Virgie Townsend

Virgie Townsend (she/they) is the author of the short story collection Because We Were Christian Girls, which won the 2022 Central New York Book Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the 2021 Newfound Prose Prize and Black Lawrence Press’ Fall 2019 Black River Chapbook Competition.

Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Sun Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, VICE, and other national publications. Her short stories have also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction, as well as featured in several publications’ best-of anthologies.

Virgie received a bachelor’s degree in journalism, magna cum laude, from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and a juris doctor degree from the Syracuse University College of Law. She lives in Syracuse, New York, with her family.

Find Virgie on Facebook and Instagram.