Box 1

Scope and Contents

A ten-page treatment for an unpublished novel "Burning Rain" about an academic searching for her familial roots in Cuba. Along with the treatment is the email that was sent 2005 March 18 to McKenna introducing the project and asking for feedback, as well as a final page with specific questions on the project.

Scope and Contents Catalogs from art exhibits done by a personal friend, Puerto Rican-American artist Carlos Betancourt (born 1966). Betancourt took the cover photo of Directions to the Beach of the Dead (2005) and to whom the book is partially dedicated. Betancourt and Blanco were both members of the artist community in Miami and Betancourt attended Miami-Dade Community College where Blanco and McKenna taught. The catalogs detail both solo and group exhibits that featured Betancourt...

Scope and Contents A typescript of Blanco's second book of poetry, Directions to the Beach of the Dead (2005), with an earlier title "Journey to the Beach of the Dead." This typescript was the version he sent to publishers; the extensive edits were made to poems including "November Crosswords" ("Empty Crosswords" in the published edition), "Brothers," "No More Than This, Provincetown," and "Sending Palms in a Letter." This...

Scope and Contents

Miscellaneous items such as an email interview conducted in 2000 by a student from Wesley College, a photograph of Blanco at Bernard McKenna's wedding, and an initialed handwritten note introducing a published copy of Blanco’s third collection of poetry, Looking for the Gulf Motel.