventure novels, many of which were made into feature films, and the role he played in the early Michigan conservation movement.

Theodore Roethke

The 2004 Michigan Literary Landmark was designated on September 29, 2004 at the Theodore Roethke House in Saginaw, the boyhood home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Saginaw native Theodore Roethke. The Landmark recognizes the profound impact Roethke had on American poetry and the influence his home had on his writing. In addition to receiving the Pulitzer Prize in 1954 for The Waking, Roethke was the recipient of an array of honors for his poetry, including two National Book Awards and the Bollingen Prize.

John Voelker a.k.a. Robert Traver

The 2002 Michigan Literary Landmark was designated on June 30, 2002 at the Marquette County Courthouse. It celebrates Robert Traver, the pen name of Judge John Donaldson Voelker. Voelker was the author of Anatomy of a Murder, among many other works, and a Michigan Supreme Court judge. The Marquette area was the location of Voelker's legal practice and the courthouse was the site of the courtroom scenes in the movie version of Anatomy of a Murder.

Dudley Randall

The 2001 Michigan Literary Landmark was designated on May 22, 2001 in the McNichols Campus Library on the University of Detroit Mercy campus. It celebrates the poet, publisher and librarian Dudley Randall of Detroit. Randall founded the Broadside Press and was instrumental in many African-American poets' careers. He was also a long time librarian and educator at the University of Detroit Mercy.

Updated 08/05/2009