Personal Information for
A. Waller Hastings
Wally Hastings is a professor of English at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he writes about children's literature and teaches a variety of courses, including children's literature. He is the single dad of two young women, both of whom are still at home, and is active in a variety of professional and community activities. On this page will be found links to various non-academic activities and writings.
Biography
Albert Waller Hastings was born on January 10, 1952, in St. Catharines, Ontario, the second of five children of Graham T. and Virginia Hastings. He received his somewhat unusual name by being born on the same date as his grandfather, Albert Waller, who had emigrated to Canada in the early 20th century and subsequently went to Cleveland, Ohio, where Wally's mother was born. His maternal grandmother was born in Scotland of Irish parents and emigrated to Canada, where he met Albert. His paternal grandparents were the Wallers' neighbors in Montreal and remained friends when the Wallers moved to Cleveland and they (i.e., the Hastings) moved to St. Catharines. Thomas Hastings, Wally's grandfather, had emigrated to Canada from Scotland; his paternal grandmother was the only one of the four grandparents to have been born in North America.
When Wally was four, the family moved to East Cleveland, Ohio, where they initially lived with his maternal grandparents. Although East Cleveland was a more or less typical suburb, the family home was ideally situated for exploring and imaginative play - on the side of a hill, with a shoulder of the hill and a ravine directly behind the house, so that there were only the neighbors on either side and lots of territory to explore and play in.
He learned to read before starting school and never really stopped reading. He went to East Cleveland schools through tenth grade, meanwhile frequenting the Caledonia branch of the public library and generally driving the librarians crazy with requests for books above grade level. In high school, he played football and served as the student manager of a state champion baseball team featuring, among others, future major league pitcher Buddy Schultz.
For his last two years of high school, Wally was a scholarship student at the Gunnery, a private school in Washington, Connecticut, which despite its name had nothing to do with the military. From there he went to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, majoring without particular distinction in biology. On graduating in 1974, he worked for several years as a professional science writer before returning part-time to graduate school to study English at DePaul University in Chicago, where he was then working.
Grad school and literary study proved to be more congenial than reporting on medicine and science, so in 1983 Wally began full-time graduate study of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he wrote his dissertation on fairy-tale elements in the Victorian novel. While in Madison, he met his wife, Suzanne (nee Gillings). They were married in 1985 and had their first daughter, Sara, in 1986 while Wally continued his graduate work.
In 1988, he received his Ph.D. and began teaching at Northern State College, which was to become Northern State University the next year. He and Suzie had a second daughter, Emily, in 1989. While in Aberdeen, Wally has published academic criticism in a variety of areas {though primarily children's literature), poetry, and journalism (sports writing and later film and theatre criticism for the Aberdeen American News. He served for several years as coordinator of the English department.
On November 17, 1999, Suzie passed away in her sleep, the result of an epileptic seizure. The single father of two girls - age 10 and 14 at the time of their mother's death - Wally refocused his energies, giving up his leadership role in the English department and reducing his research activities. More recently, he has attempted to resume a research program and continued to do creative writing; in addition, he has taken on various roles within his church and the Presbytery of South Dakota.
LINKS:
My on-line resume.
A list of citations, reprints, and other references to my articles.
Film reviews produced for the Aberdeen American News.
A summary of activities from my 1999 governor's grant.
My younger daughter's homepage, created by her at computer camp in 1999.
My daughter's account of her dad, the basketball player.
Some family photos.