Margot Livesey
"Margot Livesey is one of my favorite contemporary writers," reflects Julia Glass, author of the National Book Award winner, Three Junes. "For her keen wit and wise heart, for her mingling of the tender with the diabolical -- never mind her knack for holding the reader in thrall to a suspenseful story -- she is a master, pure and simple."
Biography
Margot Livesey is the award-winning author of a story collection, Learning by Heart, and of the novels Homework, Criminals, The Missing World, and Eva Moves the Furniture, which was a New York Times Notable Book, an Atlantic Monthly Best Book of the Year, and a PEN/Winship finalist. Born in Scotland, she currently lives in the Boston area, where she is writer in residence at Emerson College. Author biography courtesy of Henry Holt and Company.
Good To Know
Some interesting outtakes from our interview with Livesey: "My worst job was a very brief stint at a Hare Krishna factory in Toronto, packing incense. The combination of compulsory prayers and of having my friends get out their handkerchiefs whenever I entered a room soon made me give notice. My favorite job was working as a cleaner at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. We managed to do the work in half the time we were paid for and I loved pushing my broom around the galleries, getting to look at the art day after day."
"The first Americans I ever met were a family who came to teach for a year at the boys' school where my father taught. They invited us over for New Year's Eve and instead of the usual festivities spent the evening showing us slides of their very extensive holidays in Yosemite. Ever since I've had a mild aversion to slide shows and I still haven't been to Yosemite."
