Cassia Joy CowleyONZDCNZMOBE (néeSummers; born 7 August 1936) is a New Zealand author best known for her children's fiction, including the popular series of books Mrs. Wishy-Washy.[1][2][3]
Writing career
Cowley started out writing novels for adults, and her first book, Nest in a Falling Tree (1967), was adapted for the screen by Roald Dahl. It became the 1971 film The Night Digger. Following its success in the United States, Cowley wrote several other novels, including Man of Straw (1972), Of Men and Angels (1972), The Mandrake Root (1975), and The Growing Season (1979). Typical themes of these works were marital infidelity, mental illness, and death, as experienced within families. Cowley has also published several collections of short stories, including Two of a Kind (with Mona Williams, 1984)[4] and Heart Attack and Other Stories (1985). Today she is best known for children's books, such as The Silent One (1981), which was made into a 1985 film. Others include Bow Down Shadrach (1991) and its sequel, Gladly, Here I Come (1994).[citation needed]
Cowley has written forty-one picture books, such as The Duck in the Gun (1969), The Terrible Taniwha of Timberditch (1982), Salmagundi (1985), and The Cheese Trap (1995). The Duck in the Gun and Salmagundi are explicitly anti-war books. She has been actively involved in teaching early reading skills and helping those with reading difficulties, in which capacity she has written approximately 500 basal readers (termed reading books in New Zealand).[citation needed]
Cowley has won the overall Book of the Year award three times at the various incarnations of the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards: first for The Silent One in 1982; then for Hunter in 2006; and finally for Snake and Lizard in 2008. The latter two books were entered into the Junior Fiction category, in which she also won the category award for her books Ticket to the Sky Dance in 1998, Starbright and the Dream Eater in 1999, and Shadrach Girl in 2001. She won the Children's Choice award in this category for Friends: Snake and Lizard in 2010.[3]
She won the now defunct Fiction category in 1992 for Bow Down Shadrach, and the Picture Book category in 2002 for Brodie.[3] An additional five of her books have been short-listed as finalists in the Picture Book category at the awards, and an additional three in the Junior Fiction category.[3]
Cowley's book The Video Shop Sparrow was included in the 2000 White Ravens List, administered by the International Youth Library, and five of her books have been finalists for the Esther Glen Award from 1995 to 2010.[3] She won Best Script Television Drama at the 1994 TV Guide Television Awards for Mother Tongue, a 52-minute film shot in 1992, and set in 1953, about an 18-year-old couple who fall in love – although the woman (played by Sarah Smuts-Kennedy) is Catholic, and the man (played by Craig Parker) is Jewish.[7][11][12][13]
Cowley has been married three times, first at twenty years old to dairy farmer Ted Cowley, with whom she had four children. After their marriage ended in 1967, Cowley married Malcolm Mason, a Wellington writer and accountant who died in 1985.[7]
In 1989, Cowley married Terry Coles,[7] a former Catholic priest.[18] She lived with him, and an assortment of animals, for many years in the Marlborough Sounds, but in 2004 they moved to a wharf apartment in Wellington so Coles could be nearer medical services.[7] As Coles' health deteriorated, Wellington's stairs and traffic became too much for him, and the couple moved again to Featherston, where Cowley now lives.[7] She has 13 grandchildren and still writes full-time.[7] Coles died in September 2022.[19]
Recent publications
1986 – Turnips For Dinner, illustrated by Jan van der Voo, 16pp., ISBN0-87449-368-4
1986 – The King's Pudding, illustrated by Martin Bailey, 16pp., ISBN0-87449-370-6
^ abcdefghij"Joy Cowley". Storylines.org.nz. Auckland, New Zealand: Storylines Children's Literature Charitable Trust of New Zealand. 2012. Archived from the original on 17 May 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
^ abc"Margaret Mahy Award". Storylines.org.nz. Auckland, New Zealand: Storylines Children's Literature Charitable Trust of New Zealand. 2012. Archived from the original on 6 July 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
^"Joy Cowley Award". Storylines.org.nz. Auckland, New Zealand: Storylines Children's Literature Charitable Trust of New Zealand. 2012. Archived from the original on 4 May 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
^Morcom, Diane, Secretary and Registrar, The Queen's Service Order (30 December 2017). "New Year Honours List 2018". Honours Lists. Wellington, New Zealand: Cabinet Office, Honours Unit. Retrieved 5 January 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)