Discipline: Literature

Virginia Sorensen

Discipline: Literature
Region: Hendersonville, NC
MacDowell Fellowships: 1954, 1956, 1959, 1960, 1970, 1973
More: mappingliteraryutah.org/utah-writers/virginia-sorensen
Virginia Sorensen (1912–1991) was the author of the 1957 John Newbery Medal winning Miracles on Maple Hill, based in the Erie, PA region where she lived at the time. She grew up in both Manti and American Fork, Utah. Her first novel, A Little Lower Than the Angels, was written and published in 1942 while she resided in Terre Haute, IN. With its publication, Alfred Knopf declared, "I have seldom introduced a new novelist with the confidence I feel in the author of this remarkable book. It marks the debut, I believe, of a major American writer." She is considered "one of Utah's premiere gifts to literary America." Her first book for children, Curious Missy, grew out of her efforts with a bookmobile in Alabama. She received two Guggenheim fellowships, one in 1946 to study tribe of Mexican Indians, and one in 1954 to study in Denmark as regards the history of Sanpete Valley's settlers.

Studios

Mansfield

Virginia Sorensen worked in the Mansfield studio.

The Helen Coolidge Mansfield Studio was donated by graduates of the Mansfield War Service Classes for Reconstruction Aides. Helen Mansfield helped found the New York MacDowell Club. The small, shingled frame structure with stone foundation was originally fronted on the west side by a neat white picket fence and gate, a garden, and a stone pathway…

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