Marilyn Duckworth

Background

Marilyn Duckworth was born on November 10, 1935, in Auckland, New Zealand, but spent the years between 1939 and 1947 in England. She is the daughter of Cyril John and Irene (Robinson) Adcock.

Education

Duckworth attended Victoria University of Wellington in 1953 and in 1956.

Career

Before becoming a full-time writer, Duckworth worked variously in public relations, nursing, factory work, and library work. At the age of 23, her first work A Gap in the Spectrum was published. Since then, she works as a freelance writer, living in Wellington, New Zealand.

Duckworth's most recent work is called Playing Friends. It was published in 2007.

Achievements

• Duckworth is best known as the author of 16 novels, one novella, a collection of short stories and a collection of poetry. She has also written for television and radio. Her first novel, A Gap in the Spectrum, was published when she was 23; her fifth, Disorderly Conduct (1984), won the New Zealand Book Award and was shortlisted for the Wattie Book Awards.
  
  Duckworth has held the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship in Menton, a Fulbright Fellowship in the United States and also a number of writing fellowships, including at Victoria and Auckland universities. In 1996 Leather Wings was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize. She holds an OBE for Services to Literature. She has also edited a book on writing sisters in New Zealand, and an autobiography, Camping on the Faultline.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Playing Friends eBook: Marilyn Duckworth: Kindle Store

    (Lively, pertinent and honest about the realities of growi...)

    2007
  • Leather Wings - Kindle edition by Marilyn Duckworth. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

    (Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, this nove...)

    1997
  • The Matchbox House 1961
  • A Message from Harpo 1989
  • Rest for the Wicked 1987
  • A Barbarous Tongue 1963
  • Studmuffin 1997
  • Seeing red 1993
  • Disorderly Conduct (NZ) Spb 1984

Membership

Duckworth is a member of the New Zealand Society of Authors and PEN.

Interests

• Playing the violin

Connections

Duckworth was married four times. Her first marriage was with Harry Duckworth. However, it ended in a divorce and in 1964, she married Ian Macfarlane, with whom she also got divorced in 1972. Her third husband was Daniel Donovan. The couple, however, lived together till 1978, when Donovan eventually died. At last, she married John Batstone on June 8, 1985.

Duckworth has 4 children: Helen, Sarah, Anna and Amelia and 3 stepchildren: Michael, Susan and Timothy.

Father:

Cyril John Adcock

Mother:

Irene (Robinson) Adcock

First husband:

Harry Duckworth

Second husband:

Ian Macfarlane

Third husband:

Daniel Donovan

husband:

John Batstone

Sister:

Fleur Adcock