Working as a librarian and bringing up two daughters, Mahy continued to write stories and poems. In 1967 she began working for the School Library Service in Christchurch, and in 1976 was appointed Children’s Librarian at the Canterbury Public Library, a position she held until she resigned in 1980 to become a full-time writer. In 1956 she entered the New Zealand Library School in Wellington, and with her Diploma (1958) went on to embrace librarianship with enthusiasm, taking a position at Petone Public Library.įor personal reasons she moved to Ohariu, near Wellington, and then to Governor’s Bay, Lyttelton Harbour, in 1965. Mahy worked as a nurse’s aide for six months before going to Auckland University College 1952–54 and Canterbury University College 1955, graduating BA. Though regarded at primary school as academically ‘slow’, her first publications were at the age of 7, in the children’s page of the Bay of Plenty Beacon she also entered Junior Digest competitions. With many relatives living in the same town, Mahy had a largely happy childhood, excelling at high school as a swimmer. Her father, a bridge builder, told stories and read to his children his taste for adventure was to influence Mahy’s writing. MAHY, Margaret (1936–2012), the most acclaimed of New Zealand’s children’s writers, was born and raised in Whakatane, eldest of five children. FROM THE OXFORD COMPANION TO NEW ZEALAND LITERATURE
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