Phyllis McGinley
| Phyllis McGinley | |
|---|---|
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| Born | March 21, 1905 Ontario, Oregon |
| Died | February 22, 1978 (aged 72) New York City |
| Nationality | US |
Phyllis McGinley (March 21, 1905 – February 22, 1978) was a Pulitzer Prize (1961) winning American author of children's books and poetry. Her poetry was in the style of light verse, specializing in humor, satiric tone and the positive aspects of suburban life.
McGinley enjoyed a wide readership in her lifetime, publishing her work in newspapers and women's magazines such as the Ladies Home Journal, as well as in literary periodicals, including The New Yorker, The Saturday Review and The Atlantic. She also held nearly a dozen honorary degrees – "including one from the stronghold of strictly masculine pride, Dartmouth College" (from the dust jacket of Sixpence in Her Shoe (copy 1964)). Time Magazine featured McGinley on its cover on June 18, 1965.
Phyllis McGinley was born March 21, 1905, in Ontario, Oregon, the daughter of Daniel and Julia Kiesel McGinley. Her father was a land speculator and her mother, a pianist. McGinley's family moved to a ranch near Iliff, Colorado, when she was only three months old. She didn't enjoy her early childhood on the ranch where she and her brother felt isolated and friendless. At the age of 12, her father died and the family moved again, to Utah to live with a widowed aunt. She studied at the University of Southern California and musical theater at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City where she was a Kappa Kappa Gamma, graduating in 1927. After selling some of her poems she decided to move to New York in 1929. McGinley held an assortment of jobs there, including copywriter for an advertising agency, teacher in a junior high school in New Rochelle, and staff writer for Town and Country.
In 1934, she met Charles L. Hayden who worked for the Bell Telephone Company during the day and played jazz piano in the evening. They married on June 25, 1937, and moved to Larchmont, New York. The suburban landscape and culture of her new home was to provide the subject matter of much of McGinley's work. McGinley had two daughters. Daughter Julie Hayden was the author of a favorably reviewed collection of short stories entitled The Lists of the Past.
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