Prolific New Zealand author Margaret Mahy was born in Whakatane, New Zealand, on March 21, 1936. She has spent most of her life in New Zealand, graduating from the University of New Zealand in 1958 with a bachelor's degree and a Diploma of Librarianship.

In addition to being a writer, Mahy has worked as a librarian in various public, school, and university libraries in New Zealand and Australia.

Mahy recalls inventing and telling stories before she could read and traces her evolution as a writer in the following way: "I began as a listener, became a teller, then a reader, and then a writer in that order." Half-seriously, she describes the dilemma she faces as a librarian, "the ultimate result of this evolutionary process," in being forced to impose an order on books that defy her attempts at definition. As she explains, "Making books available in the...