Cathryn Hankla was born on March 20, 1958 in the
Appalachian Mountains in Richlands, VA to Joyce and Alden
Hankla. From the age of thirteen her interest in writing was
evident as she created a large body of poetry. She continued
her interest in writing by working on the school magazine,
"Inklings", at Pulaski County High School. After graduating
from high school in 1976, she attended Hollins College in
Roanoke, Virginia and received a B.A. in English and Film in
1980, and in 1982 she earned a M.A. in English and Creative
Writing. Throughout this period she continued to write poetry,
short stories, plays, and got married to writer and critic
Richard H.W. Dillard in 1979. They were divorced in 1992. Her
first book, Phenomena (1983), was reviewed as one of the five
best books of poetry published in 1983. Since then she has
published a short story anthology, Learning the Mother Tongue
(1987), the highly acclaimed novel, A Blue Moon in Poorwater
(1988), and another book of poetry Afterimages (1991).
Additionally, her reviews, poems, and short stories have
appeared in such journals as Yarrow, the Chicago Tribune
Sunday Magazine, and College English. Hankla was visiting
lecturer in fiction writing at the University of Virginia
(spring of 1985), Randolph- Macon's Woman's College Writer in
Residence (spring of 1987), and visiting Assistant Professor
at Washington and Lee University (1989-1991). Currently, she
lives in Troutville, VA and is an associate professor of
English at Hollins College (1986-present).
Cathryn Hankla's collection contains her poetry, short
stories, plays, and novels from 1971 to 1992. The material
documents the development and maturation of Hankla from the
age of 13. The bulk of Hankla's collection is in her poetry
drafts (1971-1989) and her published work (1980-1992). There
are no significant gaps in her collection since its contents
are spread out evenly throughout its 21 year period.
Another strength of Hankla's papers is in her poetry.
Containing the poems that she has written over a 18 year
range, many of her initial poems have been revised repeatedly.
These drafts provide an insight to her development as a poet
and writer by demonstrating the obvious changes in her style,
form, and content. The weakness of this collection is the lack
of any biographical information about Cathryn Hankla. Except
for some passing information in some of her book reviews,
there is no significant information about Hankla herself.
In this collection of novels, poetry, short stories, plays,
theses, and notes, a large area of interest is in her
published work. This is especially true in examples like
Phenomena, Learning the Mother Tongue, A Blue Moon in
Poorwater, and Afterimages that contain a complete set of
correspondence, drafts, and reviews. Specifically, the
correspondence shows her initial contact with numerous
publishing companies and her continuous discussion with the
eventual publisher about the evolution of her work. As a
result, the collection documents the complete development of
her work from draft to review. Presently, Hankla is not
represented in any other repository.
The collection is a result of a single accession.
Artificial series were imposed on the collection to
highlight the development of Hankla's work. Series 1 was
divided into two subseries and chronologically arranged
therein from oldest to newest, while Series 2,3, 5-7 were
arranged chronologically as well. In Series 4 there were
eight subseries with correspondence arranged
chronologically and placed at the beginning. Drafts are
arranged chronologically, and reviews follow the drafts.
Researchers must note that within the collection there are
places where documents from one series could be placed in
another if it were not for the fact that two different
works shared a piece of paper. Also, it must be noted that
"First Person Love" has not been published yet.
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