Collected research: Yabo, articles and notes regarding sources, 2008-2009

Through her literary and artistic work, De Veaux’s writing upholds the life experiences of Black queer representation and amplifies the social, economic, and political lives of oppressed peoples, particularly centered on Black LGBTQ+ stories. This series includes materials related to her published and unpublished writing, collected research, and critical reviews of her work as an author. Her work is arranged according to the bulk of her writing and research, assembling the files on Warrior Poet and Yabo, and followed by the rest of her other published materials.

Her writings range from novels, short stories, essays, poetry, children’s literature, plays, articles, and a thesis and dissertation. She is also an illustrator and her drawings are showcased in her children’s books. Files consist of early renderings to the finalized stages of her literary works across the different genres. These reflect her developmental and creative process of the various stages of her writing through book proposals, book treatments, drafts and working papers, notes and notebooks, hand scripts, typescripts, manuscripts, edited copies, photocopies, and finalized publications. The writings begin with files on Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde, Yabo, poems, plays and theatrical pieces, short stories, children’s stories, and essays and other publications. A large portion of the Series is dedicated to the process of writing and researching Warrior Poet and Yabo. For Warrior Poet, files contain De Veaux’s drafts and manuscripts of the novel, gallery proofs, and research retrieved on Lorde from the Spelman Archives. Her works have been translated to many languages including Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, and Serbo-Croatian, and are internationally recognized; the series contains De Veaux’s poetry in French and Spanish. Some of the files are dedicated to certain subjects like Charlotte Sheedy, her literary agent, and Loyce Stewart, her partner.

While De Veaux writes from her imagination to expand on new possibilities for equality, as a biographer she also writes about the real lives of Black women. De Veaux wrote a biography of Billie Holiday in Don’t Explain: A Song of Billie Holiday (1980) and of Audre Lorde in Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde (2004). Warrior Poet was the first biography to be written after Lorde’s passing. As a Black woman, it is significant to De Veaux that she captures other Black women’s life stories, as she and her subject are both uniquely engaged by shared life experiences. Her contributions to literature also emerge in her poetry books, Spirits in the Street (1973) and Blue Heat: Poems and Drawings (1985). Her other books include children's literature with illustrations such as Na-Ni (1973), An Enchanted Hair Tale (1987), My Auntie Is a Writer (1990), and The Woolu Hat (1995). The publication of Blue Heat: Poems and Drawings and the manuscript draft for My Auntie Is a Writer are included in De Veaux’s papers.

De Veaux worked at Essence as a freelance writer and most notably interviewed Nelson Mandela to publish “Walking into Freedom’s Hand” (1990), which is included in the series. Other files present her short stories and essays, “Remember Him an Outlaw” (1972), “The Riddles of Egypt Brown-stone” (1980), “All Shut Eyes Ain’t Closed, All Goodbyes Ain’t Gone” (1983), “Adventures of the Dread Sisters” (1991), “Concealed Weapons” (1992), “The Ethical Vegetarian” (1995), “Jayne Cortez, Revolutionary Mouth on Paper” (for Essence, 1978) and “Sister Love” (anthologized in Afrekete: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Writing, 1995). Her plays are also included: Circles (produced at KCET-TV, 1976), A Season to Remember (1979), The Tapestry (anthologized in Nine Plays by Black Women Playwrights 1986), The Elbow

Rooms (1987), and An Evidence of Letters (1998). She has also collaborated with other authors to write plays such as in An Evidence of Letters with Renee Armstrong. Her work has been preserved and celebrated across anthologies, literary magazines, mainstream magazines, zines, and academic journals