Acclaimed Australian writer John Marsden died yesterday, aged 74. The author of the beloved Tomorrow series and The Rabbits wrote and edited over 40 books in his lifetime, and founded two schools in Victoria, including the Alice Miller School, who confirmed his death in a statement to parents.
“He died at his desk in his home, doing what he loved, writing,” the statement read.
Both the Alice Miller School and Candlebark School notified parents of Marsden’s passing via email, informing them that the founder had been battling health issues for some time and had left his role as principal earlier this year.
“Yet he remained deeply connected to the school and its happenings, dropping into Candlebark for lunch every day and chatting with students and staff,” the email, cited by the Herald, read.
“This year, John taught Year 7 English at Candlebark, which he described as one of the three most memorable and rewarding teaching experiences of his long career. At the Year 7 lunch last week, John thanked the class for their humour, playfulness and connection; it was clear how much they meant to him.”
Marsden attended the schools’ Year 6 graduation last Thursday night — something the principal Sarita Ryan said she is comforted by.
“The grade 6s spoke in heartfelt and reverential ways about what the school meant to them and how grateful they were to John for creating it,” Ryan explained. “These were the experiences that John carried with him in his final days.”
Marsden was one of Australia’s most celebrated and successful authors, selling over 5 million books worldwide, with his books adapted into films and TV series, and translated into more than 15 languages. His works were recognised as stories that contained genuine depictions of the emotional and psychological lives of teenagers, and were widely praised by other writers, including Australian author Alice Pung.
In 2017, Pung contributed to Black Inc.’s Writers on Writers series, reflecting on the influence Marsden’s works has had on her own writing.
“I keep coming back to John Marsden,” she wrote in the essay. “What makes him so fascinating to me is that he approaches writing for young adults with a whole philosophy of what it means to be a teenager – a philosophy that’s embedded in the two schools he runs, but also in his early experiences with mental illness and hospitalisation. His perspective raises interesting questions about YA fiction – how much darkness is allowed, before you are considered a “bad influence”?”
Fellow author Andy Griffiths praised the late author as a “passionate storyteller, teacher and staunch advocate for young people”.
In a social media post on Wednesday night, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute to the prolific writer, describing him as someone who “wanted young Australians to read more and his writing made that happen.”
“Vivid, funny, quintessentially Australian, he wrote with a real love for our land and a true sense of our people’s character,” the post read. “His was a great Australian voice that spoke to all ages, here and around the world. John’s work will live long in our national memory.”
Background
Marsden was born in Melbourne in 1950, the third of four children, to a mother who encouraged reading and education, and a father who worked as a bank manager. Throughout his early years, the family moved every few years, residing in both Victoria and Tasmania.
After attending his initial primary schooling years at the Devonport Primary School, Marsden was sent to the King’s School, Parramatta, which he once described as having the “best and the worst of teaching there.”
He went on to study arts and law at the University of Sydney — “because it was just the expected thing to do,” he once said. But the experience left him with a gaping hole.
“When I got there, I found it alienating and so huge that I couldn’t connect with anything or anyone,” he said in 2018. “It was a very lonely and disturbing time, and I got more and more emotionally ill, and went to see a counsellor eventually who suggested I discontinue the course and seek professional help, so I did both of those things.”
He then took a job as a cleaner while trying to figure out his next steps. All the while, he was struggling mentally, and eventually saw a psychiatrist and admitted himself into a “psych hospital”, which helped him build “a new life.”
Eight years later, he enrolled in a primary teaching course in a country town and “loved it from the first day.”
“Teaching was exhilarating for me,” he once said. “I realised this was OK, I could go out there and change things.”
Writing career
Inspired by the popularity of young adult fiction in the US, Marsden set out to write stories for teenagers. His first book, So Much to Tell You was published in 1987, when he was 37. It was an instant success, translated into nine languages and picking up numerous awards including the Christopher Medal, the Victorian Premier’s Award, and named Best Book of the Year by the Children’s Book Council.
His subsequent books were all highly successful, especially the Tomorrow series, which began with Tomorrow, When the War Began which was published in 1993. Twenty years after its publication date, it was also voted Australia’s favourite Australian book in a government poll.
Over the next six years, Marsden would go on to write and publish another six books in the series, including The dead of the night, The third day, the frost, Darkness be my friend and Burning for Revenge.
“I wanted to write a book that would show teenagers in a different light,” Marsden explained in an interview in 2018, reflecting on the genesis of the story. “The Tomorrow series is about a hypothetical war where Australia is invaded, but a group of teenagers, by a fluke, is not included in the roundup.They’re up in the mountains where they’ve been camping, so they’re able to wage war against the invaders.”
Four years after the final book in the series was published, Marsden released the first book (While I Live) in a sequel trilogy titled The Ellie Chronicles, which followed the heroine Ellie’s survival in post-war life.
Tomorrow, When the War Began was adapted for screen in 2010, starring Caitlin Stasey, Phoebe Tonkin and Chris Pang.
In 2014, he published his first novel for adults, South of Darkness, a historical novel which followed a 13-year-old orphan and his new life in a convict settlement in 18th-century NSW. It won the Christina Stead Award for Best Novel of 2015.
Schools
In his late fifties, after teaching at a variety of schools including Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop and Fitzroy Community School, Marsden founded his own schools in regional Victoria: Candlebark, near Romsey, in 2006 and the arts-based Alice Miller in Macedon, ten years later.
In another media statement released by the schools overnight, Marsden was revealed to have worked in a range of occupations: “Prior to his career in education, he worked in various jobs including in an abattoir, as a lorry driver, and in the emergency ward in a hospital,” the statement read.
“As an author, John’s contribution to young adult literature was revolutionary. His unflinching honesty in addressing complex themes resonated with readers globally, earning him numerous awards including the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award.”
Controversy
The late journalist George Negus once described Marsden as “one of Australia’s most simultaneously popular and controversial authors”.
“With no children of his own, along the way, John has copped a fair bit of flak,” Negus said in November 2004 on ABC TV’s George Negus Tonight.
In recent years, Marsden’s views have caused some controversy. His 2019 book The Art of Growing Up was described as “a cross between a review of classic literature and an angry rant about the people and practices he doesn’t like.”
Critics condemned his views on bullying (which he described as “feedback” from other students) and “toxic parenting”.
He was also criticised for his view that bad mothers were responsible for men’s rage: “Men who feel rage as a result of the failure of their mothers to effectively manage the inevitable eventual separation between mothers and their sons … are highly likely to project that rage onto future intimate partners, and often all women.”
The comment earned him a celebrity Ernie Award but Marsden defended his views, saying: “No, I don’t care really what people think. All of these discussions … it’s all at quite a shallow level, a superficial level and the reality of the day to day life of working in a school involves so much more thought, time and energy and so these things aren’t easily turned into slogans or quick judgments.”
He is survived by his wife, Kristin, and his six stepchildren.
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