Kayla with Robert Penn Warren looking over her shoulder
My name is Kayla Wright; I am an English graduate student at WKU. For the spring 2012 semester, I have been the Robert Penn Warren fellow. Being the RPW fellow means that I’ve worked with the Robert Penn Warren collections in the manuscripts section of the Special Collections Library.
While working in the library, I’ve gone through transcripts of interviews that were conducted in order to learn more about people on whom RPW based characters. I also worked on a finding aid for this same collection, which means I got to play detective for a little while and match up people and dates. (Surprisingly enough, this was a lot of fun. It strengthened my research skills, and I was always excited when I knew information matched up correctly.)
I have also been working on adding to the finding aid for RPW’s correspondence. It’s been incredibly interesting reading correspondence between RPW and his friends and colleagues. It is interesting to see what was going on in his life while he was writing different works. While he was always busy working on something, I have also enjoyed reading about his family getaways to the country or to Italy.
I’ve learned a lot about Robert Penn Warren and his family; at this point, I feel as if I know them. Overall, this has been a wonderful experience, and I have learned so much.