Bibliography
This is a selection of articles about Margaret Mahy. Many more articles exist, some of which may be located through Christchurch City Libraries' online databases:
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Podcast interview by Jim Mora, Afternoons with Jim Mora, Radio New Zealand. 11.5MB MP3. Monday, 5 May 2008.
"It's a curious thing, because everyone thinks of country landscapes and things like that as being the essential New Zealand identity, but I started edging back into New Zealand through the city."
"Christchurch writer Margaret Mahy is finally starting to attract some of the serious attention within New Zealand that she has long had overseas, writes Kristi Gray."
"In a bedroom-cum-office in a house over-looking New Zealand's Lyttelton Harbour lives and works children's author Margaret Mahy. Surrounded by photographs of her children and grandchildren - My family keep an eye on me all the time I work - and by books stacked floor-to-ceiling..."
Margaret Mahy's latest novel, Alchemy, recently won the Senior Fiction category of the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards.
"There are always ideas in the world out there,"she says –
"for me, and for anyone interested in writing."
Margaret talks about her early influences and being a New Zealand children's author.
'In due course the peninsula came up for sale and I bought it. My accountant asked me what I intended to do with it. "I'm buying it as an act of imagination," I said . . . he pointed out that it would be hard to claim tax against such a category.'
Finds that European myth and folklore are an integral part of the writer's young adult (YA) stories. Examines 7 novels: 'Aliens in the Family', 'The Tricksters', 'Dangerous Spaces', 'The Catalogue of the Universe', 'Memory', 'Underrunners', and 'The Other Side of Silence'. Discusses patterns of narrative; good and evil duality; the hero, witch, stepmother and father figures; motifs and symbols; and names.
Discusses the animation of children's stories by Margaret Mahy for television by Gnome Productions, Wellington.
Profiles the writer.
The children's author discusses her work.
Outlines the life of the author.
Talks to Margaret Mahy, Bill Payne and Miranda Harcourt about how they celebrate Christmas.
Introduces the Great NZ Television Turnoff organised by the Library Assn. Reviews the display of children's books, and discusses the Māori collection, collected by Sir George Grey, at the Auckland Public Library. Notes how the Dewey classification works.
Margaret Mahy comments on the need for a balance between books, television and other pursuits.