U. of Maryland Fights in Court for Rights to Porter Papers

The University of Maryland and friends of the late author Katherine Anne Porter are caught in a messy battle over who controls the rights to her papers, The Washington Post reported today. At issue is who controls a trust set up to oversee the literary remains of the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, who died in 1980. The university has physical charge of Porter’s papers, highlights of which it displays in a Katherine Anne Porter room in its library. “For now, Porter’s legacy is in limbo. The university’s plans to digitize her work are on hold. Who is in charge of granting access to publish her works is uncertain,” according to the newspaper. One Porter biographer said, “I really don’t know how all of this is going to affect scholarship on her work.”