The cover of a journal Jack Kerouac kept from 1948-49 while preparing to write "On the Road."

The film On the Road, an adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s acclaimed novel of the same name, opens in theaters today. The Ransom Center holds a number of items related to the lives and works of the “Beat Generation” artists, including a journal Kerouac kept from 1948 to 1949 while preparing to write On the Road. In July 2010, a producer for the film contacted the Ransom Center with a request to help the actors access Beat culture and their characters’ personalities.

Kristen Stewart, best known for her role in the Twilight films, stars in On the Road as Marylou, a character based on Kerouac’s friend LuAnne Henderson. Kerouac…

Each Friday, the Ransom Center shares photos from throughout the week that highlight a range of activities and collection holdings. We hope you enjoy these photos that reveal some of the everyday happenings at the Center.

Eric Cartier, a graduate student in the School of Information, works with an audio reel of William Faulkner reading his own short story "The Bear." Photo by Pete Smith

Library Assistant Ancelyn Krivak uses the Digibook scanner to create digital images for a book of poetry. Photo by Pete Smith

Jim Crace

The papers of British writer Jim Crace, author of acclaimed works Continent (1986), Arcadia (1992), Quarantine (1997), Being Dead (1999), and The Pesthouse (2007), are now open at the Ransom Center. A finding aid of the collection can be accessed online.

The Center acquired Crace’s archive in 2008. The collection is made up of more than 45 boxes of materials, including the research notes, early drafts and edited page proofs of All That Follows (2010), Crace’s novel that is being released next Tuesday.

Below you can view a video of Crace reading from All That Follows. Also, listen to audio of Crace reading from his other works and view a list of his recommended reading.

Film still from ‘Sunset Boulevard’

The contributions of the actor can be seen throughout the Making Movies exhibition. The primary and most visible interpreter of character is the actor, who interacts with or is affected by every creative artist on the production team.

Gloria Swanson’s performance as the aging film star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard (1950) is now widely regarded as one of the most powerful in the history of film. The inner life of the character was first developed in the screenplay by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, who tailored specific details to Swanson’s own life and career. But Swanson also drew on her own experience as a silent-screen film actor when she relied primarily on facial expressions and pantomime to…

Lucien Douglas, Professor of Theatre and Dance at The University of Texas at Austin, performs “The Tell-Tale Heart” and other selections from the work of Edgar Allan Poe tonight in an event that will be webcast live.

Listen to Douglas reading excerpts from “Alone,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Raven.”

The Ransom Center has acquired the papers of American novelist Jayne Anne Phillips. Phillips has published six novels and story collections over the last three decades. Her most recent work is Lark and Termite (2009).

Phillips visited the Ransom Center recently and recorded a reading of Lark and Termite, which you can listen to here.

Known for her poetic prose and her in-depth study of family dynamics, Phillips has received critical acclaim and major literary prizes, including a Guggenheim fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Phillips is professor of English and director of the Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University, Newark.

The acquisition contains manuscripts in…