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Novelist, University of Michigan graduate; includes correspondence, typescripts, notes, screenplays, interviews, and print material, such as reviews, interviews, and announcements, mostly relating to her works Ordinary People and title Second Heaven.

The Judith Guest collection consists of correspondence, typescripts, notes, screenplays, interviews, and print material, such as reviews, interviews, and announcements. The papers are divided into five series: Correspondence; Promotional material, reviews, interviews; Serials; Speeches; and Works, which contains the Ordinary People and Second Heaven subseries. Guest's initial correspondence with Viking regarding the manuscript for Ordinary People, which may be found in the Correspondence series, is particularly evocative of the excitement surrounding its publication.

The Promotional material, review, interviews; Serials; and Speeches series consist of ephemera relating to Guest's career as a writer including numerous clippings of biographical profiles and book reviews. These series also document some of the author's professional and promotional activities, such as publication tour interviews and speeches.

The emphasis of the collection is on Guest's creative process in writing Ordinary People and Second Heaven, which comprises the Works series. Many drafts of both novels are included, with editorial and authorial marginalia and corrections. The metamorphosis of the bestselling Ordinary People into a screenplay is well documented in Guest's attempt, followed by screenwriter Alvin Sargent's final shooting script.