Margaret Mahy
Margaret Mahy
Margaret Mahy, ONZwas a New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. Many of her story plots have strong supernatural elements but her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up. She wrote more than 100 picture books, 40 novels and 20 collections of short stories. At her death she was one of thirty writers to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Medal for her "lasting contribution to children's literature"...
NationalityNew Zealander
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth21 March 1936
Margaret Mahy quotes about
I know things are unbearable but in spite of that we have to bear them.
There's a lot of things you can put up with, as long as you're not related to them.
If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing twice.
You can't say you want things to be simple and then in the next breath ask me to be honest.
It can certainly happen that characters in more sophisticated stories can "take over" as they develop and change the author's original ideas. Well, it certainly happens to me at times.
In a way, the characters often do take over.
I was able to work out all sorts of attitudes to style and event and character, all of which affected the way I came to think about my own writing. I believe that all good writers are original.
I think I am too interested in my own ideas to copy anyone else's, but I find that other people's imagery, the flow of language in the outside world, games with words, and ideas about relationships are all most important to me.
I hope I am not too repetitive. However, coming to terms with death is part of the general human situation.
I don't think I prefer writing for one age group above another. I am just as pleased with a story which I feel works well for very small children as I do with a story for young adults.
By the time ordinary life asserted itself once more, I would feel I had already lived for a while in some other lifetime, that I had even taken over someone else's life.
I, personally, have found reading a continual support to writing.
At this stage I am not involved with young adults as closely as many other writers. My children are grown up and my grandchildren are still quite young.
At the same time, I think books create a sort of network in the reader's mind, with one book reinforcing another. Some books form relationships. Other books stand in opposition. No two writers or readers have the same pattern of interaction.