Virginia Hamilton
AUTHOR

Virginia Hamilton

Children's Audiobooks | Literature & Fiction | Teen & Young Adult
Tap the gear icon above to manage new release emails.
Virginia Esther Hamilton was born, as she said, “on the outer edge of the Great Depression,” on March 12, 1934. The youngest of five children of Kenneth James and Etta Belle Perry Hamilton, Virginia grew up amid a large extended family in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The farmlands of southwestern Ohio had been home to her mother’s family since the late 1850s, when Virginia’s grandfather, Levi Perry, was brought into the state as an infant via the Underground Railroad. Virginia graduated at the top of her high-school class and received a full scholarship to Antioch College in Yellow Springs. In 1956, she transferred to the Ohio State University in Columbus and majored in literature and creative writing. She moved to New York City in 1958, working as a museum receptionist, cost accountant, and nightclub singer, while she pursued her dream of being a published writer. She studied fiction writing at the New School for Social Research under Hiram Haydn, one of the founders of Atheneum Press. It was also in New York that Virginia met poet Arnold Adoff. They were married in 1960. Arnold worked as a teacher, and Virginia was able to devote her full attention to writing, at least until daughter Leigh was born in 1963 and son Jaime in 1967. In 1969, Virginia and Arnold built their “dream home” in Yellow Springs, on the last remaining acres of the old Hamilton/Perry family farm, and settled into a life of serious literary work and achievement. In her lifetime, Virginia wrote and published 41 books in multiple genres that spanned picture books and folktales, mysteries and science fiction, realistic novels and biography. Woven into her books is a deep concern with memory, tradition, and generational legacy, especially as they helped define the lives of African Americans. Virginia described her work as “Liberation Literature.” She won every major award in youth literature.
Read more Read less
Not an Audible member?
From £7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Start your free 30-day trial

Best Sellers

Product list
  • The People Could Fly cover art

    Regular price: £12.59 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.59 or 1 Credit

    Pre-order: Try for £0.00
  • Bluish cover art

    Regular price: £10.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £10.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • M.C. Higgins, the Great cover art

    Regular price: £17.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £17.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Liberation Literature cover art

    Regular price: £28.89 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £28.89 or 1 Credit

    Pre-order: Try for £0.00
  • Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush cover art

    Regular price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £12.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • The House of Dies Drear cover art

    Regular price: £15.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £15.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00
  • Time Pieces cover art

    Regular price: £9.99 or 1 Credit

    Sale price: £9.99 or 1 Credit

    Try for £0.00

Are you an author?

Help us improve our Author Pages by updating your bibliography and submitting a new or current image and biography.
Visit Amazon Author Central