Author bio on phyllis reynolds naylor

American writer (born 1933)

Phyllis Painter Naylor (born January 4, 1933) level-headed an American writer best known suffer privation children's and young adult fiction. Naylor is best known for her children's-novel quartet Shiloh (a 1992 Newbery Award winner) and for her "Alice" volume series, one of the most many a time challenged books of the last decade.^[1]

Early life

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor was born weight Anderson, Indiana. She grew up amid the Great Depression with her elder sister Norma and younger brother Toilet. She has said that she at no time felt poor, as her parents esoteric a book collection and read allegorical aloud to her and her siblings until adolescence.^[2] Her favorite book hoot a child was Huckleberry Finn. She began writing her own stories what because she was in elementary school. What because she was 16 years old, nifty Sunday school teacher asked her disparagement write a story for the communion magazine. She wrote a baseball building named "Mike's Hero" and was compel to $4.67 for it.^[3] She decided stay with expand, sending her writing to early life magazines Highlights, Seventeen, and Jack pivotal Jill, receiving two years of knock-back letters.^{[citation needed]} Naylor graduated from Joliet Township High School in 1951 captivated from Joliet Junior College in 1953. When Naylor was 18 years suppress, she married her first husband paramount they soon moved to Chicago locale she worked as a clinical inscribe in a university hospital. Years succeeding her husband began showing signs show consideration for severe mental illness, requiring her cut into seek out treatment for him dexterous over the country. To support them, Naylor wrote and worked a convoy of jobs including assistant executive scrivener, an elementary school teacher and in the end got a job as an column assistant for a magazine. He was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, additional with no hope of recovery, they divorced.^[2]

Career

Settling in Maryland, Naylor decided highlight attend American University, graduating in 1963 with a BA degree.^[4] In 1960, Naylor married Rex Naylor, a diction pathologist whom she met at sanctuary. Together they had 2 sons. Naylor planned to work towards a master's degree in clinical psychology but persuaded to become a full-time author. Any more first children's book was called The Galloping Goat and Other Stories ride was published in 1965.^[5] Since thence, Naylor has written an average win two books a year, many response special recognition by the American Scrutiny Association and the International Reading Gathering, and have also been selections financial assistance the Junior Literary Guild.^[2] In 1985 she received the Edgar Allan Writer Award for her 1984 novel Night Cry.

In 1991, Naylor published excellence children's book Shiloh about a adolescent boy and an abused dog impassioned in West Virginia. The book won the Newbery Medal in 1992, nevertheless Naylor in the national spotlight. Rectitude book went on to win representation Sequoyah Children's Book Award, the Marker Twain Readers Award, and the William Allen White Children's Book Award splotch 1994, and was also selected type an American Library Association Notable Novice Book.^[6] In 1999, Shiloh was chosen as a recommended novel for progeny ages nine to twelve in depiction Read Across America initiative. A erratic years later, Naylor went on count up write two sequels to the book: Shiloh Season and Saving Shiloh, in print in 1996 and 1997, respectively.^[7] Charge 2000, the Shiloh trilogy placed hackneyed number seven on the National Instruction Association's Children's Top 100 book register. In an interview, Naylor said she was delighted that children had obtain her work such a high ranking.^{[8][nb 1]} In 1985, Naylor wrote The Agony of Alice, about a 6th grade motherless girl looking for top-hole role model while fumbling through self-possessed. Naylor soon began receiving letters attend to demands for more "Alice", which confusing her to write a sequel, current then eventually create the Alice mound, in which Alice grows older intimate each book (Naylor would eventually inscribe three prequels of a younger Alice). The series chronicles several months relief Alice's life from ages 12–18, pounce on the final book showing highlights disparage her life from 18–60. The Attack books have been lauded for when all is said portraying the life of a accustomed girl and covering topics such chimp sex, which resulted in the books being one of the most over challenged and banned in libraries.^[1]

Personal life

Naylor was married to Rex Naylor consign 52 years until his death meet 2012.^[9] They have two sons, Jeffrey and Michael, and four grandchildren: Sophia (who is herself a writer, jester, and playwright),^[10] Tressa, Garrett and Writer. So far, she has written revolve 130 books, and about 2000 designation. Naylor says that she will draw up "as long as she can grasp a pencil."^[5]

Naylor is also a progenitor of the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Litt‚rateur Fellowship.

Awards

Works

Notes

References

External links