Janice Marriott

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marriott's publications are as follows:

Children's Novels:
• Letters to Lesley, 1989
• Brain Drain 1993 (shortlisted for both the Aim Children's Book Award and the Esther Glen Award in 1994)
• I'm Not a Compost Heap, 1995
• Crossroads, 1995 (winner Aim Book of the Year Award and the Esther Glen Award 1996)
• Hope's Rainbow (1996), Carmen's Story (Shortland Street, 1996)
• Kissing Fish (1997)
• Thor's Tale: Endurance and Adventure in the Southern Ocean (2006), was published by HarperCollins. Winner of the Junior Fiction category of the 2007 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and listed as a 2007 Storylines Notable Junior Fiction Book.
• Chute Thru,(Mallinson Rendel, 2006)
• Taking Off, 2007 (listed as a 2008 Storylines Notable Junior Fiction Book)
• Bute View (Mallinson Rendel, 2009) is the sequel to Chute Thru.

The "Monster" series 1997:
• Green Slime Dinner Time
• The B4 Battle
• The Big Bug Blast
• Alien on Wheels

Stories in the following anthologies:
• Nearly Seventeen, 1993
• Personal Best, 1997
• Thirty New Zealand Stories for children, 2002
• The Great Pavlova Cover Up, 2001
• Claws and Jaws, 2004
• Mischief and Mayhem, 2005

Non-fiction:
• Soldier in the Yellow Socks, Harper Collins 2006. Shortlisted in the non-fiction category for the 2007 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Soldier in the Yellow Socks was illustrated by Bruce Potter, and tells the story of Charles Upham, who is the only New Zealand soldier who has gained the Victoria Cross twice.The work was listed as a 2007 Storylines Notable Non-Fiction Book.
• Gardening for Kids (Harper Collins, 2002)
• Growing Things to Eat (Harper Collins, 2003). Growing Things to Eat is part of the Yates Gardening for Kids series. Find out how you can make a living tepee and discover how to grow a cucumber inside a bottle. See how you can even grow your own food without a garden! This title was re-released in 2009.

Screen Writing:
• Episodes of the "Wot Wots"

Gardening Books:
• Common Ground (HarperCollins, 2008) - co-authored with Virginia Pawsey. Common Ground is a collection of letters that explore the differences and similarities between Marriott and her friend who is a high country farmer. It's about the differences between the shepherd and the writer. It's also about the similarities of family ties and grief. 'Poignant and beautifully written, Common Ground has the makings of a classic in the canon of writing about gardening and about lives lived thoughtfully with a sharp edge of humour.'

Radio New Zealand Broadcasts:
Many stories, a play, and a one hour documentary, Votes for Women, have been broadcast on Radio New Zealand.

Educational texts:
Many titles have been published and they cover ages ranging from preschool to high school and include fiction and non-fiction. These have been written for Shortland Publications, Learning Media, Celebration Press (USA), Pacific Learning (USA), NZ Police, and NZ Water Safety Council.

Janice Marriott was awarded the Foxton Fellowship in 2001.

Janice retired from the Writers in Schools programme in 2019 but is available for mentoring authors. More information about that work is on her website: www.gowritenow.nz

FROM THE OXFORD COMPANION TO NEW ZEALAND LITERATURE

Marriott, Janice (1946 –), writer of teenage fiction. Educated at Napier, Gisborne and Victoria University, she took a librarianship course in rare books in San Francisco, and worked in radio and TV in California and Vancouver. After temporarily losing her eyesight in England, and now widowed with a son, she graduated from the Wellington College of Education, but in 1983 went from teaching to audio production for Learning Media. In 1994, she was the inaugural writer-in-residence at the Auckland College of Education. Her realistic, humorous novels feature teenage embarrassment and a desire to change the world. Letters to Lesley (in England called Marrying Off Mum) (1989), and its sequel, Brain Drain (1993), introduced the irrepressible Henry Jollifer; the trilogy was completed by Kissing Fish (1997), which updated the joke of the eccentric Henry trying to elude a persistent penfriend, now using a fax machine. Other titles include I’m Not a Compost Heap (1995), and Crossroads (1995), which deals more seriously with death and grieving, its compelling exploration of two teenagers in crisis deepened by metaphor and literary resonances, especially echoes from Hamlet. It won the 1996 Aim Supreme Award and Senior Fiction Award. Marriott’s writing for adults has appeared in magazines and on radio.

MEDIA LINKS AND CLIPS

• Janice Marriott's website for all of her work is: www.janicemarriott.com