LETTER: Vonnegut Museum persists

Many are aware that we halted construction on a building we were leasing on Mass Ave. [Running low on funds, Vonnegut museum seeks speedy outcome to legal fight, April 18, IBJ.com]. Some of you have shown concern that time was lost in our quest to establish a permanent home for the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. But as Kurt Vonnegut said: “You’re dismayed at having lost a year… Well — I feel as though I’ve lost the years since ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ was published, but that’s malarkey. Those years weren’t lost. They simply weren’t the way I’d planned them. … Those years were adventures. Planned years are not.”

We are exploring interesting opportunities for a permanent home. And more good news is that our current location at 340 N. Senate Ave., donated by the gracious people at Katz and Korin PC, continues to serve as our museum/library. Let me assure you, the KVML, wherever and however situated, is a busy place.

We are gathering steam, garnering loyal local support at all levels, national recognition, and international press and continue to prove our worth. From our benefit concert with one of the Lumineers to our upcoming Science and Common Decency panel discussion featuring, among others, Janet McCabe—President Obama’s EPA air chief, who recently lost her job—to our teacher workshops, personal narrative project with Harshman Middle School and Indy Eleven, Banned Books Week First Amendment celebration, and VonnegutFest, we continue to make “Year of Vonnegut” a meaningful commemoration of Kurt himself and a celebration of “Common Decency,” as he liked to call it, in Indianapolis, the city of his birth. 

Please stop in at our Senate Avenue location for a tour. We welcome you to join in support of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. Please visit www.vonnegutlibrary.org to learn more about how the “adventure” this year is shaping up.

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Julia Whitehead, founder and CEO
Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library