Ramona Maher Weeks Papers
Scope and Contents
Manuscripts, correspondence, notes, photographs, newspaper clippings, printed material, and ephemera document the life and literary career of Ramona Maher Weeks from 1934 until 2004. The Personal Papers and Memorabilia series includes school records, early writings, resumes, clippings, and personal photographs from the years 1934-1996. The Correspondence series is divided into personal and professional subseries and primarily contains letters received by Maher Weeks, and some letters received by her son Ramon, from 1951-2004. The bulk of the collection is the Writings series, made up of manuscripts of books, short stories, poetry, plays, and other writings by Maher Weeks from 1960 through the 1980s. The Writings series also includes drafts, notes, outlines, galleys, and photographs used in her works. This series also includes juvenile and young adult book reviews written by Maher Weeks for The Arizona Teacher and The Arizona Republic. The fourth and final series in the collection includes some of Maher Weeks’s Published Works, several books and dozens of literary journals in which her poems and other writings appeared.
Dates
- 1934 - 2004
Creator
- Ramona Maher Weeks (Person)
Biographical Sketch
Ramona Maher was born in Phoenix to Josephine and R.E. Maher on October 25, 1934. She had three sisters, Bonnie, Frances, and Hazel. Maher attended schools in Phoenix and Douglas, Arizona, Bedford, Texas, Raton and Clayton, New Mexico, Brinkley, Arkansas, and graduated from high school in Victoria, Texas in 1951. She attended Texas Christian University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and speech in 1954. While at TCU, Maher actively participated in the speech and theater department, appearing in numerous productions, and even staging one of her own one act plays, When the Fire Dies. She also won an award for her poem “The Road to Rome,” which appeared in The American Literary Anthology edited by George Plimpton. In 1954, she worked as a guest editor for Mademoiselle magazine and won first prize in Seventeen magazine’s short story contest. She married Roberto Martinez and gave birth to her son Ramon. Her first marriage ended in divorce in 1957. She later married Tim Weeks. The couple lived in New Mexico, Alaska, Washington, and Arizona.
Maher wrote several young adult novels in the genres of historical fiction and mystery, including Their Shining Hour (1960), The Abracadabra Mystery (1961), A Dime for Romance (1963), The Secret of the Dark Stranger (1963), and The Secret of the Sundial (1966) and non-fiction books Ice Island: Polar Science and the Arctic Research Laboratory (1965) and Shifting Sands: the Story of the Sand Dunes (1968). During her career, she worked as an editor at the University of New Mexico Press, the University of Washington Press, and as an editor and staff writer for the Arizona Teacher, published by the Arizona Education Association. Maher also wrote reviews of juvenile and young adult books for the Arizona Republic newspaper. In 1969, she and Joy Harvey launched a small publishing house called The Baleen Press, and published the poetry journal Inscape. Maher Weeks herself was a prolific and widely published poet. Her poems appeared in the Yale Review, Forum, Descant, the New Mexico Quarterly, the Chicago Review, the Kenyon Review, Southwest Review, and Poetry Northwest among other literary magazines and journals.
Ramona Maher Weeks died in Phoenix on August 19, 1996 at the age of 61.
Extent
10 Linear feet
Language of Materials
English
- American poetry -- 20th century Subject Source: {:aat=>"Art & Architecture Thesaurus", :cash=>"Canadian Subject Headings", :gmgpc=>"TGM II, Genre and physical characteristic terms", :ingest=>"Unspecified ingested source", :lcgft=>"Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms", :lcsh=>"Library of Congress Subject Headings", :lcshac=>"Library of Congress Children's Subject Headings", :local=>"Local sources", :mesh=>"Medical Subject Headings", :nal=>"National Agricultural Library subject headings", :ram=>"Répertoire d'autorités RAMEAU", :rbgenr=>"Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloguing", :rvm=>"Répertoire de vedettes-matière", :tgn=>"Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names"}
- Authors and publishers Subject Source: {:aat=>"Art & Architecture Thesaurus", :cash=>"Canadian Subject Headings", :gmgpc=>"TGM II, Genre and physical characteristic terms", :ingest=>"Unspecified ingested source", :lcgft=>"Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms", :lcsh=>"Library of Congress Subject Headings", :lcshac=>"Library of Congress Children's Subject Headings", :local=>"Local sources", :mesh=>"Medical Subject Headings", :nal=>"National Agricultural Library subject headings", :ram=>"Répertoire d'autorités RAMEAU", :rbgenr=>"Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloguing", :rvm=>"Répertoire de vedettes-matière", :tgn=>"Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names"}
- Baleen Press Subject Source: {:aat=>"Art & Architecture Thesaurus", :cash=>"Canadian Subject Headings", :gmgpc=>"TGM II, Genre and physical characteristic terms", :ingest=>"Unspecified ingested source", :lcgft=>"Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms", :lcsh=>"Library of Congress Subject Headings", :lcshac=>"Library of Congress Children's Subject Headings", :local=>"Local sources", :mesh=>"Medical Subject Headings", :nal=>"National Agricultural Library subject headings", :ram=>"Répertoire d'autorités RAMEAU", :rbgenr=>"Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloguing", :rvm=>"Répertoire de vedettes-matière", :tgn=>"Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names"}
- Inscape (Phoenix, AZ) Subject Source: {:aat=>"Art & Architecture Thesaurus", :cash=>"Canadian Subject Headings", :gmgpc=>"TGM II, Genre and physical characteristic terms", :ingest=>"Unspecified ingested source", :lcgft=>"Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms", :lcsh=>"Library of Congress Subject Headings", :lcshac=>"Library of Congress Children's Subject Headings", :local=>"Local sources", :mesh=>"Medical Subject Headings", :nal=>"National Agricultural Library subject headings", :ram=>"Répertoire d'autorités RAMEAU", :rbgenr=>"Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloguing", :rvm=>"Répertoire de vedettes-matière", :tgn=>"Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names"}
- Texas Christian University -- Alumni and Alumnae Subject Source: {:aat=>"Art & Architecture Thesaurus", :cash=>"Canadian Subject Headings", :gmgpc=>"TGM II, Genre and physical characteristic terms", :ingest=>"Unspecified ingested source", :lcgft=>"Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms", :lcsh=>"Library of Congress Subject Headings", :lcshac=>"Library of Congress Children's Subject Headings", :local=>"Local sources", :mesh=>"Medical Subject Headings", :nal=>"National Agricultural Library subject headings", :ram=>"Répertoire d'autorités RAMEAU", :rbgenr=>"Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloguing", :rvm=>"Répertoire de vedettes-matière", :tgn=>"Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names"}
- Women authors -- American Subject Source: {:aat=>"Art & Architecture Thesaurus", :cash=>"Canadian Subject Headings", :gmgpc=>"TGM II, Genre and physical characteristic terms", :ingest=>"Unspecified ingested source", :lcgft=>"Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms", :lcsh=>"Library of Congress Subject Headings", :lcshac=>"Library of Congress Children's Subject Headings", :local=>"Local sources", :mesh=>"Medical Subject Headings", :nal=>"National Agricultural Library subject headings", :ram=>"Répertoire d'autorités RAMEAU", :rbgenr=>"Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloguing", :rvm=>"Répertoire de vedettes-matière", :tgn=>"Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names"}
- Women poets -- American Subject Source: {:aat=>"Art & Architecture Thesaurus", :cash=>"Canadian Subject Headings", :gmgpc=>"TGM II, Genre and physical characteristic terms", :ingest=>"Unspecified ingested source", :lcgft=>"Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms", :lcsh=>"Library of Congress Subject Headings", :lcshac=>"Library of Congress Children's Subject Headings", :local=>"Local sources", :mesh=>"Medical Subject Headings", :nal=>"National Agricultural Library subject headings", :ram=>"Répertoire d'autorités RAMEAU", :rbgenr=>"Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloguing", :rvm=>"Répertoire de vedettes-matière", :tgn=>"Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names"}
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
Repository Details
Part of the Archives and Special Collections, Mary Couts Burnett Library Repository
TCU Box 298400
2800 S. University Drive
Fort Worth, Texas 76129-0001
Fort Worth Texas 76129
(817) 257-4566
(817) 257-7282 (Fax)
LibSpecialCollections@tcu.edu
