Vincent Virga

Vincent Virga (born September 28, 1942) is a gay American-born editor and writer. He is the author of the novels Gaywyck (1980), A Comfortable Corner (1982), and Vadriel Vail (2001). His life partner since 1964 is fellow writer James McCourt. McCourt's and Virga's papers are held at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Life
Vincent Virga was born and grew up in New York City. In 1952 the family moved to Lindenhurst, New York.

Virga attended St. Bonaventure University, (B.A., 1964) and Yale University (1964-1965). In 1964 at Yale he met fellow student James McCourt, who was to become his life partner. They were both enrolled in the acting program at Yale School of Drama, but Virga was not happy with the teaching at Yale, and therefore he and McCourt left to explore the theater scene in London. They lived in London from 1964 to 1967 and again from 1969 to 1971, both doing odd-jobs. Virga first job was as a typesetter at The New York Review of Books.

Virga and McCourt moved to New York City in the 1970s, where they currently live, in the same apartment they are renting since then. They also spend time in Washington, D.C. (for Virga's work at the Library of Congress), and Ireland (where Virga has the role of United States Representative of the Jackie Clarke Collection in Ballina, County Mayo).

Vincent Virga was a friend of author Susan Sontag (whom he met while working as a typesetter at The New York Review of Books) and poet James Schuyler. Cartographia: Mapping Civilizations (2007) is dedicated to Sontag, McCourt and Victoria de los Angeles, a friend of both McCourt and Virga.

Work
Vincent Virga first novel, Gaywyck (1980), was also the first gay gothic romance ever published. Vadriel Vail (2001, nominated 14th Lambda Literary Awards) and Children of Paradise (2010) are the second and third books in the series of Gaywyck. A Comfortable Corner (1982) is a contemporary novel dealing with the issue of alcoholism in the gay community.

Virga is also an expert on cartography, and has a close collaboration with the Library of Congress. His researches on cartography have been published by the Library of Congress since the beginning of the 2000s.

Other than publishing his own work, since 1973 Virga is a photo editor and consultant for other authors. He has researched the picture sections of more than 150 books, including the biography of John Wayne, Jane Fonda, Arianna Huffington Stassinopoulos, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton.