Maxine Kumin papers

The collection contains writings, correspondence, and other materials documenting Maxine Kumin's literary work and professional and public activities since 1960. Writings include drafts, proofs, and other materials relating to book-length and shorter works. Kumin wrote children's books, poetry collections, essay and short story collections, and novels, and files can be found for works dating from the early children's book A Winter Friend (1961) to the late collection of poems, Still to Mow (2007). Large files can be found for a variety of work: The Abduction (1971), The Long Approach (1985), Looking For Luck (1992), Women, Animals, and Vegetables (1994), Selected Poems 1960-1990 (1997), Quit Monks or Die (1999), Inside the Halo and Beyond the Journey (1999), Always Beginning (2000), and Jack and Other New Poems (2005).

Correspondence in the collection can be found with writers, literary critics, publishers, and family. Correspondents include: Dudley Fitts, William Meredith, Howard Nemerov, Anne Sexton, and the publishers Harper & Row, McGraw-Hill, W. W. Norton, Viking, and North Point Press. The March 2013 Acquisition contains a large file of correspondence, dating from 1945 and 1946, between Maxine Kumin and her husband Victor.

Other materials appear chiefly to document Kumin's professional and public actitivities. There are financial and legal records, such as contracts and permissions, correspondence and documents relating to speaking engagements and participation on literary juries and in the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference; printed materials, including reviews and publicity; audiovisual materials, including both sound and video recordings of readings by Kumin, interviews, and other cultural events; and personal papers, such as calendars and photographs.