Virgo (23 August - 22 September)

Symbolized by the letter M (who really wants you to ask about his obnoxiously large breast-cancer-awareness ribbon) the Virgo Writer is ruled by Mercury, which Ancient Greeks knew as Hermes: the god of double-booking, pocket-sized hand sanitizer, and Zoom conference calls.

Associated with the digestive tract, Virgo is prone to stomach aches more than other writers, most likely from licking too many envelopes, or “accidentally” swallowing Listerine again. As one of four mutable signs, Virgo is meticulous, even surgical in their plotting.

These are the mad-scientists of the Zodiac whose characters often border on obsessive-compulsive disorder. In Agatha Christie’s (September 15, 1890) Murder on the Orient Express, detective Hercule Poirot solves the case through “order and method,” all the while struggling to keep his suit clean. Or Roald Dahl’s (September 13, 1916) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where agoraphobic Willy Wonka maintains his sterile factory, treating candy production like a science experiment. And Mary Shelley’s (August 30, 1797) Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus, where Dr. Victor Frankenstein defies nature to bring the dead back to life, after scarlet fever claims his mother.

Associated with the Sixth House, Virgo is concerned most with health and wellness, the modus operandi driving many of their heroes and heroines. We see this in Ira Levin’s (August 27, 1929) Rosemary’s Baby, where after her health rapidly degrades, titular Rosemary can no longer ignore the clues that her unborn baby is at the center of a satanic conspiracy. Or H.G. Wells’s (September 21, 1866) The War of the Worlds, where an alien invasion isn’t thwarted by superior firepower or the inedible human spirit, but by simple household germs.

Virgo also keeps two latexed fingers firmly on the pulse of society.

In Malcom Gladwell’s (September 3, 1963) The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, he examines how ideas can spread like a virus in society. And Upton Sinclair’s (September 20, 1878) The Jungle, which inspired real-life sanitation reform after exposing unsanitary conditions and practices in the American Meatpacking industry.

These Earth signs also have a monopoly on mental health. Ken Kesey’s (September 17, 1935) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest sees narcissist Randal Patrick McMurphy suffer emasculation and shock therapy at a psychiatric hospital. And in N.K. Jemisin’s (September 19, 1972) short story “Non-Zero Probabilities,” where everything in young Adele’s world is dominated by numbers and superstition. Even Stephen King’s (September 21, 1947) The Shining, where playwright Jack Torrence is driven mad by the demons residing in the snowy, isolated Outlook Hotel.

Virgo Writers have a tendency to treat love as a science experiment too. In Edgar Rice Burroughs’s (September 1, 1875) Tarzan, a man raised by apes travels across the known world, and learns English and French in order to be with Jane again. While Cheryl Strayed’s (September 17, 1968) Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, follows the author’s personal journey to shed her guilt, drugs, and bad romance to reclaim her health. And John Green’s (August 24, 1977) The Fault in Our Stars, which follows Hazel as she deals with thyroid cancer and her crush on a boy from support group.

Virgo has all the potential to achieve a healthy and successful literary career, given they can pop an antacid from time to time, take a deep breath and explore the world outside their laboratory.

Notable Mentions
O. Henry, September 11, 1862
Sherwood Anderson, September 13, 1876
D.H. Lawrence, September 11, 1885 (lady chatterly’s lover)
Jorge Luis Borges, August 24, 1899
William Golding, September 19, 1911 (lord of flies)
Mary Stewart, September 17, 1916
Adrienne Kennedy, September 13, 1931
Mary Oliver, September 10, 1935
George R. R. Martin, September 20, 1948
Orson Scott Card, August 24, 1951
Rebecca Skloot, September 19, 1972
Chimamanda Ngoni Adichie, September 15, 1977

-

Forest Oliver