Bestselling alumna finds her "finish line"

When JMU English Alumna Virginia Evans (’08) had her first novel published last April, she didn’t care that it wasn’t in bookstores. Just being published was the “finish line.”  

Now, Evans is a number one New York Times bestseller with that same novel. 

“The goal for me is not sales or being on a list or prizes — that sounds really cheesy to say, but it's true,” Evans said. “I just care...I’m more interested in what I'm writing [and] continuing to write.” 

After graduating from JMU as an English major and creative writing minor, Evans went on to pursue a master’s of philosophy in creative writing at Trinity College in Ireland in 2020. She wrote seven other novels before The Correspondent became her debut novel last year. 

“I think what you learn as an English major is how to be a reader, which is a foundational skill for all life, in every career,” Evans said. There’s a lingering connection from her classes at JMU to her current bestseller moment — two of her professors are named in the acknowledgement section of The Correspondent. 

Professor emeritus Inman Majors’ Foundations in Fiction class taught her the language of workshopping her writing and how to take criticism. In another writing class, the late Joan Frederick wrote “you have what it takes” on her end-of-semester paper.  

“I think that’s the first time I thought I had what it took, because I really respected her as a teacher...in those two classes, I thought, ‘This is me. This is where I belong. This is what I can do.’” 

Throughout her 20s and 30s, Evans would write from 4:30 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. and then would go to work for the day. It didn’t feel like she was building a career — it was just working for a paycheck. “I just knew that was what I was supposed to do,” Evans said. “I knew that what I wanted to do was write fiction.” 

When her eighth novel was finally picked up by a major publishing company, Evans was surprised. She had always written novels solely out of her passion for it rather than for money or prestige. The novel had been predicted not to sell, but it took off in late summer. The book now has over one million sales worldwide, according to The Australian Women’s Weekly, and has been longlisted for several prominent fiction prizes as well as shortlisted for the 2026 PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Novel. 

When Evans came to visit JMU last week for her reading and Q&A session, it was a homecoming that tied off a nostalgic loose thread.  

“It is weird to come back to a place which I associate with feeling lost and be like, ‘I found my way,’” Evans said. “‘I'm not lost anymore.’ It's kind of cool.”