Irene Morck

Background

Irene Morck was born in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada.

Education

Irene received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Alberta and a teaching certificate from the University of Calgary.

Career

Irene taught science at boys' schools in Barbados and Jamaica. She did two years of biochemistry research at the University of the West Indies.

Her first work, A Question of Courage, is set in Alberta. Critic Dinah Gough said in Canadian Children’s Literature that “Morck’s initial idea is good and she has patches of confident writing, but she often strains her credibility.” Eva Martin, writing in Books for Young People, went so far as to say the story has “an overblown style with sentiment and purple prose.”

Between Brothers, also set in Alberta and featuring a horse antagonist, was called a “Cain and Abel-type struggle,” by a Quill & Quire reviewer, who also said that this book and Morck’s first are “works of character development rather than of plot.”

Tiger’s New Cowboy Boots is Morck’s first picture book. It is the tale of young Tyler, a city boy who travels to the Rocky Mountain foothills to join his uncle’s cattle drive. Annette Goldsmith, reviewing the book in Quill & Quire, said, “Much of the book’s appeal lies in its verisimilitude and subject matter: the rancher’s unsentimental and pragmatic approach to animals and work rings true.” “The camaraderie shared on a cattle drive is well portrayed throughout this story,” wrote Ethel King-Shaw in Canadian Book Review Annual.

Irene is also involved in substitute teaching and freelance photography - she has sold photos for travel posters, magazines, and calendars.

Achievements

• Irene Morck is a well-established Albertan author, who has won prestigious literary awards for her stories on her father's pioneer childhood and has written numerous magazine articles and stories in Canada and the USA. She has also contributed short stories on CBC Alberta and ACCESS radio programs. Her most famous works are A Question of Courage, Between Brothers, Tiger’s New Cowboy Boots.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Tough Trails

    (When Ambrose is forced to sell his horse because of an in...)

    1994
  • Five Pennies: A Prairie Boy's Story

    (From the trips to the general store to battles with bedbu...)

    1999
  • Between Brothers

    (Greg and Michael are brothers, but they don't get along. ...)

    1992
  • Tiger's New Cowboy Boots 1996

Interests

• horse and mule riding, traveling, learning Spanish, hiking

Connections

Irene Morck married Mogens Nielsen.

Spouse:

Mogens Nielsen

References

• Canadian Book Review Annual
  1996
• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 181