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Show library Publication Features Story Of Springville Author slikes to tell literary aspirants that1 a writer must be creatively alive, a person "on whom nothing is lost." No better description could be found for Virginia Sorensen herself. Men are often capable of greater great-er things than they perform. They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent. Ualpole In the January issue of the Wilson Wil-son Library Bulletin, published in New York and received at the New York and received at the Springville Public Library, a full page is devoted to the author Virginia Vir-ginia Sorensen and . her accomplishments. accom-plishments. In as much as this well-known publication runs but two biographies biograph-ies each moth, or 24 a year, it is a distinct honor and a tribute to the author to be included in the bulletin. The articles, written by Nina Brown Baker, also includes a picture of the author, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. E. Eggertsen of this city. The article in part states: A century and less ago America was deeply agitated over "the Mormon Mor-mon menace." All those fears and the persecution they generated seem ridiculous now, when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Latter-Day Saints has taken its place a-mong a-mong our respected religious sects. Virginia Sorensen is a Mormon, by birth and by convictions. Through her books she has done as much as any living author to bring those early days into proper perspective. Mrs. Sorensen was born February Febru-ary 17, 1912, at Provo, Utah, to Claud E. Eggertsen and Helen (Blackett) Eggertsen. Her ancestry ances-try is mostly Danish. Both greatgrandfathers great-grandfathers followed Brigham Young to Utah on the great covered cov-ered wagon trek of 1846. Young Virginia grew up in Utah, first at Provo, then at Manti and American Amer-ican Fork, and finally at Springville, Spring-ville, where her father is now station sta-tion agent for the Denver and Rio Grande railroad. After graduation from American Ameri-can Fork High School in 1929, Virginia Eggertsen returned to Provo to enter Brigham Young University, receiving her B. S. de- ! gree there in 1934. Her interest in writing, roused by the publication of a childhood poem in a church magazine, strengthened during her college days. She was awarded numerous nu-merous prizes for poems and short stories. Her first novel, "A Little Lower Low-er than the Angels," was published in 1942. Its scene is the Mormon settlement at Nauvoo. Illinois, in the early period that includes the death of Joseph Smith and Brigham Brig-ham Young's accession to leadership. leader-ship. Milton Rugoff wrote of it in Books, "A novel of distinction . . . Fusion of vivid imagery and a poetic impression, sudden insight and swift turns make the narrative narra-tive continuously stimulating." "On This Star" (1946) received mixed reviews. Vardis Fisher found fault with it in the New York Times, although he conceded that Mrs. Sorensen is "sensitive and intuitive; in-tuitive; she knows her women." Library Journal said, "Virginia Sorensen writes authentically of the Mormon religion and customs. With The Neighbors (1947) Mrs. Sorensen departed from the Mormon Mor-mon background to tell a story of sheep ranching in present - day Colorado. James Hilton in the Herald Her-ald Tribune Weekly Book Review: "The Neighbors is thoughtfully written, always with a satisfying knowledge of its background and a sure eye for detail." The Evening and the Morning (1948) returns to the Mormon Utah scene. Virginia Kirkus said, "The story is valuable perhaps primarily as a study of a way of life written by someone who has been on the inside, and specifically of what that inheritance of traditional tradi-tional mores can mean to a woman's wo-man's growth. Mrs. Sorensen, a petite, attract- ive young woman with brown hair and green eyes, is the wife of a college professor, Dr. Frederick Chester Sorensen. The couple, married in 1933, have two children. child-ren. They have lived in a number of college towns, and are now at Auburn, Alabama. Mrs. Sorensen is now at work on a novel of Mexico, Mex-ico, where she studied on her Guggenheim Fellowship. She is gratefully remembered at Denver University, Utah Agricultural College, Col-lege, and now at Alabama Polytechnic Poly-technic for her classes in creative writing. In addition she has been generous with informal talks before be-fore women's clubs and writers' groups. Quoting Henry James, she |
