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Beverley Simons fonds
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Professional and Personal Records

The series contains records related to the business aspects (financial and administrative) of Simons’ professional career as writer and records from her personal life. Records have been maintained in one series because of their physical indivisibility. Professional records range in date from the early 1970s to 2012; personal records span the mid-1950s to 2012.

Simons’ professional activities fall into the following categories: financial administration, primarily grant applications and the receipt of publication royalties; publication and production administration, which involved the negotiation and signing of publishing contracts and play distribution and production; submissions, which included sending drafts of various literary works and curriculum vitaes to a range of potential producers and publishers; promotion, often giving readings at various events, serving as artist in residence at the University of Lethbridge in 1984, managing the production and distribution of a videotape version of Crabdance (c. 1977, Access Alberta), participating in interviews with members of the press, and corresponding with academics; and service, especially in the form of mentoring younger writers, and, on occasion, adjudicating writing or grant competitions. Simons’ personal records include correspondence with friends and family and records pertaining to her divorce (1984-1991).

The archivist maintained the physical order in which records in this series were received. Some files are arranged in chronological order, while others, particularly subject files, have no discernible order. Record types in the series include the following: grant applications and follow-up reports; royalty reports from Talonbooks; letters accompanying manuscript submissions; acceptance and rejection letters; correspondence regarding permissions, publication, and productions; endorsements and comments on Simons’ publications from various academics, producers, publishers, and writers; academic treatments of Simons’ work, particularly master’s theses by Gyllian Raby (1982) and Amanda Lockitch (2005) and an issue of Canadian Theatre Review (1976) devoted to Simons’ dramatic works; drafts of Simons’ curriculum vitae; copies of Simons’ colleagues’ and mentees’ works; texts of remarks delivered at promotional readings; newspaper clippings, likely used for background research; professional headshots of Simons; divorce affidavits; personal correspondence, both handwritten and in email form; recordings on cassette tape and VHS cassettes of lectures and readings given by Simons; and a seven inch 33 1/3 LP record bearing recordings of sound poetry from The Capilano Review.

Beverley Simons fonds

  • RBSC-ARC-1764
  • Fonds
  • 1950-2013

The fonds consists of records related to Simons’ writing career, travels, and personal life. Records span a period from Simons’ early years in university to 2012 and were created predominantly in Vancouver, British Columbia. Some records were created during Simons’ travels in England, France, Japan, Hong Kong, India, and Burma. The fonds comprises the following three series: Literary Works; Professional and Personal Records; and Travel Records.

The Literary Works series features drafts of Simons’ literary works in various genres, particularly drama (stage, radio, and film) and fiction (for children and adults). Record types include publications, drafts (typed, handwritten, and hand-annotated), outlines, notes, research materials for projects, several recordings of Simons’ works, and large poster boards Simons used for plotting one of her fiction projects.

The Professional and Personal Records series contains records related to the administration and management of Simons’ literary career, particularly her attempts to submit work to various publishers and producers, mount productions of her dramatic works, and secure adequate financial resources to sustain her writerly practice. Administrative records are frequently mixed physically with Simons’ personal correspondence to family and friends. Record types include drafts of Simons’ curriculum vitae, grant applications, professional and personal correspondence, professional photographs, and contracts.

The Travel Records series aggregates records from Simons’ three major trips: Europe from 1959-1961; Japan, Hong Kong, and India from 1967-1968; and Hong Kong, Burma, India, and Japan in 1986. Simons attended many plays, conferences, and art shows while traveling and preserved programs as a source of inspiration for her creative work. Simons also maintained correspondence with friends and family during her travels. Record types include programs, personal and professional correspondence, personal photographs, and Simons’ notes on various activities.

Simons, Beverley

Literary Works

The series contains literary works created by Beverley Simons from 1956 to 2012. Simons worked in a variety of genres, producing drama, fiction, non-fiction, and film scripts. From 1956 to the late 1970s, Simons focused primarily on drama, creating abstract, symbolic texts that interrogated Western epistemologies and relationship structures, particularly those between middle-class men and women. Several of Simons plays were produced during this period, and these plays are heavily represented in the series: The Elephant and the Jewish Question (Vancouver Little Theatre Association, 1968); Greenlawn Rest Home (Savage God—Simon Fraser University and the Vancouver Art Gallery, 1969); Crabdance (A Contemporary Theatre, 1969; Playhouse Theatre Company, 1972; Sigma, 1994); Preparing (Simon Fraser University, 1973); and Prologue, Triangle, and Crusader (Savage God—York University, 1976). Simons also generated several radio plays and film scripts on commissions from various organizations. The film scripts Ezekiel Saw a Wheel and A Question of Symmetry, both created during the early 1970s, are heavily represented in the series. Only one of Simons’ film scripts was produced during this period—The Canary, commissioned for C.B.C. T.V. (1967).

In the 1980s, Simons turned her attention to fiction. She began work on a trilogy of novels, Da Vinci’s Light, which she continued to work on until 2012. The trilogy remains incomplete; however, the series contains numerous Da Vinci’s light manuscripts, many of which contain handwritten annotations. Simons also published several short stories during this time in Vancouver-based literary magazines, including PRISM international and the best of blewointment. In the 1990s, Simons returned to writing drama, producing one new play, Now You See It, which remains unproduced.

The archivist re-arranged files in the series to conform to two identified orders: genre and literary project. Files related to specific projects (e.g. Da Vinci’s Light) were grouped physically and intellectually. Project files were then aggregated based on genre and form: long fiction, short fiction, drama, film, and research files. The most significant documentary form in the series is Simons’ writing itself: copies of publications; typed, computer-generated manuscripts, many of which are hand-annotated; project proposals; publication proofs; clippings or photocopies of published works; a recording on cassette tape of Simons reading a draft of her work; a recording on cassette tape of one of Simons’ radio productions; recordings on cassette tape of Simons interviewing various people for literary projects; and outlines and notes regarding characters, plot, and structure, some of which are taped to poster boards. The series also contains some correspondence, both handwritten and in email form, regarding Simons’ writing projects. Correspondence is between Simons and her publishers, editors, theatre companies, film producers, literary agents, awards committees, colleagues, mentees, friends, and family. The series also includes some publicity and promotional materials, such as newspaper clippings, photocopies of reviews, and posters advertising Simons’ dramatic productions. Additional collected ephemera includes clippings used for background research and a commemorative volume for the Sigma festival of 1994 at which Crabdance was produced.

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