Nancy Wright Beasley

Nancy Wright Beasley started her journalistic career as a state correspondent for The Richmond New Leader in 1979, while she and her family lived in South Hill, Va. She settled in Richmond, Virginia, in 1991, launching a freelance career. She wrote for several publications while also serving as a personal columnist and contributing editor for Richmond magazine from 1998 through 2014.

In 1998, Nancy wrote her first article about the newly established Virginia Holocaust Museum. She was so moved by the stories re-created in the Richmond museum that she began researching the experiences of the Israel “Izzy” Ipson family and members of four other Jewish families who lived in Lithuania during World War II. Her research helped document how 13 Jews survived the Holocaust by living in a 9’x12’x 4’ underground hole, their lives sustained by a poor Catholic farm family.

Along with extensive interviews of the Ipp (now Ipson) family, Nancy helped research and document the reunion of that family with Stanislavas Krivicius, who as a teenager, helped his parents shelter the Ipps, as well as 10 other Jews. This information was used to declare Krivicius and his parents Righteous Among the Nations, an honor bestowed by Righteous Among the Nations, Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem. The honor is reserved for non-Jews, like Oskar Schlinder, of Schlinder’s List fame, who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

In 2000, Nancy earned a master’s degree in the School of Mass Communications at Virginia Commonwealth University and taught there as an adjunct professor from 2000 through 2003. In 2005, the Virginia Press Women named her as their Communicator of Achievement, and in 2006, the Richmond YWCA chose her as one of Ten Outstanding Women in Central Virginia.

Also in 2006, Izzy’s Fire: Finding Humanity in the Holocaust was nominated for a People’s Choice Award, a competition sponsored by the Library of Virginia. The book also won first-place awards in the historical books category in competition through the Virginia Press Women and the National Federation of Press Women. It is now being taught in numerous schools and universities in the United States and can be found in public and private libraries in several countries, including Lithuania and Israel.

A second nonfiction book, Reflections of a Purple Zebra: Essays of a Different Stripe, a compilation of Nancy’s personal columns from Richmond magazine was published in 2007.

Nancy completed a master of fine arts in children’s literature in 2011 at Hollins University in Roanoke, Va. Her graduate thesis, The Little Lion, a young adult historical novel, also set in Kovno Ghetto during World War II, will be published in 2015. Swift Creek Mill Theatre has optioned the book for the stage, with performances planned beginning in January 2016.

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