ENGL 373 American Women Writers: Primary Sources

The simplest way to try to locate primary writings by an author is to do an Author search in HopeCat (remember, last name first!), and browse the list for collections and anthologies that are focused in this area.  Keep an eye out for words in the title like:

Letters, correspondence, journal, diary, interviews, "on writing", "collected writings" (check record to see if this means fiction or non-fiction), papers.

When looking at the subject headings for a book you are unsure about, you may see some of the above terms.  "Sources" is another words that usually signals that the text contains primary writings.

MightyFind can offer an initial "one stop shop" to search many of our full text databases of newspapers and magazines.

Tips:

• Newspapers and Magazines can be a place to find book reviews and sometimes interviews with authors.
• Create a search using an authors last name and maybe the name of the work you are interested in
• Do some digging first to confirm what name they would have been referred to at that time (married name? pen name?)
• Once you have done the initial search, narrow down your date range to the time the work was published, or the time period in the author's life that you are curious about.  Be strategic or you will get too many results!