The Special Collections Research Center at the George Washington University actively collects, preserves, and makes available historic documents that support the academic program at the University. The American Literary Studies Collections support the research and teaching efforts of the English Department at The George Washingotn University. One of the core components of these literary collections is the Washington Writers Archive.
Washington Writers Archive
The Washington Writers Archive program actively collects, preserves, and makes available historic documents that tell the story of the literary community within the Washington Metropolitan Area. These documents include publications, personal papers of local poets and writers, and organizational records for small publishing house and community groups. With these efforts, Special Collections is working to uncover and explore the ways individual writer's personal papers and organization's records, which alone tell only a small portion of the story, intersect to tell a more comprehensive story.
This is a two-fold project. Special Collections is collecting the published works of local writers (especially those works published by local small presses) to add to our book collection and also collecting the unpublished materials created by writers in the course of their creative lives. The types of documents in these literary collections often include correspondence (esp. with other writers and publishers), diaries (as they relate to the literary work and/or tell the writer's life experiences that informed their literary work), drafts of manuscripts, fliers from public performances, and audio and video of performances.
If you are interested in depositing papers or simply have suggestions of local writers and/or organizations Special Collections should know about, please contact Manuscripts Librarian Jennifer King at jenking@gwu.edu or 202-994-0628.
Collection highlights:
- Karen Alenier Papers
- Grace Cavalieri Papers
- Marita Golden Papers
- David M. McAleavey Papers
- E. Ethelbert Miller Papers
- Richard M. Peabody Gargoyle Magazine Collection
- Writer's Center Records
- Word Works, Inc. Records
Complete list of the Washington Writers Archive collections
Literary Collections of Rare Books and other Printed Material
The Literary collections also include the Stickney Pamphlet Collection, which includes pamphlets collected during the late 18th and early 19th Centuries by William Stickney and his father-in-law Amos Kendall on a variety of topics, including various literary subjects.
In addition, Special Collections collects works of fiction set in Washington, D.C. This collection of books is nearly comprehensive for the 19th Century and efforts are underway to fill out the holdings of 20th Century authors. A bibliography of D.C. Fiction can be found online, and all of the books in this collection have been cataloged and can be discovered through the Voyager Catalog. In the "Search Books and Other Formats" box below, enter in "Washington (D.C.) fiction)" and select "Subject" from the drop down menu to the right to get a list of all the fiction titles in this collection.
Similarly, Special Collections is working to build a comprehensive collection of poetry titles printed in the Washington Metropolitan Area or written by poets living in the District of Columbia and its surrounding environs. A bibliography of D.C. Poetry Collections here in Special Collections is also available online.
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