Satyanarayana taught in various colleges in Guntur, Vijayawada, Machilipatnam and Karimnagar. In 1961, he retired as principal of a college in Telangana and devoted his time wholly to writing. Even while working as a teacher, he used to engage himself in creative writing of a very serious nature. In fact, he has been writing since his fourteenth year. But it was only in the early twenties that he burst on the Telugu literary scene with a bang: his inspiring patriotic poems at once established his reputation as a lyricist of distinction.

He began writing at the age of 14. But recognition came to him only in 1920 when he burst on the literary scene with his pastorals and patriotic poems. By 1929 he was a major poet.

At school in Machilipatnam, he had the rare distinction of being a favourite pupil of the Titan among the Telugu poets, Chellapilla Venkata Sastry who dominated the literary scene for many decades. Among the other famous pupils of Chellapilla were: Katuri Venkateswara Rao, Pingali Lakshmikantam, Veturi Prabhakara Sastry and Veluri Sivarama Sastry.

Viswanatha’s literary output in variety and quality is immense—nearly 30 poems, 20 plays, 60 novels, 10 critical estimates, 200 Khand kavyas, 35 short stories, three playlets, 70 essays, 50 radio plays, 10 essays in English, 10 works is Sanskrit, three translations, 100 introductions and forewards as well as radio talks. Some of his poems and novels have been translated into English, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Urdu and Sanskrit.