Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: A city safe for writers

Thursday, April 6, 2000 | 10:04 a.m.

Watching this area grow and become important on the American scene has been exciting for me and thousands of other local residents. Bigger and fancier places to entertain tourists have fueled the growth, but exceptional individuals and groups have determined that our quality of life improves. These individual and group contributions often go beyond city, state and national borders.

About 25 years ago, Richard Wiley and Glenn Schaeffer were fellow graduate students in the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop. Today, in Las Vegas, UNLV English professor Richard Wiley and Glenn Schaeffer, president of Mandalay Resort Group, have joined in moving this area into a most important cultural role.

Last year the Nobel laureate from Nigeria, writer Wole Soyinka, was a speaker for the Barrick Lecture Series at UNLV. That evening, after the lecture, Soyinka and Wiley dined and discussed the world project providing a "Cities of Asylum Network" for writers. The need for places of safety for creative writers has become almost desperate in recent years. Probably the best known writer seeking asylum has been Salman Rushdie, who still is in danger of being assassinated for his writing.

Six years ago the International Parliament of Writers elected Rushdie as its first president. A year earlier, in 1993, 300 writers of the world made clear their concern about the increasing number of writer assassinations following several killings in Algeria. Today the organization is headed by Soyinka and has created a network of 25 Cities of Asylum around the world.

The discussion between Wiley and Soyinka last year turned to this most important program. So, why shouldn't Las Vegas become the first city in North America to provide asylum for a writer? Wiley answered the question quickly by comparing such a move to other important social, political and cultural firsts.

Wiley says that it's important for an entire city to tell a writer, "You may work freely here, without fear of retribution by the regime in the country from which you come." When doing this, he says, "the world becomes a better place. Freedom of speech is as contagious as smallpox, and as defeating to the despots of the world as a vaccine."

Becoming a City of Asylum requires the support of a writer for one or two years. The cost of a monthly stipend of $1,000 is needed for housing and transportation. Also, city support and funding for public appearances of the writer must be provided.

Wiley was looking at the expenditure of about $30,000 yearly. He knew one man who is skilled both as a writer and in the field of finances, his former classmate, Glenn Schaeffer. It didn't take much convincing to get the talented executive aboard. Schaeffer's deep appreciation of the arts soon had him taking a leading role in having Las Vegas become a City of Asylum for writers selected by the International Parliament of Writers.

Schaeffer notes that this "program is not about one company, or one individual -- our entire community needs to stand up for these artists." He hopes that "Las Vegas can set a cultural benchmark for other American cities to follow." Schaeffer adds, "That a Nobel prize winner like Wole Soyinka would favor Las Vegas as the first American city to embrace this program in literary freedom -- well, that brings us a luster beyond our typical identity for popular entertainment."

For more than four decades I've watched the predictions of failure for Las Vegas. Despite being an easy target for snobs, calling her a cultural wasteland and financial wizards foreseeing economic doom and gloom, the city has thrived. This continued success and improvement is because of dreamers and doers. In Wiley and Schaeffer the International Parliament of Writers has found men who are both dreamers and doers.