Alison McGhee (born July 8, 1960) is an American author, who has published several

picture book A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The images ...

books for children Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

, and adult

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

s. She is a

New York Times bestselling ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

author, and the winner of numerous awards.

Education

McGhee attended

Holland Patent High School Holland Patent High School is a U.S. high school located in Holland Patent, New York, a village in Oneida County, central New York State, about northwest of Utica and east of Rome. The area served by the school is primarily a residential bedr ...

, in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Simon and Schuster Homepage. http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Alison-McGhee/21408612/author_revealed and

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all ...

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

Career

McGhee's first novel, ''Rainlight'', follows the characters left behind after the sudden and accidental death of Starr Williams. It received positive reviews and won both the Great Lakes College Association National Fiction Award and the Minnesota Book Award in 1999.Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 26 July 2007. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009. McGhee's sophomore effort, ''Shadow Baby'', is witnessed through the eyes of a young girl who befriends an old man as part of a school project. It was a Pulitzer Prize nominee. McGhee continued her adult themes with 'Was It Beautiful?''. She then began writing children's pictures. ''Countdown to Kindergarten'' and ''Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth'', both share the same main character who begins the first story as she enters kindergarten and is in first grade by the second book. Turning her hand to young adult novels, McGhee introduced ''Snap'' and ''All Rivers Flow to the Sea''. In ''Only a Witch Can Fly'' McGhee focuses on poetry. In this story-poem, created in

sestina A sestina (, from ''sesto'', sixth; Old Occitan: ''cledisat'' ; also known as ''sestine'', ''sextine'', ''sextain'') is a fixed verse, fixed verse form consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, normally followed by a three-line envoi. The wor ...

form, a little girl dreams about flying on her broom.Downes, Lawrence. "Once Upon a Broomstick." The New York Times Book Review. (11 Oct. 2009): Book Review Desk: p12(L). Literature Resource Center. Gale. Hennepin County Library. 4 Jan. 2010 . McGhee is also a professor of creative writing at

Metropolitan State University Metropolitan State University (Metro State) is a public university in the Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota metropolitan area. It is a member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system.

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississip ...

Personal life

McGhee is single with three grown children.

Bibliography

Novels for adults

*1998 - Rainlight *2000 - Shadow Baby *2003 - Was It Beautiful? *2007 - Falling Boy *2018 - Never Coming Back *2020 - The Opposite of Fate

Young adult and middle-grade novels

*1999 - Snap *2018 - What I Leave Behind

Picture books

*2002 - Countdown to Kindergarten - Illustrated by

Harry Bliss Harry Bliss (born March 9, 1964, in Rochester, New York) is an American cartoonist and illustrator. Bliss has illustrated many books, and produced hundreds of cartoons and 25 covers for ''The New Yorker''. Bliss has a syndicated single-panel comi ...

*2004 - Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth - Illustrated by Harry Bliss *2006 - A Very Brave Witch - Illustrated by Harry Bliss *2007 - Someday - Illustrated by

Peter H. Reynolds Peter Hamilton Reynolds is a Canadian author and illustrator of children's books and is the founder of the educational media company FableVision. Life Reynolds was born in 1961 in Canada with his identical twin brother, Paul, who collaborates as ...

*2008 - Bye-bye, Crib - Illustrated by Ross MacDonald *2008 - Little Boy - Illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds *2009 - Always - Illustrated by Pascal Lemaitre *2009 - Song of Middle C - Illustrated by Scott Menchin *2009 - Only a Witch Can Fly - Illustrated by Taeeun Yoo *2010 - So Many Days - Illustrated by Taeeun Yoo *2011 - Making a Friend, illustrated by Marc Rosenthal *2013 - The Case of the Missing Donut, illustrated by Isabel Roxas *2014 - Star Bright, illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds *2015 - The Sweetest Witch Around, illustrated by Harry Bliss *2016 - Tell Me a Tattoo Story, illustrated by Eliza Wheeler *2017 - Percy, Dog of Destiny, illustrated by Jennifer K. Mann *2020 - World So Wide, illustrated by Kate Alizadeh

Awards

* 2011

Theodor Seuss Geisel Award The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award is a literary award by the American Library Association (ALA) that annually recognizes the "author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished book for beginning readers published in English in the United States ...

with co-author Kate DiCamillo and illustrator Tony Fucile ('' Bink and Gollie'')American Libraries, http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/ala/kate-dicamillo-alison-mcghee-and-tony-fucile-win-geisel-award-bink-and-gollie,March 8,2011 * 1999 Minnesota Book Award (Rainlight) * 2000 Minnesota Book Award (Shadow Baby) * 2003 Minnesota Book Award (''Countdown to Kindergarten'') * 2008 Minnesota Book Award (All Rivers Flow to the Sea) * 2017

Christopher Award The Christopher Award (established 1949) is presented to the producers, directors, and writers of books, films and television specials that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit". It is given by The Christophers, a Christian organization ...

(Firefly Hollow) * The Great Lakes College Association National Fiction Award

Notes

External links

* http://www.alisonmcghee.com/ * http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Alison-McGhee {{DEFAULTSORT:McGhee, Alison 1960 births Novelists from Minnesota 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American women novelists Living people 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers