American Writers Museum, Chicago

I had the good fortune of working in the same building as the American Writers Museum and was so impressed with it upon my first visit that I decided to take out a membership. This museum is a great place to come for both inspiration and solid reading recommendations. For me, being normally influenced by international writers of global genres, the American Writers Museum is a good place to come to center myself on writers from my own Nation-State, the United States, and writers pivotal to our national history. I recommend sitting down and taking the time to read from some of their books on display and allowing ample time to slowly meander down their timeline. For me, this museum is an important place, because I would rather be well-versed in the writings of Frederick Douglass before knowing those of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, but ideally to know both of the two: writers both of the domestic sphere and the international, or global variety, but first to know the American. To know thyself before others. I highly recommend this museum.

This Museum is a hidden gem for anyone who enjoys or has been influenced by American writers. It's compact but extremely informative. Right now there's a Dylan retrospective that I found mildly interesting. But the design and the interactive access to information is very well thought out and executed. There's even a children's section, which of course as an adult I had to visit. Maurice Sendak? You can type on some old manual machines that are adjacent to the exhibit of actual typewriters used by noted authors. Not to be missed IMO.