Virginia Hamilton   The Virginia Hamilton Conference was established to provide a forum for the discussion of cultural themes and issues in literature for children and young adults. Appropriately, the conference honors Virginia Hamilton. The recipient of every major award and honor in her field, Ms. Hamilton is one of today's most distinguished writers for children and young adults. She is the first African American woman to have won the coveted Newbery Award for "the most distinguished contribution to literature for children" for M. C. Higgins, The Great, a book which also garnered her the National Book Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Three other books, The Planet of Junior Brown, Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush, and In the Beginning, a collection of creation myths from around the world, have been named Newbery Award honor books. Ms. Hamilton has twice been awarded a Certificate of Honor by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), and has received the Coretta Scott King Award four times, most recently for Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales. She has also received the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush, and the biography Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Slave, as well as the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for The House of Dies Drear. Her novel Cousins, praised by Booklist for "astonishing moments of betrayal and redemption," was selected a Best Book of 1990 by Parenting Magazine, a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association, and a Pick of the Lists by American Bookseller. Arilla Sun Down, lauded by Kirkus Reviews for its "dazzling, uncommon impact," was a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year. Ms. Hamilton was the recipient of the 1997 Ohioana Award for Her Stories. She also was awarded an honorary doctorate from Kent State University in 1997.
     In 1990, Ms. Hamilton received both an honorary doctorate from the Bank Street College of Education and the Regina Medal from the Catholic Library Association. In 1992 she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Author Award, given by IBBY to a living author whose works have made a significant contribution to children's literature. In its citation, the IBBY states, "Virginia Hamilton's work has been recognized in her native country and through numerous translations abroad for its profound humanity, breathtaking depth and complexity, and innovative and poetic use of language, especially the vernacular of Black America." In 1993 she was invited to deliver the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture by the American Library Association. In 1995 she received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for her lasting contribution to literature for children and became the first children's book author to have been awarded a "genius grant" as a fellow of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
     Virginia Hamilton was born into the flat, rural landscape of Ohio farm country, where her mother's family had lived since Ms. Hamilton's grandfather, Levi Perry, escaped from slavery on the Underground Railroad in the late 1850s. She now resides in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with her husband, acclaimed poet and anthologist Arnold Adoff, on land that has been in her family for generations.
     About writing, Ms. Hamilton has said, "Language is magic, has always been magic, since the time sorcerers uttered their incantations. I am a believer in language and its magic monarchy! To bind its boundless spell is why I write."
 
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