More information and resources

Margaret Mahy at Christchurch City Libraries

• Margaret’s work has won numerous awards.
• Margaret Mahy interview in Christchurch City Libraries’ Interviews with NZ Children’s Authors.
• Our bibliography of articles and interviews about Margaret Mahy.
• Search our catalogue for items about Margaret Mahy (includes books, recordings, archives, photographs etc).
• Christchurch City Libraries is home to the Margaret Mahy Collection - a collection of New Zealand children’s books.
• Photographs and images of Margaret in our collection.
• Margaret Mahy in the Canterbury Heroes gallery.

Tributes to Margaret Mahy

Margaret Mahy died on Monday 23 July 2012. There have been some wonderful tributes to her published around the world. This is a selection of blog posts, obituaries and articles:

• Glory! Glory! There’s the salt! by Jolisa Gracewood on her Public Address blog Busytown.
• What I learned from Margaret Mahy by Moata Tamaira on her Stuff blog Blog Idle.
• Inspiring author a global favourite by Mike Crean in The Press.
• Memories of Margaret Mahy by Guy Somerset in the New Zealand Listener.
• Open house: Margaret Mahy, The Storyteller in The Meadow Craig Ranapia on his Public Address blog Muse. There is an open forum for people to share their memories.
• R.I.P. Margaret Mahy 21 March 1936 - 23 July 2012 by Graham ‘Bookman’ Beattie on his Beattie’s Book blog.
• Margaret Mahy, hero by Elizabeth Knox
• Margaret Mahy a tribute and Storify by Sarah Gallager on her blog.
• Margaret Mahy by Deborah Shepard on her website.
• Margaret Mahy: the unassuming doyenne of children’s literature by Jillian Ewart, writer for The Read on the BooksellersNZ website.
• Margaret Mahy: Enchanted by life’s possibilities by Phil Taylor in The New Zealand Herald .
• Images from our Margaret Mahy display in the Aotearoa New Zealand collection, Central Library Tuam.

Margaret’s writings and speeches

• Margaret Mahy’s speech The Catalogue of the Universe from the Are Angels ok? conference - Radio NZ
• Two Trilogies and a Mystery: Speculations on the Earthsea Stories - a review of the writer Ursula Le Guin by Margaret Mahy.

Biographies and interviews

NZ Festival: A Tall, Long-Faced Tale

An interviewer once asked Margaret Mahy: If you were transformed into your true self, what would you become? Mahy replied, A tall, long-faced tale. What better way to describe a person who is widely acknowledged to be one of New Zealands greatest writers? Margaret Mahy is famous for her children’s and young adult books and has received many literary accolades, the most recent being the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2006 - one of the world’s most prestigious acknowledgements for excellence in children’s writing. But there is much more to Margaret Mahy than that.

In the NZ Festival documentary A Tall, Long-Faced Tale, viewers get an opportunity to see the real Mahy - Mahy the intellectual, Mahy the magical, Mahy the witty, the whimsical and the wicked, as interviewed by some of her own fictional characters and fellow author Elizabeth Knox. When director Yvonne Mackay suggested that in this documentary Mahy’s own characters might also help interview her, Mahy was so intrigued about what could eventuate, she forgot her vow never to do another documentary that might even slightly resemble a biography. Animated paper cut-outs like the Lion from The Lion In The Meadow and the Witch from The Witch In The Cherry Tree step into Mahy’s living room and her life. They leave as they came, appearing and vanishing as slickly as a Cheshire cat. Adding to these fascinating characters are interviews with some of Mahy’s extraordinary illustrators - Quentin Blake, Steven Kellogg and Jenny Williams.

This programme about Margaret Mahy, originally screened on Saturday January 19 2008 at 9:45 pm and repeated on Sunday January 20 at 9:30am, on TV One
Source: TVNZ at http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/488120/1503245.

Margaret Mahy elsewhere

• A set of Margaret Mahy images and words online at Digital NZ.
• Margaret Mahy adaptations and appearances on NZ On Screen.
• Margaret Mahy (1936–2012) collection at Radio New Zealand includes interviews and documentaries with Margaret.
• Margaret Mahy stamp issue. In 2013 NZ Post issued stamps featuring The lion in the meadow, The great white man-eating shark, The changeover, The word witch and A summery Saturday morning.
• Margaret Mahy profile at New Zealand On Screen.
• Margaret Mahy at the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre.
• The International Children’s Digital Library has the complete text of Margaret Mahy by Kevin Boon, a title in the Famous New Zealand Women series.
• The New Zealand Book Council’s author profile on Margaret Mahy.
• A brief biography on the HarperCollins website.
• The State Library of Victoria, Australia featured an exhibition about Margaret Mahy August 1 - September 15 1997.