The Author Files series (4 linear feet) contains material on nearly all 52 authors published by Lotus Press between its inception and 2003 (excluding Madgett herself); as well as material relating to three anthologies issued by the press (two of which consist of "poster-poems," or laminated broadsides): Adam of Ifè: Black Women in Praise of Black Men, Deep Rivers: A Portfolio, and The Fullness of the Earth. For many authors the material consists only or mostly of ephemera (news clippings and photocopies of published book reviews), but recent publications--James Emanuel's The Force and the Reckoning, Houston Baker's Passing Over, and the volumes by the recent winners of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award--are represented by materials documenting the stages of the editorial and production process, including drafts with marginal and interlinear comments and annotations by Madgett, proofs and camera copy from the printer, and cover designs. Correspondence with the author in these cases, unless it accompanies a version of the manuscript or exists in duplicate, has been filed under the author's name in the General Correspondence series; on the other hand, business correspondence relating directly to the publication process (such as letters and invoices from the printer) has been retained in Author Files. The material on two older Lotus Press books--Dudley Randall's A Litany of Friends and Gayl Jones' Songs for Anninho--show the author's handwritten revisions and corrections to the text.
The Author Files occasionally contain other types of materials by or relating to the author: see especially the files on Naomi Faust, May Miller, Dudley Randall, and Paulette Childress White. The ephemera on Gayl Jones documents the much-publicized events in her life. Finally, at the end of the series, ephemera on various Lotus Press authors has been collected and arranged chronologically (e.g., reviews in which multiple authors are discussed in tandem).
