in reply to How to redisplay previously submitted text

If you're using the CGI.pm shortcuts (and why shouldn't you?), you can set the default value using the param method:
use CGI qw/:all/; ... my $previous_value = "This is what I wrote before"; # fetch this someh +ow param('story', $previous_value); # sets default to previous ... print textarea('story'); # prints an input form element, defaulting to + previous value for it