I started this post to talk about my writing in Wikipedia, but while prepping this, I thought I’d show you things I’ve published that aren’t just here on my blog.
Last year, I mentioned in one of my posts that I was getting published in Madison magazine, with my piece on Mamah Borthwick‘s gravestone.
This link will bring you right to it.
And
The Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly also published
two things
that I wrote while I worked at Taliesin Preservation:
“An Autobiography in Wood and Stone“, in 2018, which is a nice overview of Taliesin.
And
“Preserving Taliesin from the Ground Up” p. 22-27 in the Summer 2004 issue.
the editor didn’t tell us she was publishing it without a byline. Don’t worry, it’s been almost 18 years since it was published; I’m feeling a little better.
Then, SaveWright,
—the magazine from the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy—published two of my pieces:
“Landscape at Taliesin: Carrying on the Legacy,” in the Spring 2013 issue (vol. 4, Issue 1), Unity With Nature, p. 2-4
and
“Wright’s Own Kitchens at Taliesin”2 in the 2022 issue (vol. 13, no. 1), Wright on Kitchens, p. 2-5
Plus, my work appeared twice
on the Taliesin Preservation blog.
One piece that I wrote with their Communications Manager, Susan Kennedy, about Wright and Alex Jordan (the creator of the House on the Rock):
And they also published my post, “Wright called it the Water Garden“
that I first posted here.
Although, years ago I also worked on their website, along with another one we had just for the store.
it was a long time ago, when Flash animation still ran wild over the internets
Therefore, I had a lot of “learning by doing” experience in writing copy for items for sale in the giftshop;
Which meant a LOT OF ways to write about Wright’s Waterlilies and the Coonley Playhouse windows.2
The first time
I got paid for writing was in The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia.
(Taliesin-related, of course)
It was a good deal – they gave me about $1 per word.
You can see the article by looking on Archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/americanmidwesti0000unse/page/672/mode/2up
MY WRITING about Taliesin
is on page 672.
If you only see a portion of the book when you click the link, you can set up an account there.
It’s cool – I search for books in it all the time to confirm page numbers or publishing information. Someone has to upload one to see it and you can “check” them out for an hour at a time.
So I just read my article in the Midwest Ency. after almost 20 years. While I would probably change some things, it’s not too bad.
BUT I WROTE IN WIKIPEDIA
before all that.3
Obviously,
my first entry was about Taliesin.
The building not the half-god, jeeez
Wikipedia (hopefully for the foreseeable future) is a publication that is written, edited, and maintained mostly by volunteers.
In order to keep it going, they’ve got a strict set of rules.
I suppose you could break them all but in that case, they’d probably ban you.
IN FACT
I know someone who got banned.
But not because she was malicious. She was describing Wikipedia to her class, explaining that it can be changed by anyone, anywhere.
So,
to demonstrate this, she showed a page while under her own username and said something like, “don’t do THIS” then either deleted the text, or wrote something silly.
Even though she later reversed what she had done, they banned her.
I dunno if she ever got her account back.
And in 2017,
I added Wikipedia pages on all of the buildings on the Taliesin estate:
- The Hillside School building there now
- not to mention the first Hillside building Wright tore down in 1950
- Midway Barn
- The Romeo and Juliet Windmill
- The Porter House, Tan-y-Deri
plus the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center.
And, because of Wikipedia’s rules, I was careful to only work on the articles when I wasn’t getting paid.
So, guess what I did
in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic?
—while everyone was trying to figure out what to do, or how to create sourdough starter —
No surprise: I went to the page on Wikipedia that has links to all of Wright’s buildings,
then clicked on each entry
and systematically corrected them.
I don’t mean that I went to the pages and said YOU’RE ALL WRONG!!~
No:
I corrected misspellings, found better hyperlinks, replaced the errant comma when the author meant to write a period… stuff like that.
And then,
I added the “Storrer number” on every entry.
“Storrer” is William Allin Storrer, Ph.D.
He wrote about all known Wright buildings and published catalogues and books on them starting in the early ’70s with The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: A Complete Catalog.
Storrer’s work is like those catalogues of compositions by classical musicians, like the Köchel Catalogue and Mozart.
So, I put the Storrer number for each building in those Wikipedia posts, which is also on the big list of Wright buildings you start off at. It’s on each page under “Further reading“.
I confess, though
that I agree with those who don’t like the title I made for the Taliesin page on Wikipedia: Taliesin (studio)
Because the Taliesin structure isn’t just the studio.
I probably wrote that because it was the first thing that popped into my head while setting up the page.
But since the page has existed since 2004, changing it wouldn’t be that easy.
Besides, for the most part,
I’ve left all of those pages alone.
One of the things they tell “Wikipedians” is that you have to let changes happen. Like, don’t get into an electronic tit-for-tat with someone who has dared to make a change on “YOUR” page, find them and castigate them
PLUS,
I know things about Taliesin and the other buildings on the estate that have not been published in outside sources.
So, unless someone else writes and publishes a fact I know,
I can’t put it into Wikipedia.
Because its rules are that you can’t post “original research”. So when I know something, I search for it in other writing. Otherwise, I sit on my hands.
Well, Wikipedia doesn’t get to see my work, but you guys sure do!
Originally published March 24, 2026.
The image at the top of this post is a screenshot from the Taliesin (studio) page on Wikipedia.
Notes:
- Here’s a partial list I wrote of the Coonley-Playhouse-window-design appearance, c. 2005:
On a t-shirt, an umbrella, a deck of cards (not including the special “Bridge Set”!), a wood screen that cost $220, a high-ball glass, cotton throw, table runner, placemats, a notepad, travel clock, nightlight, mug, a couple of scarves, a fricking WALL STENCIL, a $154.00-framed-tile, coasters, a set of children’s plateware, stitch kits, TWO different picture frames, cocktail napkins, a tumbler glass, sh–busloads of neckties (in tan, slate, and red – just this time around), a rollerball pen, giftwrap, a baseball cap, a pen holder….
- I received the offer to write the article after I’d mused to the Senior Director of Preservation and Collections at Fallingwater about the kitchen at Taliesin West. I think I’ll explore my ideas on that in another post. Later: on April 18, I published “The Kitchen at Taliesin West.
- and I know publishing in Wikipedia isn’t being accepted and peer-reviewed; but it’s still “Preservation by Distribution“.
