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Virginia Authors
Alice Adams
Alice Adams (1926-1999), author of novels and short stories, was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and graduated from Radcliffe College.
Bruce Adelson
Bruce Adelson, author of young adult and adult fiction, was born in New York and worked six years as a substitute teacher in Arlington, Virginia. He now lives in Maryland.
Beth Anderson
Beth Anderson is a poet who lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941), born in Camden, Ohio, was the author of 27 works including Winesburg, Ohio. He moved frequently throughout his life, eventually settling in Marion, Virginia.
William H. Armstrong
William H. Armstrong, author of Sounder, grew up in Lexington, Virginia.
Brent Ashabranner
Brent Ashabranner, young adult writer, grew up in Oklahoma and now lives in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Russell Baker
Russell Baker, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Growing Up, hosts Masterpiece Theatre. He was born in Loudon County, Virginia.
David Baldacci
David Baldacci, author of many novels, including Absolute Power, the winner of the 1996 Gold Medal Award for Best Mystery/Thriller from the Southern Writers Guild, was born in Virginia where he currently resides.
Gordon Ball
Gordon Ball teaches literature, composition and film in the Department of English and Fine Arts, VMI, Lexington, Virginia. In addition to his work in contemporary American literature, Ball has worked as an avant-garde filmmaker.
Richard Bausch
Richard Bausch has published eight novels and five volumes of stories. He was recently inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Bausch teachers at George Mason University.
Robert Bausch
Robert Bausch is the author of four novels and a collection of short stories. He lives in Stafford, Virginia, and currently teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Northern Virginia Community College.
Nancy Wright Beasley
Nancy Wright Beasley is the author of Izzy’s Fire: Finding Humanity in the Holocaust. The book, which meets several of Virginia Standards of Learning, is being taught as a pilot project for eighth grade language arts classes in several Chesterfield County middle schools. Beasley spent seven years as a state correspondent for The Richmond News Leader. Beasley now teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie, short story writer and novelist, has received critical acclaim for her depiction of the generation of Americans who grew up in the 60s. She has taught at Harvard College and the University of Virginia, among other places, and currently lives in Maine and Florida.
Nelson Bond
Nelson Bond is a prolific writer of science fiction, novels, poems, essays, and short fiction. He lives in Roanoke, Virginia.
Muriel Miller Branch
Muriel Branch Miller writes stories about people and events in African-American and women's history and culture. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Bruce Brooks
Bruce Brooks, one of today's most acclaimed writers of young adult fiction, was born in Virginia but spent most of his childhood in North Carolina.
Carrie Brown
Carrie Brown, a novelist who is a former journalist, lives in Sweet Briar, Virginia.
John Gregory Brown
John Gregory Brown, a novelist and director of the creative writing program at Sweet Briar College, lives in Sweet Briar, Virginia.
Rita Mae Brown
Rita Mae Brown, Emmy nominated screenwriter, novelist, and poet, lives in Afton, Virginia.
William Byrd
William Byrd (1674-1744) was an early writer of Virginia history.
James Branch Cabell
James Branch Cabell (1879-1958) Cabell, who lived in Richmond, Virginia, is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers from the South.
Linda Cargill
Linda Cargill, a graduate of the University of Virginia, writes young adult horror novels. She now lives in Arizona.
Natalie Savage Carlson
Natalie Savage Carlson (1906-1997) was a Newbery award winning children's author from Kernstown, Virginia.
John Casey
John Casey, an award-winning novelist from Massachusetts, now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he is Professor of English Literature at the University of Virginia.
Willa Cather
Willa Cather (1873-1947) was a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist from Winchester, Virginia.
Michael Chitwood
Born and raised in the foothills of the Virginia Blue Ridge, Michael Chitwood is now a free-lance writer of petry and essays living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Larry S. Chowning
Larry Chowning is a reporter for the Southside Sentinel in Urbanna, Virginia. Chowning specializes in the human stories that are found on the backroads of the Chesapeake Bay region.
William Clark
William Clark (1770-1838), explorer, was born Caroline County, Virginia. Lewis and Clark journals of the Northwest Expedition and periodically sent these back to President Jefferson.
Maud Carter Clement
Maud Carter Clement (1879-1969) wrote The History of Pittsylvania County, Virginia.
Jane Leslie Conly
Jane Leslie Conly is a writer of books for children. She was born in Leesburg, Virginia. She now lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Patricia Cornwell
The award-winning former crime reporter for the Charlotte Observer spent six years working for the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner's Office and as a volunteer police officer before she wrote her first Dr. Kay Scarpetta novel. Patricia Cornwell lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Stephen Cushman
A writer of poetry and prose, Stephen Cushman is a professor at the University of Virginia.
Virginius Dabney
Virginius Dabney (1901-1995) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor (Richmond Times-Dispatch), noted journalist and historian, publishing extensively on Thomas Jefferson, Richmond institutions, and the period of the Confederacy.
Kalli Dakos
Kalli Dakos is a teacher and children's author who has taught in Canadian Arctic; the Province of Ontario; Reno, Nevada; Syracuse, New York; and Fairfax County, Virginia.
Dennis Danvers
Dennis Danvers is the author of six fantasy and science fiction novels. He lives in Richmond and Williamsburg, Virginia.
Paxton Davis
Paxton Davis worked as a reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal and the Roanoke Times & World News and taught journalism at Washington and Lee University for 23 years. He was also the author of twelve books, a series of memoirs.
Tom De Haven
Tom De Haven is an award-winning author of several novels. He teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University and lives in Midlothian, Virginia.
Elizabeth Denton
Elizabeth Denton is a writer of short stories. She teaches at the University of Virginia.
R. H. W. Dillard
R. H. W. Dillard is a prize-winning author of six collections of poetry. He is a professor of English, head of the Creative Writing Program, and editor of The Hollins Critic at Hollins University in Virginia.
Scott Donaldson
Scott Donaldson is best known for his biographies of writers.
John Dos Passos
John Dos Passos (1896-1970), a well-known American novelist and political activist, was born in Chicago in 1896 and raised in Virginia.
Rita Dove
Rita Dove, an award-winning poet, was born in Akron, Ohio. In 2004 she was named Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia and is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia.
Pamela Duncan Edwards
Pamela Duncan Edwards, a librarian in McLean, Virginia, writes books for children with illustrator-collaborator Henry Cole, a science teacher.
Deborah Eisenberg
Deborah Eisenberg is the author of four collections of short stories. She is a professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia.
John Elsberg
John Elsberg is the author of over a dozen books and chapbooks of poetry. His daytime job is editor in chief of the U.S. Army Center of Military History. John Elsberg lives in Arlington, Virginia.
Garrett Epps
Garrett Epps, a former staff writer for the Washington Post, is also the author of two novels and many political commentaries. He teaches constitutional law at the University of Oregon and a former clerk with the Honorable John O. Butzner Jr. of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia.
Barbara Esstman
Barbara Esstman was born in Iowa and now lives in Oakton, Virginia. Hallmark Hall of Fame has made two of her books into into television movies. Esstman has received the Library of Virginia Fiction Award.
Edward Falco
Edward Falco is the author of a hypertext novel and hypertext poetry. His books of fiction include two collections of short stories. He lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, where he teaches writing and literature at Virginia Tech.
Paul Fleisher
Paul Fleisher is the author of more than two dozen books for young people and educators. Paul Fleisher teaches in the Richmond public school system and lives in Richmond, Virginia.
John Fox, Jr.
John Fox, Jr. (1862–1919) was born in Kentucky and moved to Big Stone Gap, Virginia in the 1890s. He was the author of 14 novels and 45 short stories.
Douglas Southall Freeman
Douglas Southall Freeman (1886-1953) was born in Lynchburg, Virginia and was raised in Richmond. Freeman's monumental biographies, R. E. Lee (four volumes, 1934-35) and George Washington (seven volumes, 1948-57) both won the Pulitzer Prize and both remain steady sellers as well as the standard scholarly biographies.
Forrest Gander
Born in the Mojave Desert in Barstow, California, Forrest Gander grew up in Virginia. He is the author of numerous books of poetry. He teaches at Harvard University.
George Garrett
George Garrett, a poet, novelist, essayist, humorist, critic and editor, was named poet laureate of Virginia by Governor Mark R. Warner in 2002 and teaches at the University of Virginia.
Nikki Giovanni
Poet Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessees and Cincinnati, Ohio. Since 1987, she has been on the faculty at Virginia Tech, where she is a University Distinguished Professor.
Ellen Glasgow
Ellen Glasgow (1874-1945), a Pultizer-prize winning novelist, was born in Richmond, Virginia.
John Grisham
John Grisham, popular writer of legal thrillers, was born in Arkansas and now splits his time between Mississippi and a plantation near Charlottesville, Virginia.
Alyson Hagy
Alyson Hagy was raised on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Hagy is the author of four books of fiction. She currently lives and teaches in Laramie, Wyoming.
Barbara Hall
Barbara Hall, novelist and TV producer, is from Chatham, Virginia. She is the head writer and executive producer of Judging Amy and Joan of Arcadia.
Cathryn Hankla
Poet Cathryn Hankla is and English professor at Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia.
Earl Hamner
Earl Hamner was born in Schuyler, Virginia, and is the author of Spencer's Mountain, which was made into a film and later a television show called The Waltons.
Marguerite Henry
Marguerite Henry (1902-1997) inspired children all over the world with her love of animals, especially horses. Henry was the author of over 50 children's stories, including the Misty of Chincoteague. She was born in Wisconsin and traveled to Virginia and Maryland to learn about the horses of Assoteague and Chincoteague.
Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry (1736-1799) was born in Hanover County, Virginia. His famous speech is said to mark the beginning of the American Revolution in Virginia.
Susan Hepler
Susan Hepler, co-author of Children's Literature in the Elementary School, lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
William Hoffman
William Hoffman has won numerous awards for his writing. He lives in Virginia.
Sheri Holman
Sheri Holman, born in Richmond Virginia and a graduate of William and Mary, is a novelist.
Drusilla Dunjee Houston
Drusilla Dunjee Houston (1876-1941), who has earned a high-ranking place in the struggle to redeem Africa's role in world history, was born in Winchester, Virginia.
David Huddle
David Huddle has published poetry, and is also the author of six books of fiction. Originally from Virginia, he has taught at the University of Vermont since 1971 and at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference since 1985.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the third president of the United States, was born in Albermarle County, Virginia. He was the author of author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom.
Patricia A. Johnson
Patricia Johnson was the National Poetry Slam Champion in 1996. Her work has been published in numerous literary journals. She lives in Elk Creek, Virginia.
Mary Johnston
Mary Johnston (1870-1936), a writer of historical fiction, was born in Buchanan, Virginia.
Edward P. Jones
Edward P Jones, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a National Book Critics Circle Award Winner, was born and raised in Washington, D.C. and was educated at Holy Cross College and the University of Virginia.
Agymah Kamau
Agymah Kamau originally from Barbados, Agymah moved to New York in 1977, where he worked as a senior economist for the state government until he moved to Virginia to study writing. Kamau is the recipient of a number of distinctions, including a Virginia Commission for the Arts fellowship, a James Michener Fellowship, and a DeWitt Wallace/Readers Digest Fellowship for the MacDowell Colony. He has published two novels.
Lou Kassem
Lou Kassem has written more than a dozen books for young people. She lives in Southwestern Virginia.
Michael Keller
Michael Keller, a poet and editor, was born in Radford, Virginia, and teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University. Keller’s poetry has appeared in The Southern Review, New Virginia Review, and other publications.
Dean King
Dean King is the author of numerous books. He lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Nancy Larrick
Nancy Larrick (1911-2004), a noted educator, poet, and author who campaigned successfully for the inclusion of multiculturalism in children's books, lived in Winchester, Virginia. A nationally known expert on children’s literature, she wrote the bestselling book A Parent’s Guide to Children’s Reading.
Suzanne Lebsock
Bancroft Prize Winning Historian Suzanne Lebsock, a Virginia native and graduate of the University of Virginia, is a history professor at Rutgers University. The primary focus of her books is to find ways to uncover, understand, and write about the lives of ordinary women, mainly in the American South.
Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809), explorer, was born near Charlottesville, Virginia. Lewis and Clark journals of the Northwest Expedition and periodically sent these back to President Jefferson.
Katie Letcher Lyle
Katie Letcher Lyle is a writer, teacher, folksinger, playwright and speaker. Lyle taught for twenty-five years at Southern Seminary College; taught in the graduate writing program at Hollins College; and has been adjunct professor at Washington & Lee University, Mary Baldwin College and Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. She lives in Lexington, Virginia.
Mary. E. Lyons
Mary E. Lyons is a former reading specialist and school librarian. She has been Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar, Virginia, and was a Fellow-in-Residence at the Virginia Center for the Humanities and Public Policy. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Barbara Maitland
Barbara Maitland, a writer for young children, was born and raised in England and now lives Fairfax, Virginia.
Dumas Malone
American historian and editor Dumas Malone (1892-1986) is known chiefly for a multi-volume, landmark biographical study of Thomas Jefferson, which garnered the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for history. He was born in Mississippi and lived in Virginia for many years, serving as professor emeritus of history at the University of Virginia.
Paule Marshall
Paule Mashall is the author of Brown Girl, Brownstones, The Chosen Place, The Timeless People, Praisesong for the Widow, Soul Clap Hands and Sing, Reena and Other Stories, and Daughters. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she is now Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
Donald McCaig
Raised and educated in Montana, Donald McCaig moved to a dilapidated livestock farm in Highland County, Virginia in 1971. McCaig's nonfiction and fiction--usually about country matters, often about dogs--have won him faithful readers and critical acclaim.
Allen McClain
Allen McClain is a writer of novels and short stories. He lives in southern Virginia.
Sharyn McCrumb
Sharyn McCrumb's award winning novels celebrating the history and folklore of Appalachia have received scholarly acclaim and ranked on the New York Times Best-Seller lists. he taught journalism and Appalachian studies at Virginia Tech as well as worked for a newspaper as a reporter until 1988. McCrumb lives and writes in the Virginia Blue Ridge.
Deanna Miller
Deanna Miller writes for children and young adults. She lives in Merrifield, Virginia.
Elizabeth Seydel Morgan
Elizabeth Seydel Morgan is the author of four books of poetry. Morgan is a graduate of Hollins College and received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. She won the 1993 Governor's Award for Screenwriting at the Virginia Film Festival.
Debra Nystrom
Debra Nystrom, an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, has published two books of poetry and has been awarded The Library of Virginia Poetry Award.
Vivian Owens
Vivian Owens writes juvenile literature and educational books. She lives in Waynesboro, Virginia.
Thomas Nelson Page
Thomas Nelson Page (1853-1922), author of short stories, novels, essays, and poetry, is best known for his role as literary spokesman for the glories of the Old South. He is a a native of Virginia.
Katherine Paterson
Katherine Paterson, Newbery award winning novelist, was born in China and spent much of her life living in Virginia. She now lives in Vermont.
Hermine Pinson
A native of east Texas, Hermine Pinson is a professor of African American literature at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She is a writer of short fiction and poetry.
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe spent a good part of his early and adult life in Richmond, Virginia. He attended the University of Virginia. He has been given credit for inventing the detective story and his psychological thrillers have been infuences for many writers worldwide.
Barabara Ann Porte
Barbara Ann Porte, whose books range from picture books, to chapter books, to YA novels, and adult stories, lives in Arlington, Virginia.
Lewis B. Puller
Lewis B. Puller Jr. (1945-1994), a seriously wounded Vietnam War Veteran, was the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fortunate Son. He was raised in Saluda, Virginia.
Candice Ransom
Candice Ransom, author of over 80 books for children, lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Jama Kim Rattigan
Jama Kim Rattigan writes picture books for children. Originally from Hawaii, Rattigan now lives in Virginia.
Sheri Reynolds
Born and raised on a small farm outside of Conway, South Carolina, Sheri Reynolds is an award-winning novelist. She lives in Richmond, Virginia, and is a visiting assistant professor of English and the College of William and Mary.
Tom Robbins
Tom Robbins was born in North Carolina and raised in Virginia He went to Washington and Lee University and Richmond Professional Institute. He worked for a short time as a copy editor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He is the author of many best-selling novels and now lives near Seattle, Washington.
Parke Rouse
Parker Rouse is the author of many books and pamphets about Virginia and Virginia landmarks.
Louis D. Rubin, Jr.
Louis D. Rubin, Jr., is Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, founder of Algonquin Books, and the author or editor of over fifty titles. Rubin was the winner of the Literary Lifetime Achievement Award given by the 2003 Annual Library of Virginia Awards Celebration Honoring Virginia Authors and Friends.
Cynthia Rylant
Cynthia Rylant was born in Hopewell, Virginia. She is an award winning author of children's fiction.
Rosalyn Schanzer
Author/illustrator Rosalyn Schanzer, who writes books about American history's greatest adventures and tallest tales, lives in Fairfax Station, Virginia.
Timothy Seibles
Timothy Seibles, author of five books of poetry, is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Old Dominion University.
Mary Lee Settle
Mary Lee Settle was born in Charleston, West Virginia. She attended Sweet Briar in Virginia for two years before pursuing a career in acting. Author of essays, book reviews, juvenile fiction, nonfiction, short stories, critical essays, novels, and memoirs, she is the first living author awarded the Library of Virginia Lifetime Achievement Award (2002).
Ellen Harvey Showell
Ellen Harvey Showell, raised in West Virginia, writes for grades 5-9 and lives in Springfield, Virginia.
Dave Smith
A Virginia native, Dave Smith, is the author of 17 books and the former editor of The Southern Review.
Lee Smith
Lee Marshall Smith has enjoyed a prolific career as a reporter, film critic, newspaper editor, educator, and an award-winning novelist. She is a graduate of Hollins College and interned for the Richmond News Leader.
Susan Mathias Smith
Susan Mathias Smith is a writer of children's fiction. Smith is coordinator of media services for Shenandoah County, Virginia schools.
Ann Spencer
Anne Spencer ((1882-1975) was born in Henry County, Virginia. Spencer published most of her poems during the 1920s and is considered an often overlooked Harlem Renaissance poet.
Janet Morgan Stoeke
Janet Morgan Stoeke, author of the Minerva Louise series of children's books, lives in Fairfax, Virginia.
William Styron
William Styron, novelistl, was born in Newport News, Virginia. Mr. Styron is also a recipient of the 1993 National Medal of Arts and is an honorary consultant for the Library of Congress.
Eleanor Ross Taylor
Born in 1920 in North Carolina, Eleanor Ross Taylor has lived for many years in Charlottesville, Virginia. She has published five volumes of poems.
Henry Taylor
Born in Loudon County, Virginia, Henry Taylor is Professor of Literature and Co-Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at American University in Washington, DC.
Peter Taylor
Peter Taylor (1917-1994) was born in Tennessee. Throughout his distinguished career, Taylor received numerous fellowships, grants and awards for his literary works, including the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He lived and taught in Charlottesville, Virginia, from 1967 until his death.
Theodore Taylor
Theodore Taylor, popular author of The Cay, was born in North Carolina. He went to high school in Portsmouth, Virginia, and worked at the Washington, D.C. Daily News as a young man. He now lives in California.
Christopher Tilghman
Christopher Tilghman, novelist, was born in Boston and raised in Massachusetts. He teaches at the University of Virginia's graduate Creative Writing Program.
Adriana Trigiani
Adriana Trigiani is an award-winning playwright, television writer, and documentary filmmaker. She was born and raised in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and currently lives in New York City.
Ellen Bryant Voigt
Ellen Bryant Voigt is the author of six collections of poetry. Born in Virginia, she now lives in Marshfield, Vermont, and is currently Vermont State Poet.
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was born into slavery in Franklin County near Roanoke, Virginia. Washington's autobiography, Up From Slavery, published in 1901, followed the American tradition of the self-made man's account of his success.
Ruth White
Ruth White's book, Belle Prater's Boy was named a 1997 Newbery Honor book. Ruth and her sisters grew up in the coal-mining town of Whitewood, Virginia.
Phyllis Whitney
Phyllis Whitney was born of American parents in Yokohama, Japan in 1903. A writer for young adults and adults, Whitney lived all over the country and world. She now lives in Virginia and is working on her autobiography.
David Wojahn
David Wojahn is the author of six collections of poetry. He lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Charles Wright
Pulitzer Prize winning poet Charles Wright was born in Pickwick Dam, Tennessee. In 1999 he was elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. He is Souder Family Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Tom Wolfe
Social novelist and essayist, Tom Wolfe was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. He currently lives in New York City.
Charlotte Zolotow
Charlotte Zolotow has written over 90 books for children, and edited hundreds of others, since her birth in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1915.
Thanks to Virginia Voices for the content of this page.
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