Saturday, June 8, 2013

Crimes of Creative Passion in Flint, Michigan

Connor Coyne: Guilty of writing and living in Flint

Designer, photographer and man about town Shane Gramling has cooked up another intriguing and compelling project in Flint. It's called Facing Flint and it takes the Vehicle City's reputation for crime and lawlessness and uses it to reveal the creativity flourishing in the town that G.M. forgot:
"This is Flint, Michiganwhere serial entrepreneurs lurk around historic storefronts, and you can hear shots of dangerously good espresso being fired off in the streets, a city where students help pioneer next-generation vehicle energy sources and every artist carries a concealed brush. Watch your back world, we're coming for you."
The project's just getting started, but the rogue's gallery already includes mug shots of writer Connor Coyne; Jan Worth-Nelson, guilty of "committing wordslaughter and literary crimes of passion as a poet, novelist, and essayist for longer than you’ve been alive; and Ted Nelson, a "flinty-eyed miscreant from the hedonistic hellhole of Hollywood." 



2 comments:

  1. I dunno...describing a poetry/prose artist as a "committer of wordslaughter" doesn't seem very complimentary. Maybe the metaphor is a tad forced...?

    ReplyDelete
  2. JWilly, I thrive on self-mockery, so I feel right at home with "wordslaughter." A case could be made. :)

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.