Norma Fox Mazer
American author and teacher (1931-2009)
title: "Norma Fox Mazer" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1931-births", "2009-deaths", "american-children's-writers", "american-writers-of-young-adult-literature", "edgar-award-winners", "newbery-honor-winners", "writers-from-new-york-city", "people-from-glens-falls,-new-york", "antioch-college-alumni", "syracuse-university-alumni", "20th-century-american-women-novelists", "21st-century-american-women-writers", "vermont-college-of-fine-arts-faculty", "american-women-children's-writers", "20th-century-american-novelists", "american-women-writers-of-young-adult-literature", "novelists-from-new-york-(state)", "novelists-from-vermont", "american-women-academics", "deaths-from-brain-cancer-in-the-united-states", "deaths-from-cancer-in-vermont"] description: "American author and teacher (1931-2009)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Fox_Mazer" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary American author and teacher (1931-2009) ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox writer"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| birth_name | Norma Fox |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | New York City, U.S. |
| death_date | |
| death_place | Montpelier, Vermont, U.S. |
| occupation | Author |
| nationality | American |
| genre | Children's, young adult |
| spouse | |
| children | 4 |
| awards | Edgar Award (Taking Terri Mueller) |
| Lewis Carroll Shelf Award (Dear Bill, Remember Me?) | |
| Newbery Honor (After the Rain) | |
| :: |
| image = | imagesize = | birth_name = Norma Fox | birth_date = | birth_place = New York City, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = Montpelier, Vermont, U.S. | occupation = Author | nationality = American | ethnicity = | genre = Children's, young adult | notableworks = | spouse = | children = 4 | awards = Edgar Award (Taking Terri Mueller) Lewis Carroll Shelf Award (Dear Bill, Remember Me?) Newbery Honor (After the Rain)
Norma Fox Mazer ( Fox; May 15, 1931 – October 17, 2009) was an American author and teacher, best known for her books for children and young adults. Her novels featured credible young characters confronting difficult situations such as family separation and death.
She was born in New York City but grew up in Glens Falls, New York, with parents Michael and Jean Garlan Fox. Mazer graduated from Glens Falls High School, then went to Antioch College, where she met Harry Mazer, whom she married in 1950; they had four children, three of whom survived Mazer, one of whom, Anne Mazer, is also a writer. In addition to Antioch, Mazer also studied at Syracuse University. In 2009, she died at the age of 78 from brain cancer.
Mazer began writing professionally as a young mother and for several years she and her husband Harry wrote confessional stories for pulp magazines; they would later write several novels together.
Mazer's books were praised for the intelligence of their dialogue, psychological acumen, and the nuance with which domestic difficulties and tragedies were portrayed in the lives of young people. Rather than offering simple resolutions, her stories charted more complex and sometimes suspenseful paths that followed the characters' growth and self-knowledge.
New York Times Book Review contributor Ruth I. Gordon wrote that Mazer "has the skill to reveal the human qualities in both ordinary and extraordinary situations as young people mature....it would be a shame to limit their reading to young people, since they can show an adult reader much about the sometimes painful rite of adolescent passage into adulthood".
In 1988, Mazer said:I hesitate to say I'm delivering messages....I'm writing stories and novels. I hope there's an underlying feeling for the reader -- a hope, perhaps a moral. But I'm not preaching. I'm telling stories.
Among the honors Mazer earned for her writing were a National Book Award nomination in 1973,, inclusion on the New York Times Outstanding Books of the Year list in 1976, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1976 and 1977, an Edgar Award in 1982, German Children's Literature prize in 1982, and a Newbery Medal in 1988.
From 1997 to 2006 Mazer taught in the Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children & Young Adults Program at Vermont College.
References
References
- (2009-10-25). "Cancer claims life of novelist Mazer". Upi.
- Margalit Fox. (October 24, 2009). "Norma Fox Mazer, Novelist for Young Adults, Dies at 78". The New York Times.
- "Norma Fox Mazer - National Book Foundation".
- (November 14, 1976). "Outstanding Books of the Year".
- (1996). "Literary Laurels: A Reader’s Guide to Award-Winning Children’s Books". Hillyard.
- "All Winners - Edgard Awards info & Databse".
- Schafer, Elizabeth D.. (2023). "Norma Fox Mazer".
- Anne Mazer. "Norma Fox Mazer, 1931-2009".
- "Association for Library Service to Children - Newbery Medal Winners & Honor Books, 1922 – Present".
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