Jennifer Rowe
Jennifer Rowe | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 2, 1948 |
| Other names | Emily Rodda |
| Occupation | Author |
| Children | Kate Rowe (illustrator, singer, song writer) |
| Website | http://www.emilyrodda.com/ |
Jennifer June Rowe (born April 2, 1948) is an award-winning Australian author. Her crime fiction for adults is published under her own name, while her children's fiction is published under the pseudonym Emily Rodda. She is well known for the children's fantasy series Deltora Quest, Rowan of Rin, Fairy Realm and Teen Power Inc.
Biography
Rowe, born in Sydney, Australia, was raised with two younger brothers on Sydney's North Shore. She attended the Abbotsleigh School for Girls, on the upper North Shore of Sydney. She attained her Master of Arts in English Literature at the University of Sydney in 1973. Her first job was assistant editor at Paul Hamlyn publishing. She later worked at Angus and Robertson Publishers where she remained for fourteen years as Editor, Senior Editor, Managing Director, Deputy Publisher and finally Publisher. During this time she began writing children's books under the pseudonym Emily Rodda (her grandmother's name). Her first book, Something Special, was published in 1984 and won the Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year for Younger Readers Award. She has now won that award a record five times.[1]
From 1984 to 1992, Rowe continued her career in publishing, then as Editor of the Australian Women's Weekly, while writing novels in her 'spare time'. In 1994 Rowe became a full-time writer. She now divides her working day between consultancies for book publishers and her own writing. She lives in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia with her husband.
Rowe's acclaimed Verity Birdwood murder mysteries for adults, written under her own name are: Grim Pickings (1988) (made into an Australian TV mini-series), Murder by the Book, Death in Store, The Makeover Murders and Strangehold. Later she also wrote about Homicide Detective Tessa Vance in Suspect ( also published as " Deadline " ) and Something Wicked, and both books were incorporated as episode story lines in the Australian TV-show Murder Call. Rowe also edited a collection of crime stories Love Lies Bleeding and has contributed to the 1997 "Crimes for Summer" collection Moonlight Becomes You.
Emily Rodda
The most notable of her children's works, authored under the pseudonym Emily Rodda, are the series Deltora Quest, Teen Power Inc. and Rowan of Rin.
Total worldwide sales across all the Deltora Quest series have now exceeded 10 million.[2] It has been published in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada, Japan, Italy, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and the UK. A Deltora Quest anime series was broadcast on Japanese television in early 2007.
Among her other successful novels is the 1990 science fiction novel Finders Keepers which was made into a television series called The Finder, and the Teen Power Inc. series (re-published as The Raven Hill Mysteries), a mystery series involving six teenagers, both of which are written for young adults.
Her successful children's fantasy series Fairy Realm is published by ABC book.
Awards
- 1985 - Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA): Junior Book of the Year - Something Special
- 1987 - CBCA: Junior Book of the Year - Pigs Might Fly
- 1989 - CBCA: Book of the Year for Younger Readers - The Best-kept Secret
- 1991 - CBCA: Book of the Year for Younger Readers - Finders Keepers
- 1994 - CBCA: Book of the Year for Younger Readers - Rowan of Rin
- 1995 - The Dromkeen Medal[3]
- 1997 - CBCA: Honour Book for Younger Readers - Rowan and the Keeper of the Crystal
- 1999 - Dymock's Children's Choice Awards: Favourite Australian Younger Reader Book - Rowan of Rin Series
- 2000 - COOL Awards Fiction for Younger Readers Award for Bob The Builder And The Elves
- 2003 - YABBA award (VIC children's choice) - Deltora Quest 2
- 2002 - KOALA award (NSW children's choice) - Deltora Quest Series
- 2002 - Aurealis Awards: Peter McNamara Convenors' Award - Deltora Quest Series
- 2002 - WA Young Reader's Book Awards: Most Popular Book - Deltora Quest - The Forests of Silence
- 2003 - COOL Awards Fiction for Younger Readers Award for the Deltora Quest 2 series
- 2004 - COOL Awards Fiction for Younger Readers Award for the Deltora Quest 3 series
Select Bibliography
Novels as Jennifer Rowe
- Verity Birdwood series
- Tessa Vance series
Novels as Emily Rodda
- Something Special (1984)
- Pigs might Fly (1986)
- The Best-kept Secret (1988)
- Dog Tales
- Fairy Realm series (1986-ongoing)
- Finders Keepers (1990)
- The Timekeeper (1992)
- Teen Power Inc. series (1994-1999) (re-published as The Raven Hill Mysteries 2006)
- Rowan of Rin series (1994-2003)
- Deltora Quest series (2000-2005)
- Squeak Street series
- Raven Hill Mysteries
- The Key to Rondo 2007
Picture Storybooks as Emily Rodda
Edited
- Love Lies Bleeding (Allen & Unwin, 1994)[4]
Film and television
- Murder Call, television drama (36 episodes, 1997 - 2000) writer and creative consultant
- Blue Heelers, television police drama (1994)
- Grim Pickings, television mini series (1989), based on a novel and scripted by Peter Gawler and Graeme Koetsveld[5]
- Deltora Quest anime series for Japanese television (2007)
- ^ Biography at EmilyRodda.com
- ^ Scholastic Australian News at Scholastic.com.au
- ^ "Dromkeen Medal". Scholastic. Retrieved 2007-07-15.
- ^ "Mystery Short Fiction: 1990-2006". William G. Contento. Retrieved 2008-03-24.
- ^ "Jennifer Rowe Filmography". IMDb. Retrieved 2007-07-15.
References
- Emily Rodda Official Site
- 2003 SMH interview
- Austlit - Rowe, Jennifer
- "Mystery Short Fiction: 1990-2006". William G. Contento. Retrieved 2008-03-24.