Biography:

Writer. Born– Feb. 12, 1912 in Provo, Utah. Parents– Claud E. and Helen El Deva Blackett Eggertson. Married– Frederick Sorenson, August 16, 1933.  Children–two.  Married– Alec Waugh, July 15, 1969.  Education– Brigham Young University, B.A., 1933; further study at the School of Journalism at University of Missouri and at Stanford University .  Lived in several university towns where her first husband taught, including Auburn.  Published poems, articles, and stories in journals and periodicals, as well as adult  novels and children’s books; taught creative writing at Auburn and other universities and started a student literary magazine. Active in social causes, including the provision of public library services in Alabama. A member of the Authors League and International PEN. Received a Guggenheim fellowship to Mexico,  1946-1947 and to Denmark, 1954-55.  Received the Children’s Book Award from the Child Study Association of America in 1955 for Plain Girl, and the Newbery Medal for Miracles on Maple Hill in 1957.  Died December 24, 1991.

Source:

Writers Directory, 1982; newspaper clippings at Birmingham Public Library; Contemporary Authors online.; Something about the Author, vol. 15 (1993).

Publication(s):

Around the Corner. New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1971.

Curious Missie. New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1953.

The Evening and the Morning. New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1949.

Friends of the Road. New York; Atheneum, 1978.

The House Next Door; Utah 1896. New York; Scribner, 1954.

Kingdom Come. New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1960.

A Little Lower than Angels. New York; Knopf, 1942.

Lotte’s Locket. New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1964.

The Man with the Key. New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1974.

Many Heavens; a New Mormon Novel. New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1954.

Miracles on Maple Hill. New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1956.

The Neighbors. New York; Reynal & Hitchcock, 1946.

This Star. New York; Reynal & Hitchcock, 1946.

Plain Girl. New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1955.

The Proper Gods. New York; Harcourt, Brace, 1951.

Where Nothing is Long Ago; Memories of a Mormon Childhood. New York; Harcourt Brace, 1963.

Papers;

A collection of the papers of Virginia Sorensen is held by the Kerlan Children’s Literature Research Collection at the University of Minnesota Libraries.