Virginia Hamilton

Hello there, my name is Virginia Hamilton, and I'm a storyteller. My own story began on March 12th, 1934, in a small town called Yellow Springs, Ohio. I was the youngest of five children, and our house was always buzzing with talk and tales. My family had deep roots in that land. My grandfather, Levi Perry, had been a slave in Virginia, but he escaped to freedom through the Underground Railroad and settled our family in Ohio. Growing up, I listened to my mother, Etta Belle Perry Hamilton, and my uncles tell stories—big, wonderful stories about our family's past, our ancestors, and the folklore they carried with them. These weren't just bedtime stories; they were our history, our identity, and they planted the seed in me that would grow into a lifelong love for storytelling.

I was a bookworm from the start and knew I wanted to be a writer. After high school, I attended Antioch College right in my hometown, but I had big dreams. In 1958, I moved to New York City, a place bursting with energy, art, and ideas. I took classes at The Ohio State University and the New School for Social Research, soaking everything in. It was in New York that I met another writer, a poet named Arnold Adoff, in 1958. We fell in love and got married in 1960. Arnold believed in my talent and encouraged me to keep writing, even when I had to work other jobs to get by. The city was exciting, but the stories of my home and my heritage kept calling to me, and I knew those were the stories I was meant to tell.

After Arnold and I moved back to my family's land in Ohio, I truly found my writing voice. It was so important to me to write books where Black children could see themselves as heroes of their own stories. In 1967, my very first book, Zeely, was published. It was about a tall, proud girl who learns about her own unique identity. A few years later, in 1971, I wrote The Planet of Junior Brown, which received a Newbery Honor award. But the book that really changed everything was M.C. Higgins, the Great, which I published in 1974. It told the story of a boy trying to save his family from a spoil heap left by strip mining, and it was filled with folklore, history, and the deep connection between a family and their ancestral home on Sarah's Mountain.

The year 1975 was one I will never forget. For my book M.C. Higgins, the Great, I was awarded the John Newbery Medal. It was an incredible moment. At that time, no African American author had ever won that award. It felt like a door was opening, not just for me, but for all the writers of color who had stories to tell. As if that weren't enough, the book also won the National Book Award that same year. I was the first and only author to ever receive both of those prestigious awards for the same book. It showed me that the stories I was writing—stories about Black families, their struggles, their magic, and their history—mattered to the world.

I never stopped writing. I explored our history and heritage in books like The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales, which I published in 1985. I called my style of writing 'liberation literature,' because I hoped my stories would help free the minds of young people and empower them. The world continued to honor my work in amazing ways. In 1992, I received the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing, which is the highest international honor for an author of children's books. Then, in 1995, I was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, sometimes called a 'genius grant.' It was a wonderful gift that allowed me to focus completely on my passion: crafting stories for you.

In my lifetime, I wrote more than 40 books, each one a piece of my heart and my history. I lived to be 67 years old, and my life was filled with the joy of stories. Today, I'm remembered as a writer who opened up the world of children's literature. My books gave a voice to the Black experience in America and created a space for young readers to see the beauty and strength in their own heritage. I hope my stories continue to fly, carrying you to new places and reminding you that your own family's history is a treasure worth discovering.