MARGARET CLARK
Author
Margaret Clark is one of Australia’s most popular and funny authors for children and teenagers and has published over fifty books since her first novels Pugwall and Pugwall’s Summer were adapted for TV nationally and internationally.
She writes for ages 4 - 15+ and her best selling books to date, both from Random House, are The Biggest Boast, Fat Chance and Back on Track — Diary of a Street Kid, based on her work for 11 years in an alcohol and drug centre. Two other books to hit the best seller list are Care Factor Zero and Web Watchers.
Margaret was formerly a primary teacher, a pre-school director, and a university lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Deakin University. She has a Bachelor of Education (Honours), a Masters Degree in Education and is currently completing a doctorate in education.
Her wide experience as an educator and her work with young people have enabled her to write very popular books for teenagers such as The Big Chocolate Bar, Famous For Five Minutes, Hot or What, Hold My Hand or Else, Living With Leanne, and Pulling The Moves. Her latest book with Random House is No Fat Chicks.
Childhood and teaching experiences have inspired the very popular Mango Street series for Penguin such as Weird Warren, Britt the Boss, Wally the Whiz Kid, Butterfingers, Copycat, Wacky Mac, Millie the Moaner and Bold as Brass. A new series, Chickabees, is being printed for later in the year. Margaret’s pre-school teaching experiences have led to books such as Ripper and Fang, Hot Stuff and Meatball’s Good Dog Day.
Her Hair-Raiser series of horror stories (under the pseudonym Lee Striker) have also been enormously popular with teenagers, and include the titles Revenge of the Vampire Librarian, Bite Your Head Off and Teacher Torture.
Born and still living in Geelong, Margaret enjoys writing, reading, eating, studying, sailing, walking with the family dog and sleeping. She has a daughter 27 and a son 29 both living away from home. She writes on her computer and does only one draft, having "written it in her head" before she starts. She is now a full time writer.
Margaret is available to talk to groups of children, teenagers and parents about her work as an author. Although amazingly busy with author tours, and new titles, Margaret still likes to keep in touch with her audience by speaking to students and teachers.