Rhode Island Writers' Guild records (Ms.2008.015)

The collection consists of thirteen series. The administrative records series contains materials concerning the actual administration, functioning, and history of the group. The series includes membership lists, membership forms and some filled out membership applications along with the charter, two histories of the Guild, minutes of some of the meetings and a listing of the contents of the collection as it was when it was purchased.

The correspondence series is arranged by date. The letters of John McCabe which are witty, voluminous and illustrated by his own drawings have been separated, placed last, and kept in date order. The newsletters series includes the newsletters of the Guild. At one point, the newsletter was titled the Guild O Gram. The scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings of obituaries of deceased members, notices of meetings, and descriptions of meetings just held. The occasional published poem is also included.

The Guild held contests and offered awards for poet of the year and in 1976 offered special awards for writers of history. The awards series includes awards for excellence, author of the year, junior and senior achievement awards and later and Eddy Memorial and Clarke Memorial awards. The biographical material series contains information on both members and non-members.

The actual output by the members is represented in the four series labeled hymns, periodicals, poetry and prose. These are filed within each category by the author's last name.

The photograph series shows the members both at work and at play. There are many photographs of events such as Christmas parties as well as some of roundtable discussions and speakers addressing rooms crowded with attentive members.

The publicity series concentrates mostly on Poetry Day, October 15, and contains many proclamations declaring Poetry Day in Rhode Island. These are signed by the Rhode Island governors who held office during the three decades that the Guild was active.

The miscellaneous series contains items like Clifford Eddy's Guild membership card, business cards for both Ruth Eddy and her mother Muriel, the wooden plaque of the organization, a reel to reel tape, and a 1950's map of the campus of Brown University where many of the early meetings were held.