Researcher rediscovers unpredictably banned adventure
by Tiffany Davis, south news editor

    An unpredictable adventure is a perfect way to describe Dr. Miriam Harris’ discovery of Claire Myers Spotswood Owens and her banned novel, The Unpredictable Adventure.

    In honor of Women’s History Month, Dr. Miriam Harris, editor of The Unpredictable Adventure, explained the process of researching Owens’ life to the WIN-R students in a seminar sponsored by Triesha Light, WIN-R coordinator.

    According to Harris, after graduating from Dallas Baptist University with a master’s degree in literature, her next goal was to rediscover a lost woman writer.

    She went to the Texas Woman’s University Archive to do some research.

    Harris said the director of the archive recommended the collections of several notable women to her.

    “Though all were interesting, I desired to know more about the distinctive looking woman in the picture that hung on the wall behind her desk,” she said.

    Harris discovered that the woman in the photograph was Owens and that the New York Times had banned her novel.

    “According to the Times, the novel contained more information than a young woman needed to know. Well, that was the key for me because I knew that bad women wrote great books,” she said.

Harris said she read all 300 pages of the book the next day. Afterwards, she was positive that she wanted to know more about the author.

    Harris felt as though she were the one chosen to make sure The Unpredictable Adventure would come to life along with the omnipresence of Owens’ spirit.

    “Claire’s spirit went with me when I left the archive. She was with me in the car on the way home. In fact, I dreamed of her that night. When I woke up the next morning, I knew she wanted me to edit her novel,” she said.

    Owens donated her collections of writings, published and non-published, and letters from the many men in her life to the Texas Woman’s University Archive before she died.

    “I am a firm believer of synchronization. I believe that things happen for a reason, and if you’re in the right place at the right time and on the right path, then synchronization can come to play,” she said.

    Harris explained that shortly after she decided to edit the novel, she learned of a two-week course in London that was designed to teach writers how to research and write autobiographies.

    Harris found the course very beneficial because she learned how to begin her research and the entire process of writing an autobiography.

    “I began trying to piece her life together from letters that had been written to her from different men. Without the letters, I couldn’t have pieced together the puzzles of Owens’ life.”

    The South Campus associate professor of English said that Owens worked as a social worker for a while, but she didn’t like it “because she was too much of a lady,” and later worked as a clerk at a local bookstore.

    “I traced backward through her icy footsteps to the various New York buildings that she once lived in. I did this to get a sense of how she felt walking that path back and forth to the bookstore every day,” the book editor said.

    In order to sift between what was fact and fiction in what remained of Owens’ life, Harris had to evoke a sense of being Owens.

    “To achieve my part in the novel, I went back to Rochester, NY, and met with a group of her friends who were still celebrating Owens’ birthdays with a party. I found they all loved her beauty and unique persona,” she said. “Owens left behind a remarkable memory of herself—a Southern Belle from Texas, who rebelled against what society said she was supposed to be and formed into the woman she was destined to be.