Margaret’s Background
Margaret Gibbs takes great pleasure in sharing her love of children’s books with the local kids in her neighbourhood. In the past, she organised Booknook Blue from her Kenmore home – a weekly reading club for children aged 7-12 years. Also, once a month women come together to discuss books at Bookchat, a reading club.
With a secondary teaching background in English, Margaret completed her Grad. Diploma in Children’s Literature in 1996 at the University of Southern Qld. In 2001, Margaret completed a Professional Children’s Writing diploma with the Australian College of Journalism. Her personal account of the January Brisbane flood in 74 was published in Memories of the Twentieth Century. She has also published poetry for Arrow publishers and is currently reviewing teenage books for Fiction Focus.
During her teaching career, she has been the editor of a College magazine publication, helped compile a poetry magazine called Rhyme and Reason and led a writers club in Maryborough. Her constant exposure to children’s picture books enticed Margaret to start writing her own.
Margaret also enjoys art and attending literary conferences and meeting authors. She has regularly visited Voices on the Coast, Somerset literature festival and Reading Matters conference in Melbourne. Travelling to Perth in May 2002 for the CBC conference enabled her to connect with other literary people. She has undertaken contracts and relief teaching at Brisbane Girls Grammar, Corinda, Kenmore and Centenary High schools.
Seven years have passed and Margaret is currently living in Mapleton up on the Blackall Ranges where she loves teaching at Matthew Flinders Anglican College in Buderim. She still enjoys attending Voices on the Coast which is more accessible to her now. After running a children’s bookclub in Mapleton called The Bookloft for 3 years, she now finds time for gardening, cooking, visiting art galleries, writing her blog and spending time with her 8 beautiful grand children. Above all, she is thankful for her connections with children and adolescents in schools. Travelling has taken her to Morocco, Spain and next year to southern France.