Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire (born June 9, 1954) is an American novelist. He is the author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and several dozen other novels for adults and children. Many of Maguire's adult novels are inspired by classic children's stories; Wicked transforms the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its 1939 film adaptation into the misunderstood green-skinned Elphaba Thropp. The blockbuster 2003 Broadway musical Wicked was inspired by Maguire's first novel for adults. Written by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, the musical is currently Broadway's fifth longest-running show (surpassing Les Misérables on October 28, 2019), and at its peak nine companies ran simultaneously around the world.^[1]

Biography[]

Maguire, born and raised in Albany, New York, is the middle child of seven. Schooled in Catholic institutions through high school, he received a BA in English and Art from the State University of New York at Albany, an MA in Children's Literature from Simmons College, and a PhD in English and American Literature from Tufts University.^[2] His doctoral thesis was about English-language fantasy written for children between 1938 and 1988.^[3] He was a professor and co-director at the Simmons College Center for the Study of Children's Literature from 1979 to 1986. In 1987, Maguire co-founded a nonprofit educational charity, Children's Literature New England, Inc., and was co-director for twenty-five years.^[2] He has been a board member of the National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance,^[4] and has served on boards at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Board of Associates of the Boston Public Library, the Concord Free Press, among others.

Maguire has lived in Dublin, London, and the greater Boston area. While he published his first novel for children at the age of 24, his professional life includes commitments to literacy and literature education alongside his creative work. He met the American painter Andy Newman in 1997, and in 1999 they adopted the first of their three children. Two others followed in 2001 and 2002. Maguire and Newman were married in June 2004, shortly after gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts.

The novelist is an occasional reviewer for the Sunday New York Times Book Review. He has contributed and performed original material for NPR's "All Things Considered" and has lectured widely around the world on literature and culture. Maguire and his family were featured on "Oprah" and he was the subject of a Sunday New York Times Magazine profile by Alex Witchel. His adult novels regularly make New York Times and national bestseller lists. Egg & Spoon (2014), a fantasy for young adults, was a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book and is under option by Universal Studios; After Alice (2015), a novel for adults, is published on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Personal life[]

Maguire is Catholic.^[5]

Bibliography[]

For children[]

• The Lightning Time (1978)
• The Daughter of the Moon (1980)
• Lights on the Lake (1981)
• The Dream Stealer (1983)
• The Peace and Quiet Diner (1988)
• I Feel like the Morning Star (1989)
• Lucas Fishbone (1990)
• Missing Sisters (1994)
• Oasis (1996)
• The Good Liar (1997)
• Crabby Cratchitt (2000)
• Leaping Beauty: And Other Animal Fairy Tales (2004)
• The Hamlet Chronicles:
  • Seven Spiders Spinning (1994)
  • Six Haunted Hairdos (1997)
  • Five Alien Elves (1998)
  • Four Stupid Cupids (2000)
  • Three Rotten Eggs (2002)
  • A Couple of April Fools (2004)
  • One Final Firecracker (2005)
• What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy (2007)
• Missing Sisters (2009)
• Egg and Spoon (2014)

For adults[]

• The Wicked Years:
  • Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995)
  • Son of a Witch (2005)
  • A Lion Among Men (2008)
  • Out of Oz (2011)
• Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (1999)
• Lost (2001)
• Mirror, Mirror (2003)
• The Next Queen of Heaven (2010)
• Tales Told in Oz (2012)
• After Alice (2015)
• Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker (2017)
• A Wild Winter Swan (2020)

Short stories[]

• Scarecrow (2001), published in Half-Human edited by Bruce Coville (Note: This is the life story of the Scarecrow from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but is not a part of The Wicked Years.)
• Fee, Fie, Foe et Cetera (2002), published in The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest
• The Oakthing (2004), published in The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm
• Chatterbox, published in I Believe in Water: Twelve Brushes With Religion
• The Honorary Shepherds (1994), published in Am I Blue?:Coming Out From The Silence
• Beyond the Fringe (1998) published in A Glory of Unicorns
• The Seven Stage a Comeback (2000) published in A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales
• Matchless: A Christmas Story (2009)
• The Silk Road Runs Through Tupperneck, N.H. (2009), published in How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity
• In That Country (2012), published in Parnassus Literary Arts Magazine

Non-fiction[]

• Innocence and Experience: Essays and Conversations on Children's Literature (ed., with Barbara Harrison) (1987)
• Origins of Story: On Writing for Children (ed., with Barbara Harrison) (1999)
• Making Mischief: A Maurice Sendak Appreciation (2009)

References[]

External links[]

• Gregory Maguire official website
• NCBLA Gregory Maguire bio
• NCBLA Gregory Maguire interview
• Official publisher web page
• Gregory Maguire at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• "American Fairy Tales" A Conversation with Gregory Maguire