Cassia Joy Cowley (; 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.
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) 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).
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).
Honours and awards
In 1990, Cowley was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal, and in the 1992 New Year Honours she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to children's literature. The following year she was granted an Honorary Doctorate of Letters (D.Litt.) from Massey University, and was awarded the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal. Cowley's lecture was titled Influences . In 2004, she became a patron of the Storylines Childrens Literature Foundation , and she is one of Storylines' trustees.
In the 2005 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Cowley was appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM), for services to children's literature. In 2009, when the New Zealand government restored titular honours, Cowley declined redesignation as a dame.
Cowley was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand (ONZ), for services to New Zealand, in the 2018 New Year Honours. In 2020, she received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon Award, limited to 20 living people.
Personal life
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. 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.
Recent publications
- 1986 – Turnips For Dinner, illustrated by Jan van der Voo, 16pp.,
- 1986 – The King's Pudding, illustrated by Martin Bailey, 16pp.,
- 2007 – Snake and Lizard, illustrated by Gavin Bishop, 102pp.,(Gecko Press),
- 2009 – Friends: Snake and Lizard, illustrated by Gavin Bishop, 144pp.,(Gecko Press),
- 2010 – The Fierce Little Woman and the Wicked Pirate, 40pp.,(Gecko Press),
- 2011 – Stories of the Wild West Gang, 362pp.,(Gecko Press),
- 2013 – Dunger, 156pp.,(Gecko Press),
- 2014 – Speed of Light, 208pp.,(Gecko Press),
- 2015 – The Bakehouse, 140pp.,(Gecko Press),
- 2016 – The Road to Ratenburg, 200pp.,(Gecko Press)
- 2017 – Helper and Helper, 128pp.,(Gecko Press)
- 2018 - Snake and Lizard Anniversary Edition, illustrated by Gavin Bishop, 102pp.,(Gecko Press)
See also
- New Zealand literature