Margaret Packham Hargrave

Margaret Packham Hargrave (b. 8th November, 1941) is an Australian writer. She is the author of Jake's Luck (1994) and A Woman of Air (1996) – winner of the inaugural Elle/Random House Fiction Prize.

Biography

Margaret Packham was born in Sydney, Australia and attended Sutherland High School. She studied voice with Raymond Beatty and viola with Georgiana Maclean at the NSW Conservatorium of Music concurrently with nursing at Sydney Hospital. A fellow student was the pianist John Boswell Maver. Subsequently, she completed a BA in English and Psychology and MLitt (Middle English/Chaucer) at the University of New England (NSW) and a DipEd at Mitchell College (Bathurst, NSW) and had a career first as a Nursing academic and then as a secondary English teacher before committing herself to writing.

Packham has had numerous short stories and poems published in Westerly, Meanjin, The Sydney Morning Herald, Cleo, Grass Roots and Matilda. A book of her poems (Midnight Fugue, Saturday Centre Press) appeared in 1983.

She has recently developed an interest in screenwriting and her first short film (A Difficult Patient) is in pre-production with Tony Chu of NAFA Productions direction. Original music will be by Nathan Chan.

She is the grandmother of Australian child actors Clancy Ryan (Razzle Dazzle: A Journey into Dance) and Lochie Ryan (Footy Legends', Gone).