Abstract The Cranbrook Writers' Guild (CWG) was a non-profit organization that operated between 1970 and 2008. The organization's focus was continuing the four-day Cranbrook Writers' Conference which was a special project of the literature committee of the Michigan State Council for the Arts. The conference sponsored student writers from Michigan colleges and comprised of workshops and seminars led by established professional writers. The materials within the collection cover a range of...

Abstract A 1953 graduate of Cranbrook School, Ward Swift Just (1935-2019) was an American writer of 24 books. He began his career in journalism, as a reporter, Vietnam War correspondent and editorialist. Born into a family of newspaper publishers, Just wrote for Newsweek, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic Monthly, among other media outlets. Then he began publishing short stories and novels, although two of his earliest books were non-fiction and he continued to publish journalism, short memoir,...

Scope and Contents The largest series, it contains: miscellaneous literary papers, awards, some books, and realia; short stories; and manuscripts and books authored by Just, including related files, like reviews, that Ward just kept about each of his books. A small number of photographs are filed with early short story manuscripts. Most but not all of Just's novels and other books (includes Just's two reported, non-fiction books) are represented in some form, many in multiple drafts, documenting his writing...

Abstract Melvyn Maxwell Smith (1914-1984) was born on March 12, 1914, in Detroit, Michigan, into an orthodox Jewish family. After graduating from Wayne State University’s College of Education. Smith took a teaching position at Detroit’s Cody High School where he also established the Comet yearbook. He was also part owner of G.G. & S. Realty, which later became G.G. & W. Sara Evelyn Stein (1907-2005), a kindergarten teacher was born in 1907, in South Fork, Pennsylvania into an orthodox Jewish...