Margaret Wild is an Australian author. She was born in 1948 in Eschew, a small town in South Africa, and came to Australia in 1972. She now lives in Sydney. Before becoming a fulltime writer, Margaret was a journalist for newspapers and magazines and then she worked for sixteen years as a book editor in children's publishing. Margaret has written more than 40 books for children. Her books are published around the world and have won numerous awards.
Margaret's books explore a diverse range of themes but she is particularly noted for exploring issues of identity, trust, and death. Let the Celebrations Begin focused on the imminent release of Jewish prisoners from a German concentration camp, while in The Very Best of Friends the death of a farmer prompts his widowed wife to find the love to care for their respective pets, a cat and dog, equally. Fox, illustrated by Ron Brooks using the colours of the Australian landscape, is a powerful story about betrayal.
Recently Margaret has published two verse novels, One Night and Jinx. These books investigate the trials and anxieties faced by teenagers coping with school, relationships and growing up.
Famous quotes containing the words margaret and/or wild:
“There’s Margaret and Marjorie and Dorothy and Nan,
A Daphne and a Mary who live in privacy;
One’s had her fill of lovers, another’s had but one,
Another boasts, “I pick and choose and have but two or three.”
If head and limb have beauty and the instep’s high and light
They can spread out what sail they please for all I have to say....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Wild Bill was indulging in his favorite pastime of a friendly game of cards in the old No. 10 saloon. For the second time in his career, he was sitting with his back to an open door. Jack McCall walked in, shot him through the back of the head, and rushed from the place, only to be captured shortly afterward. Wild Bill’s dead hand held aces and eights, and from that time on this has been known in the West as “the dead man’s hand.””
—State of South Dakota, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)