Phyllis McGinley

SS undefined

Phyllis McGinley (March 21, 1905 - February 22, 1978) was an American writer of children's books and poet about the positive aspects of suburban life.

Life
McGinley was born in Ontario, Oregon. At age 3, her family moved to Iliff Colorado, and then to Ogden, Utah after her father died.

She studied at the University of Southern California and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City where she was a Kappa Kappa Gamma, graduating in 1927, then moved to New York City. She wrote copy for an advertising agency, then taught at a junior high school in New Rochelle, New York for one year, until her career as a writer and poet took off.

A poet from the age of six, she published prolifically. Her poems appeared primarily in The New Yorker, where she first published in 1934 or earlier, but she also wrote for such outlets as New York Herald Tribune and was the poetry editor for Town & Country.

She moved to Larchmont, New York in 1937 with her husband, Charles Hayden, and raised two daughters there, singing the praises of domesticity and small town suburbia for nearly 40 years.

She also wrote the lyrics for a musical revue, Small Wonder, in 1948, and the script for the Czech animated feature film "The Emperor's Nightingale," in 1951. McGinley died in New York City in 1978.

Recognition
In 1955, she was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

In 1961 she won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

In 1964 she was honored with the Laetare Medal by the University of Notre Dame (described as 'An honor to a man or woman who has "enriched the heritage of humanity"').

She also holds 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)).

Poetry

 * On the Contrary (1934)
 * One More Manhattan (1937)
 * Husbands Are Difficult (1941)
 * Stones from Glass Houses (1946)
 * Merry Christmas, Happy New Year (1958)
 * Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades (1960), winning a Pulitzer Prize
 * Sugar and Spice (1960)
 * A Wreath of Christmas Legends (1967)
 * Fourteenth Birthday (date unknown)
 * The Adversary (date unknown)
 * Daniel at Breakfast (date unknown)
 * Without a Cloak (date unknown)

Essays

 * Province of the Heart (1959)
 * Sixpence in Her Shoe (1964)
 * Wonderful Time (1966)
 * Saint Watching (1969)

Children's books

 * The Horse That Lived Upstairs (1944)
 * All Around the Town (1948)
 * Blunderbus (1951)
 * The Make-Believe Twins (1953)
 * The Year Without a Santa Claus (1957)
 * Boys Are Awful (1962)
 * How Mrs. Santa Claus Saved Christmas (1963)

Individual poems

 * "Collector's Items" The New Yorker 25/49 (28 January 1950) : 28