Virginia Hamilton is easily the most distinguished literaryvoice writing for young readers today. Since the publication of herfirst novel, "Zeely, " she has won every major award given toauthors. Her many, many citations include the international HansChristian Andersen Medal and the 1995 Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal,both given for her outstanding body of work. Besides receiving theNational Book Award, the John Newbery Medal, and the "BostonGlobe/Horn Book" Award, all for "M.C. Higgins, the Great, " she'swon two additional "Boston Globe/Horn Book" Awards, three "BostonGlobe/Horn Book" Honors, three Newbery Honors, three Coretta ScottKing Awards, five Coretta Scott King Honors, the Edgar Allan PoeAward, the Regina Medal, the NAACP Image Award, and countlessothers. In 1984 the Virginia Hamilton Lecture in Children'sLiterature annual conference was established in her name at KentState University, and in 1995 she became the first and onlychildren's author to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.Like M.C.,Ms. Hamilton was born in the town an ancestor (her grandfather,Levi Perry) escaped to from slavery. She still lives in that town,Yellow Springs, Ohio, with her husband, poet Arnold Adoff.