Sarah Bird

Papers; 1985-1992

Collection 002

1.5 linear feet

3 boxes

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Acquisition: Gifts donated by Sarah Bird since 1991 [Accession # 91-057]

Access: Open for Research.

Processed by: Gwynedd Cannan, November, 1992 [Inventory Revised, 2004]

Biographical Note

Sarah Bird was born December 26, 1949 in Ann Arbor, Michigan but lived a peripatetic childhood in an Air Force family. She received a BA in anthropology at the University of New Mexico in 1973 and an MA in journalism at the University of Texas at Austin in 1976. Bird was an editor and contributor for the no-longer-active Austin magazine Third Coast. She authored five romance novels under the pseudonym Tory Cates and one, Do Evil Cheerfully, as Sarah McCabe Bird.

In 1986, her comic novel The Alamo House was published based on her experience as a graduate student at the University of Texas. This work was followed by The Boyfriend School in 1989 and The Mommy Club in 1991, both, like The Alamo House, marked by Bird's sharp wit and sense of the absurd. In addition to novels, Bird writes screenplays, and her articles have appeared in national magazines including Cosmopolitan, Mademoiselle, and MS.

Sarah Bird has published under the names Sarah McCabe Bird, Tory Cates, and Sarah Bird.

Scope and Contents Note

The Sarah Bird papers cover 1985 to 1991 and consist of manuscripts, screenplays, style sheets, and copy editing notes relating to the production of her literary works. It is organized into three series: Romance novels, The Boyfriend School and The Mommy Club.

Series Description

Series I: Romance Novels, 1985

Box 1

This series consists of one file containing a style sheet for copy editors for the romance novel, Different Dreams, published in 1985 under the pseudonym Tory Cates.

Series II: The Boyfriend School, 1988

Boxes 1 and 2

The Boyfriend School is a comic novel based both on Bird's experience as a romance novelist and her experience working on the independent Austin magazine, Third Coast. This series contains ten folders that include drafts of the novel and several copies of the screenplay. The movie based on the screenplay, entitled Don't Tell Her It's Me, was released in 1991.

Series III: The Mommy Club, 1990-1991

Boxes 2 and 3

The Mommy Club considers motherhood through the eyes of a woman who agrees to bear a child for a wealthy San Antonio couple. The novel received the Violet Crown Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Jesse Jones Award. This series contains twelve folders that include drafts, copy editing notes, a photograph and a dust jacket.

Included here is a University of Texas 1990 Images magazine containing an interview with Bird in which she mentions the completion of The Mommy Club, discusses her career, and comments on her novels, The Alamo House and The Boyfriend School. There is also the blue black-striped terry cloth robe Bird wore while working on her novels.

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