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Virginia Holman grew up in rural and central Virginia. She earned her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and worked for a while in the editorial department of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. She has also worked as a teacher of creative writing at public schools, community women's centers, and hospices. From 1999 to 2001, she was the writer in residence at Duke University Medical Center, where her work with long-term patients was featured in the national media. In addition, she has contributed essays and short stories to DoubleTake, Redbook, Self, and the Washington Post. In 2001, a portion of Rescuing Patty Hearst appeared in DoubleTake under the title "Homesickness" and won a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her husband and her son.
Photo © Marion Ettlinger
Rescuing Patty Hearst
Was a Booksense 76 Pick, a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, and just recently appeared in amazon.com's Breakout Books list. RPH also received starred reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews, along with many, many other very positive reviews.
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Virginia Holman's Summer Reading List
Sea Shells
by Paul Valery
Valery's succinct essay on sea shells is prefaced by the poet Mary Oliver. With a 30 spf sunscreen, and a hat, I can read it before I burn.
At Home in the Heart Of Appalachia
by John O' Brien
This looks to be anutterly necessary book about Appalachia and, more specifically, West Virginia. I've heard that this book tries to do it all--tell the story of a history of a place as it exists in the culture's imagination, how it exists today, and how it shaped the man the author is today.
Brighten the Corner Where You Are
by Fred Chappell
Fred Chappell is one of the country's best kept secrets. This wonderful story promises that a day in the life of a rural North Carolina schoolteacher is more fun than you can have chasing a "devil possum", treeing a bobcat, or falling in love. Sounds like I'm lucky that it's part of a trilogy.
Fair and Tender Ladies
by Lee Smith
Having just finished her wonderful book The Last Girls I had to go out and read more of Lee Smith. I've just bought Fair and Tender Ladies. It is an epistolary novel told by a character named Ivy Rowe. Her letters start from the time she is a young girl until she is an old woman chronicling one mountain woman's life.
Searching for Virginia Dare: A Fool's Errand
by Marjorie Hudson
This is billed the perfect summer beach read. Hudson braids fiction, memoir, and history to plumb the mystery of The Lost Colony and the mysterious fate of Virginia Dare, the first child born in the New World.
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