She drafted a new outline in a single night and added "unspeakable things my mother didn't want me to write about." The ninety-eight-page revision was re-titled Flowers in the Attic, for which she was paid a $7,500 advance. She was told that the story had potential, but needed to be trimmed and spiced up a bit. Promise gleamed over the horizon for Virginia when she submitted a 290,000-word novel, The Obsessed, to a publishing company. "I Slept with My Uncle on My Wedding Night", a short fiction piece, was published in a pulp confession magazine. Between 19, she wrote nine novels and twenty short stories, of which only one was published. In 1972, she completed her first novel, The Gods of the Green Mountain, a science-fantasy story. Her first manuscript was so autobiographical that she destroyed it in order to keep her life private. Virginia helped to support her family through her extremely successful career as a commercial artist, portrait painter, and fashion illustrator.įrustrated with the lack of creative satisfaction that her work provided, Virginia sought creative release through writing, which she did in secret. Later, mother and daughter moved again, this time to be close to her other brother in Apache Junction, Arizona. Virginia and her mother left Portsmouth to live near one of her brothers in Manchester, Missouri. After graduation, she nurtured her impressive artistic talent by completing a four-year correspondence art course while living at home with her family, where she recuperated after undergoing more surgical attempts to correct the damage to her hip and back. She proudly earned her diploma from Woodrow Wilson High School in Portsmouth. Virginia excelled in school and, at fifteen, won a scholarship for writing a parody of Tennyson's Idylls of the King. Arthritis and a failed spinal surgical procedure forced her to spend most of her life on crutches or in a wheelchair. Virginia bravely suffered through the pain that her doctors would not acknowledge. While a teenager, Virginia suffered a tragic accident she fell down the stairs at her school and incurred severe back injuries. The Andrews family returned to Portsmouth while Virginia was in high school.
She spent her happy childhood years in Portsmouth, Virginia, and lived briefly in Rochester, New York.
The youngest of three children, Virginia was the only daughter of William Henry Andrews, a career navy man who opened a tool-and-die business after retirement, and Lillian Lilnora Parker Andrews, a telephone operator. Virginia Cleo Andrews (born Cleo Virginia Andrews) was born on 6 June 1923 in Portsmouth, Virginia.
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