Maine Women Writers Collection

 What happens to a writer’s drafts and manuscripts? Where do researchers get background information on authors? Who are Maine’s interesting writers? Answers to these questions and more will come to light when Cally Gurley, Director of Special Collections at the University of New England, speaks on UNE’s Maine Women Writers Collection. The talk, sponsored by the York Diversity Forum, will take place at 2:00pm on Tuesday May 15th, in the Meeting Room the York Public Library.

Gurley’s talk is presented by the York Diversity Forum as part of this year’s York Reads program.  The 2012 theme for York Reads is the work of May Sarton, who lived and wrote in York during the last two decades of her life.  There is no charge for the program, and all are welcome.  For more information on the talk, call 361-1210 or email yorkdiversityforum@gmail.com.

The Maine Women Writers Collection (MWWC) was founded in 1959 by Grace Dow and Dorothy Healy to honor, preserve, and make available the writings of Maine women who have achieved literary recognition. The Collection now has over 8,000 volumes on more than 500 Maine women and maintains an active acquisitions program in contemporary and historic manuscript material as well as in rare books.

Holdings are especially strong in nineteenth and twentieth-century resources. Published material ranges from rare books, pamphlets, and broadsides to newspapers and literary and popular journals. Among the Collection's unpublished materials are travel journals, diaries, correspondence, photographs, manuscripts, artwork, material culture, memorabilia, artists' books, and children's literature.

MWWC also holds records of women's organizations such as Maine Media Women, the National League of Pen Women (Augusta Branch), and the Massachusetts branch of the National Women's Party (a suffrage organization). The Collection's prominent subject areas include women's literary and social history, the suffrage and women's movements, women's health and medicine, women's sexuality, family culture, nature and the environment, spiritualism, New England studies, and Maine history.