Nan Hunt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
16 September 1918
Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia
Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia
- Whistle Up the Chimney (1981)
- A Rabbit Named Harris (1987)
Nan Hunt | |
|---|---|
| Born | Nancy Louise Ray 16 September 1918 Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia |
| Died | 4 October 2015 (aged 97) Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia |
| Occupation | Children's writer |
| Notable works |
|
| Notable awards | Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature (1982, 1988) |
Nan Hunt (1918–2015) was an Australian children's writer who also wrote as N. L. Ray. She was a two-time winner of the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature.
Nancy Louise Ray was born on 16 September 1918 and grew up in Bathurst, New South Wales.[1] Educated at Bathurst High School,[2] she contributed stories to her school newspaper[1] and also to The Sun.[3] From 1935 to 1943 she did office work in a Bathurst department store. In 1943, she enlisted in the WAAF and served in Melbourne in clerical roles until 1946, when she moved to Sydney, where she worked as a secretary until her marriage to Walter Gibbs Hunt in 1968.[1]
She contributed to the NSW School Magazine from 1963 and was encouraged by its editor, Patricia Wrightson, to write a novel, the first of many.[1]
Hunt won the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature at the New South Wales Premier's Literature Awards twice, firstly in 1982 for Whistle Up the Chimney, illustrated by Craig Smith, and then in 1988 for A Rabbit Named Harris, illustrated by Betina Ogden. Whistle Up the Chimney was also commended in the 1982 Children's Picture Book of the Year awards, the judges commenting that "text itself is excellent in style, with good use of language and an infectious sense of fun".[4]
