Activities

The Federation is managed by a Board of 18 members, elected for three years by the general meeting. This board is meeting regularly to decide upon the Federation’s activities, which are based on projects prepared by different committees. These committees are open to all members.

 

The currently existing committees are :

• "Rencontres des maisons d'écrivain et des patrimoines littéraires" organizing committee
• Communication
• Internet
• Educational activities
• Audiovisual resources
• International relations
• Public committee
• Regional organization
• Research
• Meeting days

"Rencontres des maisons d'écrivain et des patrimoines littéraires." 

The role of this committee is to set up a pilot group to prepare and organize the “Rencontres des maisons d'écrivain et des patrimoines littéraires.” every two years. It also establishes a thematic programme for the coming years. In collaboration with the Publications committee, it designs the proceedings and the promotion documents for the conference.
The next"Rencontres" are prepared for November 2018 in Bourges and at the Noirlac Abbey on the topic: Writers' houses without borders.
Person in charge: Alain Lecomte.

 

Communication committee

This committee controls the edition of the newsletter (“Bulletin d’informations”) twice a year and all publications related to the Federation’s works. And also the electronic "Infolettre" every month. For the time being, it is working on the proceedings of the "Rencontres" 2012, 2014 and 2016. It alos manages the website. It is thinking about a cooperation with other European countries, particularly in order to set up a real network for European writers' houses on the web.
Person in charge :Gérard Martin.

 

Educational activities committee

This committee aims at promoting the relationship between writers’ houses and literary places which develop educational activities with their counterparts in the National Education service. A Guide of educational activities: directions for use, composed of a series of technical slides about the possible supports, the institutional framework and how to prepare an educational project in a writer’s house is readable on this website.
It is currently working on the new general lines issued by the Ministry of Education concerning artistic and cultural education.
Person in charge : Caroline Casseville and Caroline Touquet.

 

Audiovisual resources committee

This committee is sleeping for the time being. Its aims were :

• - to set up an inventory of audiovisual literary resources (sound tracks, documentaries, TV magazines and programmes where writers appear and those which are dedicated to them, and also recording of shows) to inform writers’ houses and literary places,
• - to negociate with the companies managing copyrights in order to set up a juridical framework and fix reasonable financial terms for the use of audiovisual documents as records and for public display,
• - to think about audiovisual resources as museographical and animation means for writers’ houses and literary places.
  In 2002 the committee made a short film promoting writers’ museum-houses, which was shown for the first time in an evening event organized with Scam (Société Civile de Auteurs Multimédias), and then during the “Rencontres” in Bourges. It prepared the "Rencontres" 2006 about Audiovisual ressources and literary places and will shortly issue a guide about this topic for writers' houses.

 

International relations committee

This committee was born in 2003 and received positive answers from our foreign counterparts for participating at the “Rencontres” 2004. Since then, an active cooperation is going on with Spain and Portugal. The Federation has links with several places abroad: Dr Johnson’s House in London, the Latvian Literature Centre in Riga, the Petöfi Museum in Budapest which works for the promotion of the Hungarian literary patrimony (website: http://www.emlekhazak.hu), the Literature House of Quebec which became a member in 2008. It is also member of the International Committee of Literary Museums. In 2010 it organized, in partnership with Russia, a great exhibition about French and Russian writers' houses in Moscow.

It is now looking at building a network of writers' houses in countries around the Méditerranée.
Person in charge : Jean-Claude Ragot

 

Public committee

This committee was set up at the end of 2007. Its first mission: to pilot a study about the visitors of writers’ houses and literary places in France. This (qualitative) study about the public’s motivations was conducted in 2008 with twelve voluntary houses. The (quantitative) inquiry about the number of visitors in such places has been run at the same time. The results of both were published for the “Xth Rencontres de Bourges”.
This committee then collected information about activities proposed to the visitors (except pupils), to put them at the disposal of tourists and literary places’ managers on this site. It now works on the opportunity for the Federation to help the small writers’ houses to provide their shops through grouped orders, on means to improve the visit of the literary place, and on the French label Qualité Tourisme.
Person in charge: Hélène Oblin.

 

Regional organization

Created in 2009, to precise the position of the Federation regarding the regional networks initiated by local public authorities in France and to think about the opportunity for the Federation to create regional structures. It proposed a modification of the Federation’s statutes and a general project for regional statutes which were adopted by the special general assembly on April 23, 2010. We have 3 regional networks working today : Hauts-de-France, Centre Val de Loire and Nouvelle Aquitaine.
Persons  in charge : Bernard Sinoquet, Alain Lecomte and Jean-Claude Ragot.

 

Research

Last committee created in 2014, to strengthen the Federation's links with universities and students on the topic writers' houses and literature.

Person in charge: Martine Sagaert.

 

Meeting days

A committee was born in 2016 to scientifically manage the annual meeting days in different parts on France.

Members : Béatrie Labat, Patricia Sustrac and Jacqueline Ursch.

 

The Federation’s appointments

In order to reach all its aims and to meet the needs of its members, the Federation fosters cooperation between literary places and organizes study and discovery trips in the writers’ houses along with its general meeting:

• Jules Verne’s House in Amiens, 2000,
• Manosque and Provence (Giono), 2001,
• Malagar in Gironde, Mauriac’s region, 2002,
• Centre Charles Péguy and Maurice Genevoix’s House, in the Orleans area, 2003,
• Villa Mont-Noir, Marguerite Yourcenar’s property in the North of France, 2004,
• Villa Arnaga, Edmond Rostand’s House in the Basque country, 2005,
• Espace Maurice Carême, Bruxelles-Anderlecht in Belgium, 2006,
• Les Charmettes - J.J. Rousseau's House in Savoy and Hector Berlioz' Museum in Isère, 2007,
• Rimbaud’s Museum and the house of his youth in Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes), 2008,
• Following the writers of Provence in 2009,
• The Touraine and its writers in 2010,
• The writers in Normandy in 2011,

• The poets in the South of Paris in 2012,
• Writers in the South-West of France in 2013,
• Writers' houses and the first World War In Picardie in 2014,
• Victor Hugo and the writers in Franche-Comté in 2015,
• Writers and poets along the Loire in 2016,
• Writers in Bretagne in 2017.

 

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