Bio

Hankla’s poetry, fiction, and nonfiction appears regularly in literary journals and anthologies; she has presented her work at colleges and universities, conferences, bookstores, book clubs, and libraries across the US and abroad in the U.K, Czech Republic, France, southern Spain and Malta. Her work has been honored by a PEN Syndicated Fiction Prize, the James Boatwright III Prize for Poetry, and a New York Book Festival award, among others. She serves as Poetry Editor for The Hollins Critic and is also a visual artist.

Born in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, Hankla graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude, earning first-in-class honors from Hollins College.  As an undergraduate she received the Intro award in poetry from AWP and twice won the Academy of American Poets Prize.  She took her graduate degree in 1982, studying alongside Madison Smartt Bell, Jill McCorkle, Kim Kafka, Wyn Cooper, and the late Don Belton.

After 30+ years in higher education, including appointments at University of Virginia, Washington and Lee University, and numerous visits to various schools, teaching continues to be a high priority; she has designed several innovative writing and literature courses, including Image and Word, Cross Genre & Experimental Writing, and How Writing is Written.  She enjoys applauding the many successes of her students.

Galaxies (poems), Mercer University Press, 2017.

Great Bear (poems), Groundhog Poetry Press, LLC, 2016.

Fortune Teller Miracle Fish (stories), Michigan State University Press, 2011.

Last Exposures: a sequence of poems, Louisiana State University Press, 2004.

The Land Between (novel), Baskerville Publishers, 2003.

Poems for the Pardoned (poems), Louisiana State University Press, 2002.

Emerald City Blues (poems), Tryon Publishing Co, 2002.

Texas School Book Depository: prose poems, Louisiana State University Press, 2000.

Negative History (poems), Louisiana State University Press, 1997.

Afterimages (poems), Louisiana State University Press, 1991.

A Blue Moon in Poorwater (novel), Ticknor & Fields, 1988. (rpt. University Press of Virginia, 1998)

Learning the Mother Tongue (stories), University of Missouri Press, 1987.

Phenomena (poems), University of Missouri Press, 1983.

Susan Gager Jackson Professor of Creative Writing, 2012-2014

Professor of English & Creative Writing, 1998-

Director, Jackson Center for Creative Writing, 2010-2012

Director, MFA and Undergraduate Creative Writing Sequence, 2008-2012.

Poetry Editor, The Hollins Critic, 1997-

Coordinator, Graduate Teaching Fellows Program, 2004-2007

Director, Undergraduate Creative Writing Sequence, 2004-5.

Chair, Department of English, Jan 1995-June 1998.

▪Courses Taught

Image/Word: Cartooning

Cross-Genre & Experimental Writing

Teaching Practicum

Graduate Tutorials in poetry, fiction, lyric essay, cross-genre work

Adv. Creative Writing Seminar

Advanced Studies in Short Fiction

How Writing is Written

Imaginative Thinking: writing and drawing (team taught)

Graduate and undergraduate theses in creative writing

Spring 1987       Randolph-Macon Woman’s College       Lynchburg, VA Writer-in-Residence

Spring 1985       University of Virginia       Charlottesville, VA Visiting Lecturer in Fiction Writing

Tattered Cover (Denver); Bookworks (ABQ); Collected Works (Santa Fe); Colorado Mtn. College (Leadville); Roanoke College; Epilogue Bookstore, Steamboat Springs, CO.; Artposium, Colorado Art Ranch; University of Wyoming, University of Michigan, Smith College, New York University, 92^nd Street Y, Bethesda Writers Center, Quail Ridge Books (Raleigh, NC), Barnes & Noble (VA, MD, MA), Virginia Commonwealth University, New Dominion Bookstore, Charlottesville Festival of the Book, 2011, 2017; Anglia Polytechnic University (Cambridge), Miami Book Fair International, The Globe Bookstore (Prague),  Stonecoast Writers Conference (Maine), Roanoke College, Blue Ridge Writers Conference (VPI, Blacksburg, VA). Prairie Lights Bookstore (Iowa City), AWP Conference 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, etc: 2015, 2017. ASA (Appalachian Studies Association) Conference 2017, 2018. The Ruminator (St. Paul, MN), The Book Stall (Chicago), Malaprops (Asheville, NC), Randolph Macon College, Randolph College, University of Kentucky, & etc.

The James Boatwright III Prize for Poetry, 2010: “Bee Tree.”

St. James Cavalier Center for Creativity, Malta. Residency: June 2009.

Studio Visit: a juried selection of international visual artists, vol. 5, April 2009.

Auvillar, France, Residency: May 25-June 7, 2008.

Colorado Art Ranch, Steamboat Springs, CO, Residency: April-May, 2008.

New American Paintings, runner-up; Stephen Bennet Phillips, juror, 2007.

Blair Wiley Fishwick Memorial Award, “Contemplation Cubes” sculptures by Ann Glover and Cathryn Hankla; Roanoke Sidewalk Art Show, 2005.

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts,  Residencies: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 1986.

“Powerful Angels,” The Virginia Quarterly Review, 100 Other Distinguished

Stories of 2000: in The Best American Short Stories, 2001.

Finalist: 4^th Annual Library of Virginia Literary Award in Poetry for Texas

School Book Depository: prose poems (2001).

Fundacion Valparaiso, Mojácar, Spain, Residency: April 2001.

Cabell Fellowship, sabbatical, 2007-08, 2000-01, and 1993-94.

Herta T. Freitag Faculty Legacy Award, Hollins University, February 2000.

Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship (poetry), 1998.

PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, “Lost in Space,” 1989.

Breakthrough Award in fiction (Learning the Mother Tongue), University of Missouri P, 1987.

Breakthrough Award in poetry (Phenomena), University of Missouri P, 1983.