Virginia R. Bensen

Virginia R. Bensen is a historical fiction author with a deep interest in Civil War era Virginia and the lives of ordinary people caught inside extraordinary times.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Annandale, Virginia, Virginia later made her home in Winchester. There she began reading the diaries of local women who lived through the Civil War, and she has been drawn to their voices ever since. After visiting battlefields and re-enactments and studying American women's history, she began the Winchester Series, which opens with Bliss and Fire and continues in The Connexion Between Two Fires.

Her fiction is backed by serious research. Her career spans higher education, the U.S. Department of Labor, and historical research. As a digital historian she created the American Women's History Journey e-zine and podcast and designed the Brooksville Hernando Web Museum and downtown digital walking tour. She has contributed to the Emerging Civil War blog and the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society Journal, and she speaks regularly on Civil War history and women's history.