Virginia Moran, associate director, University of Virginia Women's Center, "The Algebra of Snow." Main Street Rag Publishers.

April 18, 2012 — When Virginia "Ginger" Moran isn't working at the University of Virginia's Women's Center, where she is associate director, or on Iris: A Magazine for Thinking Young Women, for which she is editor, she writes fiction and essays. Moran recently published her debut novel, "The Algebra of Snow: A Bedtime Story for My Mother," which tells the story of a mathematics professor spending a winter alone in the Adirondack Mountains.

The novel follows Amelia on sabbatical, retreating to a cabin through the severe winter, where she finds herself in an inner landscape of loss – of her mother when she was a child, of her marriage, which has fallen apart, and of her dedication to her career. Ultimately, her story portrays the triumph of one woman's spirit by confronting her life and letting her imagination run wild.

Casey Fuetsch at Doubleday, who nominated "The Algebra of Snow" for a Pushcart Editor's Book award, said she saw the main character as having "an interior life that is no less rich than that found in the best women's literature."

— by Anne Bromley