The American Writers Museum

The first museum honoring the country’s writers opens in Chicago.

One of the many benefits of living in Chicago: Dozens of museums. My office in the Loop is one block from The Art Institute, a world class facility. Now the city adds another one: The American Writers Museum. That’s 4 blocks from my office.

Here are some museum features:

1. Lessons in Chicago history

The museum boasts a room dedicated to local literary lights, with recordings by Studs Terkel and Gwendolyn Brooks and a digital map of landmarks, including the birthplace of Ebony and Jet, the original public library network, and every bookstore within the city limits.

2. Audio tours by lit experts

In the American Voices exhibit, virtual docents, including NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan and Northwestern English professor Ivy Wilson, narrate the biographies and works of 100 emblematic writers, from Abraham Lincoln to James Baldwin.

3. Sensory immersion

Anchoring the museum are 100 wall-mounted boxes that pull out to reveal literary ephemera — items you can touch, hear, or smell. Think: A woodsy aroma for Walden or fresh-baked cookies for Julia Child.

4. Masterworks in progress

See the pillars of American lit deconstructed in Anatomy of a Masterwork, an exhibit that breaks down the creation and legacy of iconic titles like “Sonny’s Blues” and Huck Finn with digital renderings of early manuscripts, critical reviews, and close readings.

5. Rare treasures

One place you’ll find an absence of screens: the Writer’s Room Gallery, which features a rotating collection of relics. First up? Jack Kerouac’s 120-foot On the Road scroll. Plus, Kerouac’s biographer, Dennis McNally, will give a lecture on May 25.

Chicago has been the breeding ground for a host of notable writers including Saul Bellow, Richard Wright, and Studs Terkel. It is also home to Poetry magazine and has been the subject of multiple stories including “The Razor’s Edge” by Somerset Maugham, “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, and “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger. So it’s only fitting the country’s first museum honoring America’s writers should be located here.

For more information on the American Writers Museum, go here.