Papers of American poet, writer, and educator Patricia Traxler. Traxler has taught many creative writing courses and projects, served as poet-in-residence in Salina, Kansas and other locations, and received numerous awards for her fiction and poetry. The collection includes correspondence, writings, photographs, and ephemera of both Traxler and United States poet laureate Robert Pinsky.

Patricia Traxler was born in San Diego and educated at the University of California. She began writing at an early age, influenced by her grandmother, Irish poet Nora Dunne. In 1980, she moved to Salina, Kansas, where she was named poet-in-residence by the Salina Arts and Humanities Commission. Traxler has been the Bunting Poetry fellow at Radcliffe College in 1990 and 1991, Hugo Poet at the University of Montana in 1996, and Thurber Poet at Ohio State University in 1997. She has taught creative writing and poetry at Kansas Wesleyan University and other universities, and developed writing programs and projects for children and adults. Her published books of poetry include Blood Calendar (1975), The Glass Woman (1983), Forbidden Words (1994), and Naming the Fires (2016), which was awarded the 2019 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry. Traxler has also written two novels, Blood (2001) and In the Skin (2020), and edited a history of Salina, Kansas, In Our Time: An Anthology of Personal History, 1910-1975 (1988). She is the recipient of numerous awards, including Ploughshares' Cohen Award in 1990, Radcliffe's Presidential Discretionary Award in 1991, and Nimrod's Pablo Neruda Award for Poetry in 1998.

4.25 Linear feet (11 archives boxes)

Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.

Robert Pinsky correspondence is restricted through December 2025.