Pat Quinn

Background

Pat was born on the 20th of May, 1947 in Wellington, New Zealand.

Education

Pat Quinn attended Karori Normal School⁣. She first started writing when she was at primary school, doing stories in class like everybody did. She liked writing and she also liked learning about mathematics and science. Later, she enrolled at Victoria University of Wellington, where she received a Bachelor of Science in 1967 and obtained a diploma in communications in 1992.

Career

Pat Quinn began to work as a computer systems analyst. She had no intention of being a writer but later, when her children were all at school, she decided to try something different from computer work. She went to classes on writing, and she began to write stories, articles, and plays. She wrote for New Zealand and Australian School Journals. Her first book, The Value of X, came out in 1993. Since that time, she has written fiction for young adults and children as well as works of non-fiction. Her non-fiction titles include Sailing with New Zealand Endeavour (1993) and Free Fall (1994). Quinn also wrote the teenage fiction Sounds Crazy (1995), in addition to several educational readers for Learning Media. Her recent picture book, Leopold the Wondercat, was published in 2006.

A freelance writer, Pat lives in Wellington, working actively with the New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN).

Achievements

• Pat Quinn is a prolific author of non-fiction and fiction books, as well as a contributor of articles to periodicals. In 1989, she was a winner of a short story award at Farmers Mutual Group short story competition for The Zucchini Story. Also, she won the 1994 Young Adult Fiction Award for her first teenage novel, The Value of X, which refreshingly weaves the mathematical symbol of the unknown, 'X', into the home, school, and social lives of a girl on the threshold of adulthood. In 2001, she got the Honour Award for Dragor.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Free Fall 1994
  • The Value of X 1993
  • Starz 2004
  • Sailing with New Zealand Endeavour 1993
  • Kirsty and Lionel 1996

Views

Quotations: "I try to write each day, especially in the mornings. I write both fiction and nonfiction; fiction because I like making things up and nonfiction because I like gathering factual information and being able to set it out so that people can understand it. I like having a mix of both styles of writing, and I have met some really interesting people and done some unusual things as a result of both fiction and nonfiction writing. For example, I interviewed a female skydiver who was part of a world-record 100 women in free-fall formation over France. I took up windsurfing so I could do an article on that. I got the chance to drive a motor-scraper when I was doing an article on earth-moving machines. And I took up playing the drums after writing the novel Sounds Crazy, based on a high school rock band competition."

"I like to write books that have humor in them because I like to laugh, and I think sharing humor and fun makes all of life even the not-so-good bits easier to deal with. Another reason I write is that it can be a way for me to find out more about myself. I often write about a character or situation and then later realize I've written about something that has happened, or that I would like to happen, to me. Sometimes I find I've let a character say something that shows a way of thinking that I had not realized about myself."

Membership

Pat Quinn is a member of the New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN).

Interests

• music

• Writers

  Enid Blyton, Margaret Mahy

Connections

Pat Quinn has three children, two daughters, Katharine and Jennifer, and a son, Alistair.

Daughter:

Katharine Quinn

Daughter:

Jennifer Quinn

Son:

Alistair Quinn