Qualey, Marsha 1953–

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Qualey, Marsha 1953–

(Ann Owen)

PERSONAL: Surname is pronounced "kwawl-ee"; born May 27, 1953, in Austin, MN; daughter of Philip (an attorney) and Gwenyth (a homemaker; maiden name, Owen) Richardson; married David Qualey, 1976; children: Laura, Ellen, Jane, Ben. Education: Attended Macalester College, 1971–72; University of Minnesota, B.A., 1976. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, art history, maps, travel.

ADDRESSES: Office—c/o Winding Oak, 6985 Crest Dr., Maple Grove, MN 55311. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Homemaker and volunteer, 1978–89; writer and writing teacher, 1990–; library clerk, 2001–02; nonprofit youth program coordinator, 2004–05; web editor and literary marketing consultant, 2005–.

MEMBER: Children's Literature Network, Author's Guild, Maud Hart Lovelace Society.

WRITINGS:

YOUNG ADULT FICTION

Everybody's Daughter, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1991.

Revolutions of the Heart, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1993.

Come in from the Cold, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995.

Hometown, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1995.

Thin Ice, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1997.

Close to a Killer, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1999.

Every Friend to a Stranger, Dial Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2001.

One Night, Dial Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Too Big a Storm, Dial Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Just like That, Dial Books (New York, NY), 2005.

PICTURE BOOKS; AS ANN OWEN

Keeping Your Pet Healthy, Picture Window Books, 2003.

Caring for Your Pets, Picture Window Books, 2003.

Protecting Your Home, Picture Window Books, 2003.

Keeping You Safe, Picture Window Books, 2003.

Delivering Your Mail, Picture Window Books, 2003.

Taking You Places, Picture Window Books, 2003.

The Ants Go Marching, Picture Window Books, 2003.

Clementine, Picture Window Books, 2003.

The Farmer in the Dell, Picture Window Books, 2003.

Old MacDonald Had a Farm, Picture Window Books, 2003.

I Know an Old Lady, Picture Window Books, 2003.

I've Been Working on the Railroad, Picture Window Books, 2003.

She'll Be Coming around the Mountain, Picture Window Books, 2003.

The Wheels on the Bus, Picture Window Books, 2003.

America the Beautiful, Picture Window Books, 2003.

America, Picture Window Books, 2003.

The Star-Spangled Banner, Picture Window Books, 2003.

When Johnny Comes Marching Home, Picture Window Books, 2003.

You're a Grand Old Flag, Picture Window Books, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Marsha Qualey enjoyed both reading and the outdoors from an early age. Writing is part of her family heritage: both of her maternal grandparents wrote, with her grandmother contributing to magazines such as True Confessions. Though Qualey dabbled in writing while a junior high and high school student, it was not until she was married and raising her children than she began writing fiction, primarily young adult novels. She often sets her works in the outdoor areas of Minnesota as well as Wisconsin, and centers her stories around female protagonists who enjoy reading, skiing, and/or canoeing.

Qualey created her first novel, Everybody's Daughter, while taking care of her children. On her Web site Qualey wrote: "Once the quality time was over, I'd grab a moment when they were watching Sesame Street or Scooby Doo and set down on paper what I'd been thinking about." The story in Everybody's Daughter focuses on Beamer Flynn, a teenager trying to break free of her family's commune-living past and hippie-friendly lifestyle. Though Beamer lets her desire for privacy negatively affect her life, she eventually can positively reconnect with those who used to live in the commune. Richard Donahue and Diane Roback, writing in Publishers Weekly, claimed: "The heroine's unusual background adds a fresh twist to this first novel."

Qualey's third novel, Come in from the Cold, was one of the few inspired by events in her own life. While a young woman on a canoeing trip in Canada, she learned that one of her brothers had lost his life in the Vietnam War. Come in from the Cold is also tied to Everybody's Daughter. In Come in from the Cold, the lives of young Jeff and Maud are affected by antiwar activities during the Vietnam era. The pair eventually meets and begins a relationship. The commune that Jeff and Maude join at the end of Come in from the Cold is the same one Beamer lived in as a child in Everybody's Daughter. Reviewing the book in Publishers Weekly, a critic concluded that the story was "told with a quiet forcefulness" and Jeff and Maud were "memorable."

In Too Big a Storm, Qualey continues to focus on the social and political upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s through the eyes of Brady, an eighteen-year-old girl. Brady is facing problems in her family, including the death of her father and the fact that her brother Will is missing in Vietnam. Brady works at a community center, and becomes more involved with radical elements through her working relationships and friendships as she finds herself in turbulent times. In Kliatt, Claire Rosser observed that "Qualey recreates the passion and confusion of the late 1960s." Writing in the School Library Journal, Francisca Goldsmith acknowledged the "glorious cast of characters, each of whom adds texture," while Gillian Engberg in Booklist called it "dense, episodic, and reflective."

Qualey's next novel, Just like That, examines how teenaged Hanna deals with a tragedy she feels she could have prevented. While taking a walk late one night near a lake in winter, she unknowingly witnesses a young couple right before they have an accident on an ATV and die. Hanna finds it hard to share her complex guilt about the situation, repeatedly visits the scene where it happened, and eventually connects with Will, a younger teen who found the bodies and has also experienced misfortune. In Kirkus Reviews, a contributor wrote: "It's an absorbing journey out of adolescence." Gillian Engberg in Booklist claimed the novel is "uneven," but noted that Qualey created "unhurried, absorbing portraits of sensitive teens."

Qualey once commented to CA: "Three memories. First, from 1969: I was on a canoe trip in Canada and sweating through the final portage of the day. It was a killer, 150 rods, and seemed to be straight uphill. I was carrying the food pack, maybe eighty pounds on my back, and it was a slow climb, especially as the rocky terrain seemed deliberately to keep me back. Roots slithered out and coiled around my legs, brush snickered and snagged my pack, rocks sprang out of the ground whenever I set a foot down, and branches snapped when I reached for a handhold. Second memory: The next summer I was seventeen and working as a counselor-in-training at a Y camp in northern Minnesota. Three friends and I were up late, walking by the lake front, when we noticed the display of northern lights. Anyone who spends time in the north sees the aurora borealis fairly often, but never before or since have I seen such a vivid sky show. For almost an hour the four of us lay on the ground, still as could be, while the colored sky danced. Final memory: That same summer our group was returning from an easy three-day canoe trip. The four canoes emerged one by one from a placid, narrow, winding river onto the home lake, where we were met by a gale that had transformed the water into a monster. We were all experienced trippers, but only one canoe paddled safely back to camp. The others, mine included, were toyed with, then thrown back to the far shore, by a lake that threatened with every huge wave to rise up and swallow us whole.

"Those two summers I learned how alive the sky and the water and the land can be. Most of my writing is set in the lake country of the upper Midwest, and when I now write about the natural world I treat it as another character. That character's influence can be obvious: how would a blizzard affect the plot? Or elusive: how lonely would it be to live in the middle of a great big forest?"

Qualey more recently told CA: "I am first and foremost a reader, and my writing has always been and always will be influenced by my love of reading. One of the perks of being a writer is that reading is part of the job description. My childhood reading (and predilection for daydreaming) no doubt triggered a desire to put down on paper the stories that were rumbling around in my head. My adult reading—which includes all types, especially history, art history, contemporary literary fiction, and paperback thrillers—influences my writing in a couple of ways. First, I learn craft. There is no better way to work through a knotty writing challenge than to pick up a book and see how someone else solved the problem. And, further, nothing generates the desire to write more than to have the head filled up with beautiful language, stimulating ideas, and interesting characters. Perversely, reading a lousy book tempers the desire to write, perhaps because it has a chilling effect: What if I do something this bad?

"Writers joke—seriously—about each book being a favorite. Well, each of my YA novels is a favorite, for a different reason. Everybody's Daughter is a favorite because it's my 'firstborn' and it turned out so well even though I was clueless about novel-writing. Revolutions of the Heart is a favorite because it turned out so well after many, many false starts and turns. Come In from the Cold is a favorite because it is somewhat autobiographical and an honest, careful portrait of a troubled time. Hometown is my favorite, frankly; it's just so darn good. Thin Ice is a favorite because it was the first to be plot-oriented and I apparently pulled that off. Close to a Killer is a favorite because of the same plot thing, but also because I think I pulled off mixing plot and some intriguing personal issues. Too Big a Storm is a favorite because I created a cast of characters that I could write about forever. Just like That is a favorite because I got to write about some of the Storm characters again, but from a different angle. I hope that after finishing one of my books the reader will still be thinking about the characters and then will want to keep on reading—my books and others."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 2004, Gillian Engberg, review of Too Big a Storm, p. 1629; August, 2005, Gillian Engberg, review of Just like That, p. 2017.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2005, review of Just like That, p. 544.

Kliatt, May, 2004, Claire Rosser, review of Too Big a Storm, p. 12.

Publishers Weekly, March 22, 1991, Richard Donahue and Diane Roback, review of Everybody's Daughter, p. 80; October 17, 1994, review of Come in from the Cold, p. 82.

School Library Journal, July, 2004, Francisca Goldsmith, review of Too Big a Storm, p. 111.