Frances Whyatt papers, 1969-2000, undated
Collection context
- Creator:
- Whyatt, Frances
- Abstract:
- Frances Whyatt (born 1945) is an American author, poet and activist. She has published poetry, short stories, and novels under the name Frances Whyatt as well as under the pseudonym Shylah Boyd. Her published works of fiction and poetry include American Made (1975), American Gypsy (1983), and A Real Man & Other Stories (1990). Her work focuses on themes of gender, sexuality, and feminism. The Frances Whyatt Papers (1969-2000) document Whyatt's personal and professional relationships, creative writing practice, and her activism in feminist organizations such as Women Against Pornography. Materials in this collection include drafts, manuscripts, and correspondence. The collection also contains ephemera and miscellaneous materials, such as journal entries, research notes, fashion sketches, and recipes.
- Extent:
- 12.5 Linear Feet 30 full size document boxes
- Language:
- English .
- Scope and content:
-
The Frances Whyatt papers contain materials produced and saved by Frances Whyatt during 1969-2000. The papers document Whyatt's creative writing practice through drafts, manuscripts, and correspondence, as well as personal and professional networks and involvement with activist and professional organizations. The collection is organized in three series, Series 1 contains Whyatt's correspondence, Series 2 includes manuscripts and written works, and Series 3 contains ephemera and writing that does not directly pertain to Whyatt's oeuvre (such as journal entries, miscellaneous research materials, and recipes).
Series 1, Correspondence, includes thirteen boxes of Frances Whyatt's personal, professional, and administrative correspondence spanning the years 1969-2000, and some undated materials. In addition to letters and attached documents, several folders also contain assorted greeting cards, newspaper clippings, photographs, and a pin. The personal letters within the collection, both incoming and outgoing, reveal the nature of Whyatt's relationships with family, friends, colleagues, and romantic partners. Correspondence with writer friends, such as Hugh Seidman, Diane Wolff, and Rochelle Ratner, is present in each box and often includes poetry and drafts by these authors and Whyatt herself, providing insight into Whyatt's approach to writing. Also notable among personal correspondence are the exchanges between Frances Whyatt and her family members, such as brothers Oliver Grannis and Joseph Grannis, which span throughout the entire series. The professional correspondence with publishing houses, universities, and writer's organizations reveals information about Whyatt's experience as a freelance author and poet in late-20th century New York. There is an abundance of rejection letters present within Whyatt's papers, but also evidence of many successful publications and reviews, flyers to Downtown poetry readings she participated in, and communication regarding writer's grants, awards and fellowships. Whyatt's professional undertakings which are well documented in the series include the Poetry in the Schools program (approximately 1974-79), Macdowell Colony Fellowship (approximately 1974-1980), and consistent involvement with PEN and other writer's associations. Alongside professional engagements, the correspondence series documents Whyatt's work with feminist organizations such as Women Against Pornography, Women's Anti-rape Coalition, and National Organization for Non-Parents. The series' administrative correspondence documents Whyatt's residences in Florida and New York, a court case, and her divorce from Ron Schiavone.
Series 2, Manuscripts and Written Works, contains fifteen boxes of drafts of written works by Frances Whyatt produced from 1973 to 1993. Whyatt's writing included poetry, prose in the form of short stories, novels and experimental plays. The series includes unpublished and published titles written under the names Frances Whyatt as well as Whyatt's pseudonym, Shylah Boyd. Titles included are: There was a Time, Everything Under the Sun, "Key Lime Pie", "Of The Flesh", Lost Love, American Gypsy, "Electra", The Book of Maps, American Made, Europe on Five, A Real Man, and Sailor, Sailor!. Some manuscripts and drafts are near completion, in the form of bound galleys or including copyright and title page information, while others include handwritten edits or notes and can be found in the form of loose chapters. The series also includes compilations of poems, some of which were never published, and some of which were published in independent anthologies, collections and literary magazines. Many of Whyatt's poetic works share titles across compilations, and reference her continuous reworking of themes and ideas. Whyatt's writing includes characters that frequently reappear throughout her oeuvre of work. Although her work is not directly autobiographical, Whyatt is known to use her own life experience as inspiration for her writing. The name Shylah is used for several protagonists in her novels and short stories, including Everything Under the Sun and the published work, American Made. Plotlines, motifs and locales are similarly repeated across drafts and published works. Whyatt primarily published novels under the name Shylah Boyd, beginning in 1975, whereas her poetry was primarily published under the name Frances Whyatt. Of her poetic works, only the collection American Gypsy has been published in full, although drafts of individual poems can be seen throughout the series in various stages of edit.
Series 3, Additional Materials, contains a book of writings, ephemera, and realia from 1972 to 2000. These are materials which the archivists did not identify as directly connected to Frances Whyatt's creative writing practice or correspondence, but nevertheless hold evidentiary value about the author's activities. This includes event flyers, journal entries, research materials, correspondence about animal rights activism, recipes, and a fashion project in collaboration with Mary Grosvenor Boyd, Whyatt's mother. Other significant materials include correspondence about Robert Hazel, Hazel's poetry, and a memorial article on Robert Hazel titled "Knowing Bob" written by Frances Whyatt.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Frances Whyatt is an American author, poet and activist. She has published poetry, short stories, and novels under the name Frances Whyatt, as well as under the pseudonym Shylah Boyd. Her published works of fiction and poetry include American Made (1975), American Gypsy (1983), and A Real Man & Other Stories (1990). Her work focuses on themes of gender, sexuality, and feminism.
Whyatt was born Frances Armstrong Grannis on March 8, 1945 in Fort Hayes, Ohio. She spent her early life in Franklin, North Carolina and the Florida Keys, which would later serve as the inspiration for her debut novel American Made. Upon graduating from Coral Shores High School in 1963, Whyatt matriculated at Boston University to study acting. She went on to study creative writing and cultural anthropology at the University of Minnesota. She married Thomas Edward Whyatt in 1964 and following their divorce in 1969, moved to the West Village of New York, where she would remain rooted for the rest of her life. In 1974, Whyatt married Ronald Schiavone; they divorced in 1983. She primarily split her time as an adult living between New York and Florida and as of the writing of this finding aid in 2023 lives in Massachusetts.
Upon moving to New York City, Whyatt worked as a freelance writer and began to publish her poetry in 1969. She published the anthology Equal Time with fellow writer, friend and neighbor at Westbeth Artists Housing, Hugh Seidman, in 1972. In 1973, Whyatt participated in her first of three writer's colony residencies as a MacDowell Fellow. It was during this period that she began to use the pen name Shylah Boyd, "Shylah" being derived from a cousin's name and "Boyd" from her mother's maiden name. Her first novel, American Made, was published in 1975, and was the first publication authored under her pseudonym. In 1983, American Gypsy was published as her first full-length collection of poetry, authored under the name Frances Whyatt. Whyatt primarily published written works of prose, including novels and short stories, under the name Shylah Boyd, and published under the name Frances Whyatt for her works of poetry. The character "Shylah" is featured as a frequent protagonist in many of Whyatt's prose manuscripts, which include themes largely pulled from her lived experiences.
Whyatt worked as a professor of Creative Writing at Rutgers University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. She also participated in the Poetry in the Schools Program, within the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Over the course of her career, Whyatt took part in several artist residency and fellowship programs, and received numerous awards for her writing, including the Calliope Award in 1974, the Triton International Poetry Contest Award in 1975, and a PEN award for her short story "Clean and Gentle Moments" published in A Real Man & Other Stories (under the name Shylah Boyd). She has published work in the New York Times, The Nation, The New Republic, Chelsea, Southern Poetry Review, Ms. Magazine and Cosmopolitan Magazine. Whyatt's correspondence reveals a breadth of personal and professional relationships with fellow writers in the New York scene, such as Hugh Seidman, Robert Hazel, Diane Wolff, Daniela Gioseffi, Rochelle Ratner, and Adrienne Rich.
In addition to her writing career, Whyatt was an active feminist, humanist and environmentalist. She was a member of Women Against Pornography, as well as the National Organization for Non-Parents. She remained vocal in feminist activism throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
SELECT WRITINGS:
Frances Whyatt:
Equal Time, Equal Time Press, co-editor with Hugh Seidman (1972)
"Path," Nation (1972)
Poems appear in Loves, Etc., edited by Marguerite Harris. Knopf Doubleday (1973)
"Ode of Anger," New Republic (1973)
American Gypsy, Countryman Press (Woodstock, VT): Farrar, Straus & Giroux (1975); Fawcett Publications, Literary Guild, and Macdonald & James (1984)
"Knowing Bob: A Look Back," Southern Quarterly (2002)
Shylah Boyd:
A Real Man & Other Stories, British American Publishing with Simon & Schuster (1990)
American Made, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (1975)
"Cherry-Shiree" in Bearing Life: Women's Writings on Childlessness, New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York (2000)
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
This collection has no restrictions.
- Terms of access:
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Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the Barnard Archives and Special Collections. The Barnard Archives and Special Collections approves permission to publish that which it physically owns; the responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron. Reproductions can be made for research purposes.
- Preferred citation:
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Frances Whyatt Papers, 1969-2000; Box and Folder; Barnard Archives and Special Collections, Barnard Library, Barnard College.
- Location of this collection:
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Milstein Center for Teaching and Learning 423Barnard College3009 BroadwayNew York, NY 10027, USA
- Before you visit:
- Please contact archives@barnard.edu with research requests or to schedule a visit; see our website for more information.
- Contact:
- archives@barnard.edu