Holly Prado Papers, 1952-2007 (MSS 597)

SERIES 1) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS: General background on Holly Prado's life and career, including drafts of her resumes from the 1970s through late 1980s, brief biographies, a grant application, and newspaper clippings of articles about Prado.

SERIES 2) CORRESPONDENCE: Personal and professional correspondence. Given Prado's active involvement with poetry publications and acquaintance with other writers, professional and personal may overlap, with personal letters from friends occasionally including comments on Prado's work. Query letters to poetry journals and magazines are also present.

SERIES 3) WRITINGS: Primarily Prado's poetry, typically in typescript form, sometimes annotated. Some examples of Prado's earliest writing efforts from the 1950s and early 1960s are also present, including work Prado submitted for publication while still a student at Albion College and clippings of a column Prado wrote for the Albion College student newspaper. Arranged in six subseries: A) Childhood and Early Writings, B) Student Work, C) Poems, D) Poetry Collections, E) Poetry Miscellaneous, and F) Prose.

A) Childhood and Early Writings: Material Prado describes in a note as writing created "before I had any idea I could have a writing life." Includes poems from the early 1950s, short prose and a one act play.

B) Student Work: Primarily short prose written between 1954 and 1960, when Prado was a student at Albion College. Includes several clippings of her column for the Albion College student newspaper, The Pleiad, and a paper written for a Contemporary American Literature class taught by Peter Marin at Cal State, Los Angeles.

C) Poems: Individual poems and prose-poems, finished and unfinished, some in more than one version. Poems are typically typed, occasionally with handwritten annotations, and date from the late 1970s to early 1990s.

D) Poetry Collections: Groups of poems from Prado's files with a collective title. Some work is grouped thematically, some created as a poem cycle, and some grouped in collections intended for publication. Work dates from the 1970s to early 1990s.

E) Poetry Miscellaneous: Poems and prose-poems from Prado's files grouped to represent various date spans. The largest portion of material dates from the 1970s.

F) Prose: Several works of short prose, typed drafts and newspaper clippings of Prado's reviews for the Los Angeles Times, and a draft of her unpublished novel The Bright Obvious from 1989.

SERIES 4) NOTES: Chiefly consists of notepads which Prado and her husband, actor and poet Harry Northup, kept by their bedside between 1980 and 1995. On the notepads Prado and Northup shared thoughts, feelings, observations, and short messages. The subseries also includes a small amount of Prado's writing notes, notes from and about classes she attended in 1963 and 1964, and some working lists of material she had submitted for publication and information about sources for grants and awards.

SERIES 5) READINGS: Preparatory material and annotated poems used for live readings during the 1970s and 1980s.

SERIES 6) TEACHING MATERIALS: Preparatory material for writing workshops led by Prado, and courses for which Prado was a guest lecturer.

SERIES 7) CONFERENCES: Chiefly consists of notes and organizational material for conferences in which Prado participated. The largest amount of material relates to the Woman's Words Conference (1975), including promotional materials which Prado helped create and a packet of writings by various authors who participated in the conference.

SERIES 8) JOURNALS: Comprises the largest amount of material in the collection. Prado's personal journals date from 1960 through 1999. Influenced by Jungian psychology, Prado has described journals an important tool for "nourishing" her writing. They record thoughts, experiences, and dreams, and sometimes include drawings, photographs, or ephemera. Some journals deal specifically with trips Prado took, or dreams and are typically handwritten.

SERIES 9) WRITINGS BY OTHERS: A small selection of material, chiefly short prose, by authors other than Prado on subjects of interest to her. Works of particular note in this series are essays written by students evaluating Prado's writing.

SERIES 10) MISCELLANEOUS: Includes material relating to a memorial service for poet Leland Hickman; a collection of newspaper clippings, correspondence and other material relating to a dispute between Los Angeles area poets and the Los Angeles Times Book Review, which led to an organized demonstration in 1988; an abstract photograph; a calendar; and miscellaneous publication announcements.

SERIES 11) CORRESPONDENCE: Personal and private correspondence from 1988-2007. It includes letters with publishers, as well as personal correspondence that may also include professional comments.

SERIES 12) WRITINGS: Consists chiefly of Prado's poetry collections as well as works published in other journals. It is arranged in four subseries: A) Poetry Collections, B) Prose, C) Works Within Journals, and D) Miscellaneous.

A) Poetry Collections: Collections of poems compiled under one title, including Prado's works American Poetry and Orpheus. The work spans from 1991 through 2003.

B) Prose: Essays and publishing information on Prado's novel Gardens, 1982 through 1987.

C) Works Within Journals: Prado's work in other publications, from 1973 through 2006.

D) Miscellaneous: Essays written by others on Prado's work and other unnamed writing projects.

SERIES 13) READINGS: Annotated materials used for live readings during the 1990s.

SERIES 14) JOURNALS: Prado's personal journals from 1999 to 2004, titled by date span. The journals are typically handwritten and occasionally include drawings and clippings.