Transylvania University has named Appalachian poet Pauletta Hansel as this year’s Judy Gaines Young Book Award winner.
Hansel will be honored for the award, which has recognized exceptional works by regional writers for more than a decade, alongside student winners, seniors Dylan Howell and Skye Struwig, on Tuesday, April 7, at 5 p.m. in the Campus Center Pioneers Rooms. The event is free and open to the public.
Hansel’s forthcoming book of poems and prose, “Understory: A Women’s History of Appalachia,” is scheduled for an October release from the University Press of Kentucky. It traces intergenerational stories of Appalachian women.
Also a memoirist and teacher, Hansel grew up in southeastern Kentucky. At age 17, she was featured as the youngest of four regional poets in a 1977 Ms. magazine article that highlighted “the Appalachian woman’s struggle to emerge as her own witness.”
She was the only published writer among the group. Her poems had already appeared in Appalshop’s Mountain Review, leading to an invitation to help form the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative. She also attended the Antioch-Appalachia in Beckley, West Virginia, a hub for writers during an era shaped by the Chicano Literary Arts and Black Arts movements and the emergence of women’s writing groups.
Hansel has published nine poetry collections and one co-authored book. Her collection “Palindrome” won the 2017 Weatherford Award, and “Heartbreak Tree” received the 2023 North American Poetry Book Award. Hansel served as Cincinnati’s first poet laureate from 2016-18 and has led writing workshops across the mountains.
A fixture in the Appalachian poetry community, Hansel continues to mentor writers and engage with the region’s literary life.
Student winners
Howell is an English major and classics minor and plans to continue his education at the University of Georgia studying rhetoric and composition. Howell, who is a writer of a fantastical world via poetry, has served as editor of The Transylvanian literary magazine and as a member the Transylvania Writer’s Circle.
Struwig is a psychology major and a creative writing minor from Victoria, Australia. A devoted fiction writer, Struwig has served as editor-in-chief of The Transylvanian Literary Magazine, a founding member of the Transy Writers’ Circle and has twice received the Delcamp Creative Writing Award.
Judy Gaines Young winners
Holly Goddard Jones (2015)
Amy Green (2016)
Crystal Wilkinson (2017)
Kathleen Driskell (2018)
Silas House (2019)
Frank X Walker (2020)
Robert Gipe (2021)
Jeff Worley (2022)
Richard Taylor (2023)
George Ella Lyon (2024)
Leatha Kendrick (2025)
Pauletta Hansel (2026)
The recognition was established through the generosity of Dr. Byron Young ’61 in honor of his wife Judy ’62, who was an avid reader and poet.