Richard Henry Wilde Dillard (born 11 October 1937) is an American poet, author, critic

Critic

A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...

, and translator.

Born in Roanoke, Virginia

Roanoke, Virginia

Roanoke is an independent city in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. state of Virginia and is the tenth-largest city in the Commonwealth. It is located in the Roanoke Valley of the Roanoke Region of Virginia. The population within the city limits was 97,032 as of 2010...

, Dillard is best known as a poet. He is also highly-regarded as a writer of fiction and critical essays, as well as one of the screenwriters for the cult classic Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster is a science fiction cult film, directed by Robert Gaffney and starring Marilyn Hanold, James Karen, and Lou Cutell. The film was released in Great Britain as Duel of the Space Monsters. It is also known as Frankenstein Meets the Space Men, Mars Attacks Puerto...

. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Roanoke College

Roanoke College

Roanoke College is an private, coeducational, four-year liberal-arts college affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The college is located in Salem, Virginia, a suburban independent city adjacent to Roanoke, Virginia...

 and went on to receive of a Master of Arts (1959) and the Ph. D. (1965) from the University of Virginia

University of Virginia

The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

. While at the University of Virginia he was both a Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation

The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation is a private non-profit foundation based in Princeton, New Jersey. It administers programs that support leadership development and build organizational capacity in education. Its current signature program is the...

 and a DuPont Fellow. He is considered something of an institution at Hollins University

Hollins University

Hollins University is a four-year institution of higher education, a private university located on a campus on the border of Roanoke County, Virginia and Botetourt County, Virginia...

 where he has been teaching creative writing, literature, and film studies since 1964. Dillard has been the editor of the Hollins Critic since 1996. He also served as the vice president of the Film Journal from 1973-1980.

He is the winner of numerous awards for his writing including the Academy of American Poets

Academy of American Poets

The Academy of American Poets is a non-profit organization dedicated to the art of poetry. The Academy was incorporated as a "membership corporation" in New York State in 1934...

 Prize, the O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize

O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize

The O.B. Hardison, Jr., Poetry Prize was awarded by the Folger Shakespeare Library to honor a U.S. poet whose art and teaching demonstrated great imagination and daring...

, and the Hanes Award for Poetry

Fellowship of Southern Writers

The Fellowship of Southern Writers is a literary organization founded in 1987 in Chattanooga, Tennessee by 21 Southern writers and other literary luminaries...

. In 2007, he was awarded the George Garrett

George Garrett (poet)

George Palmer Garrett. was an American poet and novelist. He was the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2002 to 2006. His novels include The Finished Man, Double Vision, and the Elizabethan Trilogy, composed of Death of the Fox, The Succession, and Entered from the Sun...

 Award for Service to Contemporary Literature by the Association of Writers & Writing Programs. Dillard influenced many contemporary writers including both his ex-wives Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for General...

 and Cathryn Hankla

Cathryn Hankla

Cathryn Hankla is an American poet and novelist. She has taught at the University of Virginia, at Washington & Lee University, and is currently Professor of English at Hollins University, where she received both her Bachelor's and Master's degrees....

. Others include the likes of Henry S. Taylor

Henry S. Taylor

Henry S. Taylor is a Pulitzer Prize winning American poet and author of over 15 books of poetry.Taylor was born on 21 June 1942 in rural Loudoun County, Virginia, where he was raised as a Quaker. He went to high school at George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the University of...

, Lee Smith, Lucinda MacKethan, Anne Jones, Rosanne Coggeshall, Wyn Cooper

Wyn Cooper

-Background:Cooper was raised in Michigan and later attended the University of Utah and Hollins College.He has taught at the University of Utah, Bennington College, Marlboro College, and at The Frost Place Festival of Poetry. His most recent book is Chaos is the New Calm -Background:Cooper was...

, Jill McCorkle

Jill McCorkle

Jill Collins McCorkle is an American short story writer, and novelist.She graduated from University of North Carolina, in 1980, where she studied with Max Steele, Lee Smith, and Louis D...

, Madison Smartt Bell

Madison Smartt Bell

Madison Smartt Bell is an American novelist. He was raised Nashville, and lived in New York, and London before settling in Baltimore, Maryland....

, and Julia Johnson.

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