Week 7: Fountain Pens

I met with Mr. John O’Neal again to discuss the arrangement of his papers at Amistad. O’Neal identified several documents in his collection for processing, including transcripts of interviews for his book proposal. While working with the Free Southern Theater, O’Neal wrote and directed several plays, and in his free time, O’Neal collected a variety of materials for his book, including personal interviews of civil rights advocates.  O’Neal also mentioned he worked with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) to establish the Free Southern Theater.

During our meeting, I learned one unique and valuable lesson about fountain pens: never use another writer’s fountain pen.  O’Neal showed me his new fountain pen his wife bought him for his birthday and declared that using a fountain pen plays an important part in defining a writer’s experience.

I wonder if this little life lesson compares to using a painter’s paintbrush or borrowing an archivist’s stainless steel archival spatula. 

But I digress…