Look and Listen

Biography

Virginia Nosky,a prize-winning author, poet and screenwriter, has lived in Arizona for over thirty years. She has done extensive research on the state's Indian cultures, which have figured in several of her books, most particularly in her fourth and latest, BLUE TURQUOISE, WHITE SHELL, the story of an Harvard educated doctor and a Navajo lawyer running for Congress. Unknown to these two disparate personalities, they have a common ancestor: the son of a liaison in the 1830's of her distant uncle and his great, great, great, grandmother. The book is an historical journey as well as a contemporary one--and has the most satisfying ending of any book this year. Virginia works with the Arizona Kidney Foundation and Ballet Arizona. She graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in French. She lives in Paradise Valley with her husband Richard and golden retrievers. Her hobbies are reading, horses, dogs, travel, and shoes.

Inspiration

The state, its mountains, cities, valleys and mesas appear prominently in Virginia's work, though it is the desert she finds the most interesting--its topography and climate. "The desert is a violent place; it claws and scratches, its predators' teeth and fangs bite, its fierce storms and searing heat can kill the unwary. To go out at night in the summer, one feels its brooding presence, like the sea." Virginia says: "Often people ask, are you the heroine of your books? And I answer, 'Of course. I'm also the hero, the villain,and the family dog.' How could it be otherwise? And I do use real people as models for my characters, though I do stir things up--a little bit here, a little bit there. The whole process is so utterly fascinating, watching characters take over and do what they want. There reaches a point in a book that the author is a almost a spectator.