Talk:Margaret Mahy

Untitled

Something a bit odd in the dates on this page. The Bibliography section says "The Haunting (1992)", but the Awards section says it won the Carnegie Medal in 1982. I know it's a supernatural novel, but that's going a bit far :-) I think the Bibliography section has to be the wrong one, because my copy of The Haunting says it was first published in the UK in 1982. Not sure what that makes the real original publication date, though.

Carnegie Medals were dated by the year of first U.K. publication.

National Library of Australia is associated with VIAF, a link provided in the footer of many writer biographies here. (But I don't know how to use the NLA link provided there[[1] whereas the German (GND) today goes directly to the human readable catalog.) NLA may be useful, I suppose from a distance, knowing that even UK and US share some catalog resources and generate much co-publication. --P64 (talk) 16:05, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

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Resolved

long ago --P64 (talk) 16:05, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Bibliography

The bibliography is very incomplete and probably misleading regarding her career as well. The US Library of Congress (which may not have all her books) lists five picture book titles for 1969, two 1970, two 1971. (about fifteen records pre-1972. having checked one i guess that most doubles represent UK and US editions)

One of the 1969 illustrators, Helen Oxenbury for Dragon of an Ordinary Family (London: Heinemann), won the British Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration that year, citing this book and one other.
• LCC entry for that book; select "More like this" for return to Mahy. --P64 (talk) 18:19, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

See also WP:BIB. --P64 (talk) 16:05, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

How pronounce her surname?

Is it like "ma-HIGH"? 86.182.10.94 (talk) 16:37, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Its pronounced "Ma-he", see the opening part of this documentary: http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/made-in-new-zealand---margaret-mahy-2004. Rudolph89 (talk) 21:18, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

So in IPA notation that's /ˈmɑː.hi/ (in a British RP accent anyhow). 2A00:23C5:FE0C:2100:8C75:7F2B:41E7:8708 (talk) 18:34, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Split

The list of works is becoming unwieldy, so should be split into a List of works by Margaret Mahy article per WP:EMBED § Lists of works and timelines, but it needs sources. It's completely unreferenced at the moment. TimofKingsland (talk) 15:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

See also WP:BIB and consider also Margaret Mahy bibliography.

This one is not exceptionally long or unwieldly. (But I don't know how much of her work has been omitted, or how important it is.) If it were, then split would be warranted regardless of quality layout or sourcing. Exhibits: Piers Anthony bibliography; Anne McCaffrey bibliography

Anyway I feel strongly that a biography should still cover an author's works. Exhibits: Piers Anthony and Anne McCaffrey represent the extremes here. I am partly responsible for McCaffrey --ie, how much remains in the biography after splitting the bibliography-- and I consider Anthony the heights of ridiculousness. Perhaps the earlier Anthony editors would say vice versa. --P64 (talk) 16:05, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I went with List of works by Margaret Mahy over Margaret Mahy bibliography because the list also contains TV shows. From WP:BIB § Naming: "Author bibliographies that contain other types of published works such as music (discography), or film (filmography) in addition to published literature should be called Works of Author." A separate page would meet notability guidelines - "A list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources" (WP:LISTN). See here and here as examples of RS discussing her group of works. Also, they mention more than 100 books, 40 novels, and 20 collections of short stories in those articles, so this list is likely to get quite long. I wouldn't be against keeping a short list of her most notable works, such as those listed in the "Selected published works" here. But I don't feel like it's helpful for a reader to have to scroll through a long list of works in a biography, where a short list and a link to the full list for those who are interested would suffice. Stephen King's page only has a link, despite his works being better known, and there being fewer of them. TimofKingsland (talk) 22:52, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Your points are good ones. They include no reason to put "List of" in front of "Works of/by" and I would omit it.

Stephen King includes much chronological account of his writing career. Although its organization is different, it's closer to Anne McCaffrey than to Piers Anthony in its overall balance of "life" and "writer" as many author biographies call them. If I were a King editor, I would draft a list of all books (title, publisher, date) --and series by name, if any-- that are mentioned in the prose, as a starting point for what bibliographical data to include there. --P64 (talk) 00:57, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Point taken about the name. I have created a new, much bigger article, called Works by Margaret Mahy, with references (names like List of works by Margaret Mahy and Margaret Mahy bibliography have been redirected to this page). All works previously mentioned in the section are on this list, and now referenced. I think notable works can be discussed in prose in the career section, but if someone wants to change {{Main|Works by Margaret Mahy}} to {{Main list|Works by Margaret Mahy}}, and make a notable books list underneath, I won't be opposed to it.

The list could use ISBNs, but I can't be bothered at the moment. It also needs WikiProject ratings. Both of these things have been brought up at Talk:Works by Margaret Mahy § Created page. TimofKingsland (talk) 11:55, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Carnegie Medal winner "outside Britain"

Quoting the cited obituary, which is paraphrased in the article:

(quote) She won the Carnegie Medal in 1982 and 1984, making her the first writer outside Britain to receive the award.

I guess this is a simple mistake although it may be some cheesy technicality that we should not reproduce.

Ivan Southall of Australia won the 1971 Medal for Josh, first published by Angus & Robertson of Sydney, Australia. They were the first Australian author and first Australian book to be honoured.

The technical cheese might be residence v. nationality, that Mahy was outside Britain 1982/1983 while Southall lived in Britain whenever 1971/1972. It appears to me reading our Start biography that he was already quite well established as a writer, and one webpage emphasizes his 1950s/60s contribution or fame. He may have traveled while retaining an Australian publisher and editor or three. --P64 (talk) 00:57, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Mahy's Medal-winning 1982 book was The Haunting (novel). Among the WorldCat records with 1982 date, one[2] specifies "London; Melbourne; Toronto: J. M. Dent" rather than "London: J. M. Dent" as in the record I have linked to its {infobox book}. I suppose there was no prior New Zealand edition but I have left some comments flagging this point in the article code.

P.S. I am passing through our coverage of all Greenaway(done) and Carnegie Medal winners in chron order. Just now 1982, Josh several hours ago. --P64 (talk) 01:21, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Another editor has deleted the claim that she was the first non-Briton medalist.

Mahy is one of seven writers to win two Carnegie Medals and the only non-Briton. No one has won three. The rules have permitted repeat winners since sometime 1960s/70s. (If you know/learn when, please tell me/us at Carnegie Medal). --P64 (talk) 01:41, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The Carnegie Medal in Literature says that she was also shortlisted once. I htink that there's room for all this discussion in a subsection of the awards section, properly referenced, of course. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:01, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The CILIP children's shortlists aren't so notable because they comprises 6-10 books, now usually eight. (--which is a Guardian Prize longlist. There are about 40 on the lists of nominations that wikipeditors commonly call longlists.) What you see in the Carnegie article, however, is the "highly commended" runner up for Memory in 1987 and the reference is the one given here. It's more notable than commended runner up and much more notable than shortlist because its so selective.

Yet I agree, that HC runner-up belongs only in some Awards section of this biography (presumably in the lead for Memory (novel), if and when). Essentially the first sentence of the Carnegie paragraph belongs in the lead, upon graduation from C grade i say offhand. --P64 (talk) 15:29, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Sources

I just added a few external links that should provide good sources for anyone wanting to expand this page. There's a lot of content there between the external links now that could be added to this article. I was going to do a bit of this, but I have so many unfinished things at the moment, I don't know if I'll get around to it. But other good sources that could fill in other missing details that are either unused, or hardly used, include:

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/23/margaret-mahy-dies-76
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18965685
• http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/books/margaret-mahy-childrens-author-dies-at-76.html
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/9424565/Margaret-Mahy.html
• http://www.3news.co.nz/Tributes-for-much-loved-author-Margaret-Mahy/tabid/418/articleID/262435/Default.aspx
• http://www.idealog.co.nz/magazine/5/margaret-mahys-marvellous-mind http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/7338140/Mahy-a-trailblazer-for-childrens-books
• http://www.thenewword.com/children/mmahy.html

And obviously the many more obituaries, etc. listed at Google News (and here). I may just end up using this list myself later. TimofKingsland (talk) 11:28, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Translations. Select "WorldCat" from template {{Authority control}} in the footer. The right margin includes the distribution of "Languages" in which participating libraries catalogue copies of books by Mahy.

"Most widely held words by MM" reports ten languages each for The Changeover and The Haunting. Select "The changeover: a supernatural romance". From the particular record select "View all editions and formats". The left margin includes the distribution of "Languages" for this title.[3] (The foreign-language catalogue records are included in "all editions and formats" but that list can be sorted only by date, not by language.)

These WorldCat lists are not reliable, as they merely aggregates the languages specified in the catalogue records of the libraries that participate. But they are WP:RELIABLE SOURCEs. And I suppose they err almost exclusively by omission. --P64 (talk) 15:43, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The Guardian obituary by children's book editor Julia Eccleshare (three days after the notice listed above)
"Margaret Mahy obituary: Versatile and prolific writer of children's books" 26 Jul 2012

--P64 (talk) 01:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

In one revision that may be inscrutable via "compare versions" I consolidated refs slightly, but only for awards. I expanded or tweaked biographical refs as needed, while relocating the details in section References. I noticed that three of them have been (and remain) strictly redundant as cited --BBC, Dastgheib, and Flood; currently #15-16-17. These may be superior to the biographical sources that are cited in the rest of the article --NZHerald, CCLib, Penguin, TVNZ; currently #6-8-10-14. That is sufficient reason now, in my opinion, not to delete the redundant three or to refashion them as External links.

Two other sources may be useful to consult, and may assist in making some of the current citations genuinely redundant. One is the entire "Margaret Mahy Pages" at CCLib (External link), where we now cite only the biography page as #8. Another is the presentation speech (21 September 2006) for her HCAndersen Medal, which is longer than and different from the March 2006 press release we now cite as #18. I added the entire archive of contemporary materials from IBBY as a source cited in the lead as #2 but I didn't use any of it. Unfortunately the acceptance speech by Mahy is missing, although the enclosed lead photograph makes clear that she was present. Perhaps it can be located elsewhere. (My suggestions are 1) write to IBBY, maybe its a clerical error; 2) ask whoever maintains the CCLib Margaret Mahy Pages; 3) ask wherever her collected papers are or will be, and CCLib probably knows where that is.)

I added one formal ref at the end of section 3, simply by writing up the existing Ext link as a reference. It's obviously needed at that point but I didn't check that it actually supports what we say there.

--P64 (talk) 22:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Image

After a few emails, we have been kindly granted permission for three photos of Mahy, one of which I have put into the infobox (after some cropping, colour adjustments, and background blurring). The images are in commons:Category:Margaret Mahy, which is linked to in the external links section now too. TimofKingsland (talk) 05:36, 3 August 2012 (UTC)  [Edited by TimofKingsland (talk) 07:00, 3 August 2012 (UTC)]

HCAndersen Medal

Mahy won the so-called-but-not-by-us Little Nobel Prize or Nobel Prize of Children's Literature in 2006, the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award. I added, as [ref name=ibby2006] currently #2, the entire archive of year 2006 materials at IBBY. See my green remarks above.

Mahy was the New Zealand 2004 nominee and 2002 nominee. To me that doesn't seem worth stating in the article, or not worth documenting. Perhaps there is a New Zealand Board of Books for Young People, responsible for nominations, with online coverage of biennial nominations that may be useful as a source here or elsewhere.

FWIW, if i skim correctly, NZ did not participate prior to 2002 ("Candidates for the Hans Christian Andersen Awards 1956–2002"). That may be useful in coverage of NZ writers or NZ children's lit, not here but elsewhere, especially if one of you spots a 1956 to 2000 nomination that i missed. (I skimmed the whole list for English-language writers but the nature of the source makes that error-prone.) The linked book does somewhere say nomination is a significant expense that many smaller countries undertake only if they have a candidate likely to be strong internationally.

--P64 (talk) 23:19, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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