A unique aspect of Handy's approach was to have her students spend many hours simply copying, by hand or typewriter, materials from authors whose work she admired.
Handy was vehemently opposed to homosexual writers,[1] often making homophobic and derogatory remarks about artists such as Walt Whitman, Marcel Proust, and Hart Crane, as well as D. H. Lawrence and T. S. Eliot, which she had banned her students from reading (along with the works of Wallace Stevens, Franz Kafka, and Dylan Thomas, among others), even going so far as to tear up books and physically assault students.
Jones' editor and mentor, Burroughs Mitchell,[3] said of Handy: She could be charming, easy, and warm; but her black eyes could quickly become blacker, her voice strident, with a violent outburst.
[4]Despite Handy's policy prohibiting outsiders from entering the colony, certain visitors were allowed, including Burroughs Mitchell, Norman Mailer, and actor Montgomery Clift.
Published writers associated with the Colony included James Jones, John Bowers, Tom T. Chamales, Edwin C. Daly, William Duhart, Jere Peacock, Jon Shirota, Jerry Tschappat (a.k.a.