Margaret Mahy Margaret Mahy
As a child I was entranced by the stories that were read to me, and entertained with the sound and possibilities of words. In the beginning, before I could write, I wrote small rhymes which I learned by heart, and told myself my own stories, drawn indirectly from my own life and expressing wishes and dreams.
I finally left my home town, Whakatane, to go to the University of New Zealand. On the blurb of one of my books the publishers put down that I had been educated at the University of Whakatane. To anyone in New Zealand it was a funny mistake, but to me there was something true about this. I still think, in my heart of hearts, that I was educated at the University of Whakatane and I finally graduated.
All this time I kept on writing. I began to have stories published in the New Zealand School Journal in 1961, and since then I have written many stories for young children, as well as some for young adults. The pleasure I get from these stories is similar to the pleasure I receive from other people's books, but slower, more troubled and more uncertain.
I live just out of Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand in a house with an untidy garden, three cats, and a dog. One of my daughters, her husband and her little daughters live next door. I visit a lot of schools, but when I am at home I spend a lot of time writing, ordering the cats and dog around (not very successfully), and fussing over my granddaughters. It is an ordinary life, but like many ordinary lives it is secretly remarkable to the person living it.
A native New Zealander, Margaret Mahy was born in Whakatane in 1936. She has worked as a librarian for children in both public and school libraries in Christchurch, N.Z. In 1980 she left library work to become a full-time writer. Her hobbies of reading, watching films, gardening, and astronomy have found their way into her many books.
Ms. Mahy writes for all ages from picture books to teen novels, from fantastical adventures to penetrating insights into today's adolescents. Her picture books are full of rollicking good humor, while her older novels reflect an interest in the supernatural and the themes of family relations and coming of age.
She has won the British Library Association's Carnegie Medal twice, for The Haunting in 1982, and The Changeover in 1984 and the New Zealand Library Association's Esther Glen Medal five times. In 1993, Ms. Mahy received an Order of New Zealand, the highest honor that a resident of theat country can receive.
copyright Penguin USA
photo: Vanessa Hamilton
