Meg McKinlay
Australian children's writer
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Meg McKinlay is a Western Australian writer. She has written a number of books for children and young adults, including How to Make a Bird and A Single Stone. She has won two Prime Minister's Literary Awards and three Crystal Kite Awards.
- Children's writer
- young adult novelist
- poet
- Young adult fiction
- children's picture books
Meg McKinlay | |
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| Occupation |
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| Alma mater | University of Western Australia |
| Genre |
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| Notable awards | Prime Minister's Literary Awards YA Fiction (2016) & Children's Fiction (2021) |
Biography
Born Megan McKinlay, she spent her childhood in Bendigo, Victoria. During high school she was an exchange student in Japan.[1] She graduated with a PhD from the University of Western Australia (UWA) in 2001 for her thesis "Gender and cross-cultural analysis: The novels of Tsushima Yûko 1976–1985".[2] She subsequently lectured at UWA in Australian literature, Japanese and creative writing and, as of 2016[update] was an honorary research associate of that university.[3]
In 2010 she won a residency in Japan and in 2020 she won a May Gibbs Children's Literature Trust Fellowship.[1] As well as writing for children and young adults, she has published one book of poetry, Cleanskin.[4]
McKinlay currently lives in Fremantle, Western Australia.[5]
Awards
- Surface Tension
- 2012 Davitt Award, Best Young Adult Novel winner[6]
- Ten Tiny Things
- 2013 Crystal Kite Award, New Zealand/Australia regional winner[7]
- A Single Stone
- 2015 Aurealis Award for best children's fiction winner[8]
- 2015 Queensland Literary Awards, Children's Book Award winner[9]
- 2016 Prime Minister's Literary Awards,Young Adult Fiction winner[10][11]
- Catch a Falling Star
- 2019 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, winner Prize for Writing for Children[12]
- 2020 Crystal Kite Award New Zealand/Australia regional winner[13]
- How to Make a Bird
- 2020 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, winner Prize for Writing for Children[14]
- 2021Prime Minister's Literary Awards, Children's Fiction winner[15]
- 2021 Crystal Kite Award, New Zealand/Australia regional winner[13]
- 2021 Children's Book of the Year Award: Picture Book winner[16][17]
Selected works
- The Truth about Penguins, co-authored with Mark Jackson, 2010
- Surface Tension, 2011
- Ten Tiny Things, illustrated by Kyle Hughes-Odgers, 2012
- A Single Stone, 2015
- Duck!, illustrated by Nathaniel Eckstrom, 2018
- Catch a Falling Star, 2019
- How to Make a Bird, illustrated by Matt Ottley, 2020
- Bella and the Voyaging House, illustrated by Nicholas Schafer, 2021