Never Coming Back (McGhee) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—July 8, 1960
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—Middlebury College
• Awards—Great Lakes College Association National Fiction Award
• Currently—lives in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota


Alison McGhee is an American author, who has published several picture books, books for children's books, and adult novels, the most recent of which is Never Coming Home (2017). She is a New York Times bestselling author, the winner of numerous awards. Her most recent adult novel is Never Coming Back (2017).

McGhee's first novel, Rainlight (1998), follows the characters left behind after the sudden and accidental death of Starr Williams. It received positive reviews and won both the Great Lakes College Association National Fiction Award and the Minnesota Book Award in 1999.

Her second adult book, Shadow Baby (2000), is witnessed through the eyes of a young girl who befriends an old man as part of a school project. It was a Pulitzer Prize nominee. McGhee continued her adult themes with Was It Beautiful?

McGhee then began publishing children's picture books. Countdown to Kindergarten (2002) and Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth (2004), both share the same main character who begins the first story as she enters kindergarten and is in first grade by the second book.

Turning her hand to young adult novels, McGhee introduced Snap (2004) and All Rivers Flow to the Sea (2005)

Poetry came next. In Only a Witch Can Fly McGhee a little girl dreams about flying on her broom. The book is a "story-poem," written in sestina form — six stanzas of six lines each, followed by a three-line stanza at the end.

All told, McGhee has published more than 20 books in five different genres: adult, children's prose, children's poetry, children's picture, and young adult books. McGhee is also a professor of creative writing at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota and is the mother of three children. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/25/2017.)