Virginia Hamilton Biography

Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush About the Author

Virginia Hamilton was born in Yellow Springs, Ohio, a town which had once been a station on the Underground Railroad and where many of the residents are descendants of fugitive slaves. Hamilton grew up surrounded by members of her extended family, who lived on nearby farms. She attributes her fascination with writing and literature to her parents, who loved to read, and to her family, who loved to tell stories. Hamilton received a scholarship to Antioch College, where she majored in writing, then continued her education at Ohio State University in Columbus, where she was a literature major. While living in New York, she studied novel writing at the New School for Social Research.

But, after fifteen years, she returned to Ohio where she now resides with her poet-husband, Arnold Adoff, and their two children.

Hamilton has been honored, not only for realistic fiction, such as...
(read more)