Barry Hannah
Biography
Barry Hannah
Born in Clinton,
Mississippi on April 23, 1942, Barry Hannah earned a B.A. from
Mississippi College in 1964 and a Master of Arts degree from the
University of Arkansas in 1966. A year later he graduated with a
Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Arkansas and began
teaching creative writing at Clemson University in South Carolina,
where he remained until 1973. During this time, he earned several
literary award, including the Bellaman Foundation Award in Fiction
(1970) and the Bread Loaf Fellowship for Writing (1971). In 1972,
Hannah published his first novel, GERONIMO REX, for which he was a
nominated for the National Book Award and won the William Faulkner
Prize.
In 1978 Hannah published AIRSHIPS, a collection of short stories
for which he won the Arnold Gingrich Short Fiction Award. Not long
after he was earned the highly prestigious Award for Literature
from American Institute of Arts and Letters in 1979.
In 1980 Hannah moved to Hollywood. There he wrote film scripts for
director Robert Altman. That same year Hannah also published
RAY.
Less than enthused with the Hollywood scene did not scene, Hannah
took several one-year positions as Writer-in-residence. First at
University of Iowa (1981), then University of Mississippi (1982),
and lastly the University of Montana-Missoula (1983).
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In 1983, Hannah published The Tennis Handsome and returned to the
University of Mississippi as Writer-in-residence, a position he
still holds today. Since that time, Hannah has publish several
novels and short story collections, including CAPTAIN MAXIMUS
(1985), HEY JACK! (1987), BOOMERANG (1989), NEVER DIE (1991), and
BATS OUT OF HELL (1993) and HIGH LONESOME (1996) which was
nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Barry Hannah
