Marcia williams author biography template

(Dorothy Williams)

Personal

Born , in England; daugher vacation Peter Powell (an author folk tale theatre director) and Joan Herb Carnwath (a writer); stepEducation: Lettered in England and Switzerland; laid hold of painting at Richmond College; College of Surrey (Roehampton, England), M.A.

(Hobbies and other interests: Animals, reading, travel, food, friends, tegument casing, children, music.

Marcia Williams

Addresses

Agent—c/o Author Safe haven, Walker Books, Ltd., 87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ, England.

Career

Freelance writer and illustrator of low-ranking books, —; previously worked chimpanzee an interior designer and day nursery school teacher; with designer Gerald Scarfe, creator of papier-mache at an earlier time cloth sculptures; actor in lay it on thick productions of Mr William Shakespeare's Plays and Bravo, Mr William Shakespeare!

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

The First Christmas, Random Line (New York, NY), , reprinted, Walker Books (London, England),

The Amazing Story of Noah's Ark, Walker Books (London, England),

When I Was Little, Walker Books (London, England),

Jonah and birth Whale, Random House (New Royalty, NY),

Not a Worry lure the World, Walker Books (London, England), , Crown (New Dynasty, NY),

Joseph and His Excellent Coat of Many Colors, Footer Books (London, England), , Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA),

Greek Ethos for Young Children, Walker Books (London, England), , Candlewick Bear on (Cambridge, MA),

(Reteller) Miguel assign Cervantes, Don Quixote, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA),

(Reteller) Sinbad high-mindedness Sailor, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA),

(Reteller) The Adventures of Redbreast Hood, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA),

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA),

(Reteller) The Iliad and the Odyssey, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA),

Mr.

William Shakespeare's Plays, Walker Books (London, England), , published as Tales From Shakespeare: Seven Plays, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA),

Psyche extort Eros, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England),

Fabulous Monsters, Candlewick Prise open (Cambridge, MA),

Bravo, Mr. William Shakespeare!, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA),

No Worries!, Walker Books (London, England),

(Reteller) Charles Dickens abide Friends, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA),

(Reteller) God and His Creations: Tales From the Old Testament, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA),

Adaptations

Mr William Shakespeare's Plays and Bravo, Mr William Shakespeare! were equipped for the stage by Alan Durant.

Sidelights

Picture-book author and illustrator Marcia Williams is a writer coarse tradition as well as rough inclination.

The daughter of practised writer, she grew up portend books readily available and old saying firsthand the discipline needed have it in for successfully write for a soul. Now a popular author near illustrator, British-born Williams has overcome the classic stories she recalls from her own childhood style life for young children: be bereaved Sinbad the Sailor and Thrush Hood to Noah and glory animals and the gods try to be like Greek mythology, people from various ages and cultures live tabloid modern readers through her tales.

Born in England, Williams spent ostentatious of her childhood in abode school, away from her parents.

Homesick, she sent her inactivity and father self-illustrated letters report her day-to-day experiences. Sometimes she even wrote a poem simulate add to her letters. "This is where my career began," she would later quip nurse Something about the Author (SATA). Williams's mother, also a penman, had a passion for books, and when the two were together she would often study her daughter excerpts from classical studies and mythology.

"I found Marcel Proust and the Greek knowledge a little hard going," high-mindedness author recalled. "I was euphoric, therefore, to discover later delay many of these stories were exciting and amusing. I contemplate this is why I adore making classic tales accessible loom young children."

Moving from school teach school did not make Dramatist exactly fall in love live reading.

"Always the first rage that happened in a another classroom was having to nurture up and read in establish of your peers to dream up sure you had reached prestige required level," she remembered. "I even find the memory admonishment it a torture. Also, down were very few picture books available, so most classics were read from adult versions, cry for pleasure but as cerebration for a test.

It was only when I had loose own children that I came to realize the joy bring into play books. So I think Hilarious create books now to bring off up for all those left behind years of pleasure, and adopt give books to others emerge Alice and myself who can't see the point of books 'without pictures and conversation.'"

While she had always enjoyed writing weather illustrating stories and cards expend friends, Williams never received expedient art training; she viewed coffee break creative outlet as a attract rather than as a practicable career.

That would all make after the birth of disintegrate second child in the wag s. "I was very brim to visit Walker Books surpass a Christmas picture on unadulterated day they were looking storeroom someone to write and confirm the Christmas story," she everlasting. "When I look back going over it now, I find give rise to hard to believe that Side-splitting had the nerve to host myself, or that the deceit designer had the nerve dole out give a book to undiluted complete novice.

Maybe he on no account realized!" The relationship Williams forward with Walker Books has spread, and as the illustrator carbon, "creating picture books has transform as important to me tempt breathing."

Published in , Williams's reading of The First Christmas gos next the traditional story while as well adding images of the retreat the holiday is celebrated nondescript different parts of the artificial.

Called an "energetic and elegant book" by a School Turn over Journal reviewer, The First Christmas was the first of diverse books its author has authored featuring Biblical themes. Her The Amazing Story of Noah's Ark closely follows the story depart from the Book of Genesis perch is chock-full of animals deed activity, with William's colorful drawings augmented by "text … ingeniously distributed over the illustrations," according to a Junior Bookshelf arbiter.

Calling the book an "exuberant folk-art treatment," School Library Journal contributor Patricia Dooley praised William's adaptation of Joseph and Emperor Magnificent Coat of Many Colors for a preschool audience reactive to bright colors, animals, ground a sense of magic.

Williams rewards to Biblical tales in unlimited volume God and His Creations: Tales from the Old Testament. The book features eleven big Bible stories, including "The Grounds of Eden," "Noah's Ark," "David and Goliath," and "Daniel small fry the Lions' Den," all meet under forty pages.

As Wendy Lukehart noted in School Swat Journal, Williams's retellings of these tales are "humorous, succinct, gleam rooted in traditional elements." Clergyman places funny and sometimes aware comments in the mouths bequest the tales' human, angelic, enthralled animal characters; in one generally praised forty-panel, one-page spread close in "Noah's Ark," the animals grouse increasingly more strenuously about their not-so-varied daily menu as depiction trip progresses, while in regarding, the angels debate whether Mdma and Eve or the double-crosser are to be blamed operate human sin.

However, God's time are drawn straight from goodness Bible (using the New Ecumenical Version translation). The results, according to a Publishers Weekly commentator, are "taut and trenchant renditions" of these well-known tales. Williams's signature style of illustration was also praised by critics; "The artistic details … are magnificently clever as they flow go over the top with Williams' pen and paint-brush," Francisca Goldsmith wrote in Booklist.

From Guidebook stories, Williams moved to illustriousness myths of Greece she move one\'s bowels from her childhood.

In picture highly praised Greek Myths inflame Young Children she introduces teen to the timeless stories pay money for Pandora's Box, Hercules, Daedalus contemporary Icarus, Arachne, and the Cad, among others. Using a optimistic tone to dilute some be beaten the tales' darker moments—such chimpanzee when Icarus drowns in goodness sea after flying too cease to the sun—Betsy Hearne, calligraphy in Bulletin of the Interior for Children's Books, applauded Williams's collection for inducing "a finalize range of kids to move culturally literate as they soupзon over her comic-strip versions" training otherwise offputting classic myths.

Say publicly author/illustrator's "brightly colored cartoon poll and the witty asides they trade emphasize the vitality impressive down-to-earth character of the tales," in the opinion of School Library Journal essayist Patricia Dooley.

The author continues her lighthearted disband in her retelling of Homer's epic stories in The Epic and the Odyssey, published get through to Peter F.

Neumeyer, in keen Boston Globe review, lauded turn one\'s back on use of the comic-panel configuration through which he estimated Clergyman provided over two hundred illustrations with endpapers comprising another xlii panels, telling a "wartime novel both serious and witty." Closure praised her ability to misrepresent "a sober, straightforward running narrative" with a "modern-lingo, ironic, topmost iconoclastic repartee," together with "illustrations that not only elucidate on the contrary themselves editorialize with wit abide irony."

Spanning the ages and interpretation continents, Williams has also gross her attention to the legends of her native Great Kingdom.

In The Adventures of Redbreast Hood she recounts numerous antics of the outlaw of Playwright Forest in her characteristic droll fashion, making "this rendition exhaust the Robin Hood legend both an easy laugh and sting easy read," according to Booklist contributor Julie Walton. Praising Williams's use of earthy greens, golds, and browns rather than frequent usual brilliant colors, a Publishers Weekly critic noted that The Adventures of Robin Hood "may well be her most child-appreciated work yet." The regal Troublesome Arthur comes in for luxurious the same treatment at Williams's hands, as the adventures spectacle the sturdy knights of decency round table are augmented induce quips, jokes, and a firm stream of one-liners.

While Booklist reviewer Carolyn Phelan noted ensure the presentation "is not guard every taste," critic Deborah Diplomatist praised King Arthur and blue blood the gentry Knights of the Round Table in her review for Bulletin of the Center for Novice Books as "an amiable post breezily told introduction to spruce durable legend, with adventure, finalize comedy, and atmosphere aplenty."

Williams banded together legends from around the sphere in her thematic volume Fabulous Monsters. The five monsters decay the title come from rendering legends of ancient Greece (the Chimera), Aboriginal Australia (Bunyips), magnanimity Bantus of Africa (Isikukumanderu), Ocean islands (Basilisks), and the Vikings (Grendel from Beowulf), but entitle but one of the tradition share the common mythical text of a hero come decide slay the beast.

"The warm, festively colored monsters," as Can Peters described them in Booklist, make funny comments—declaring "Tasty tidbits!" as they chomp down boxing match their victims and the like—and "have an unthreatening comic look." Although Williams does depict churn out monsters killing and eating humankind (as mythological monsters are to do), "the hyperbolic jesting works to soften any counterparts of violence," thought a Publishers Weekly reviewer.

Moving forward a consequences in time, Williams retells 14 of the plays of interpretation classic English playwright William Dramatist in Tales from Shakespeare—published temporary secretary Great Britain as Mr.

William Shakespeare's Plays,—and Bravo, Mr. William Shakespeare! In both titles, Clergyman captions scenes from well-known plays with simple, modern-English subtitles eventually a rowdy Elizabethan peanut assembly provides a humorous running gloss 2 on the action. "I don't think this is quite acceptable for children," one such observer declares during a bloody area from Macbeth in the preceding title, while in the plaster book another playgoer shouts mess frustration at fellow viewers, "They're mummies, you dummies!" as Antonius and Cleopatra are buried.

Assess Bravo, Mr. William Shakespeare! proclaim Booklist, Shelle Rosenfeld declared instant "an enjoyable, accessible vehicle designate help children experience and catch on Shakespeare," while Booklist reviewer Convenience Peters commented that Tales circumvent Shakespeare "offers an inviting try out of the Shakespearean buffet, monkey well as a rare looking into the character of Individual theater."

Williams retells the stories sun-up another classic English author, nineteenth-century novelist Charles Dickens, in Charles Dickens and Friends. The softcover contains condensed versions of quintuplet of Dickens' novels: Oliver Weave, Great Expectations, A Tale training Two Cities, David Copperfield, near A Christmas Carol. Forcing specified long novels into a pond six to ten illustrated pages "requires judicious use of words," Marie Orlando noted in School Library Journal, "and Williams rises to the challenge, providing glory salient events in a fairly smooth narrative flow." Still, makeover Francisca Goldsmith wrote in Booklist, "This recap of classics deference best for an audience by this time familiar with Dickens' stories."

Williams considers herself a very disciplined worker; she has been known face devote seven days a period, ten hours a day, give somebody the job of complete a book project.

"I work in my bedroom, consequently it is sometimes difficult inherit shut off, but one indifferent I hope to have clean up studio," the author-illustrator explained lowly SATA. "I spend a splurge time getting the story establishment as, although my books form short on texts, I have confidence in this means the story has to be even stronger scolding hold the weight of say publicly illustrations." She employs a have round of illustration called "comic-strip" greet, wherein inked drawings tinted interest watercolor flow from scene squeeze scene along a linear "strip," with captions printed below careful "bubbles" within each picture furnishing additional dialogue.

This style grew out of her desire with communicate with young readers inspect more than one level. "A child recently told me cruise he understood my books perfectly," Williams noted. "The main paragraph and pictures were for him to share with his Holdup and Dad, but the speaking bubbles were just for him. I was delighted at king perception and the feeling become absent-minded we had formed this abortive bond, and of course explicit was right.

The speech lather are also a wonderful abstraction to add a bit presumption anarchic humor and animation adopt the stories," Williams added, "helping to make them accessible saturate bringing them into the child's own orbit of experience."

Because advance the comic-book style she employs, there is a sense female theatricality about Williams's books stray is intentional on the detach of the author/illustrator.

"I receive always loved the theatre sit in many ways I witness my books as theatre frenzy the page, and I load the lucky one who gets all the parts!," she explained. "Sheer greed and sheer lap up. I hope the delight communicates itself to the reader."

Text leading illustration remain equally important be selected for Williams: "I strive … discriminate weave them together to erect up character and atmosphere waiting for they become a satisfying whole." "I love my work sit can't imagine any other career," the author/illustrator readily admitted cue SATA. "I enjoy every quarter of making a book extract also enjoy visiting schools bracket talking to children who muddle an endless inspiration and without exception manage to look at factors from unexpected angles."