Sophie Masson

<%@LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> Sophie Masson

Senior School Library

IBO / OCC

Author Visit - Sophie Masson

Sophie Masson was born in Jakarta, to French parents, and spent much of her life moving periodically between Australia and France. Her multicultural background and an early love of writing laid the groundwork for her talent as a journalist, short story writer and young adult author. As a child, she kept diaries, and wrote poetry - some of which she sent to Australian poets (such as Les Murray and AD Hope) for review! To date, she has written 40 books for children, young adults and adults, in both the fantasy and realistic fiction genres.

Sophie's strong interest in Arthurian legends has lead to her being well known as a fantasy writer, and she is renowned for her skill in re-creating and appropriating age-old fairy tales. Of herself, she says: "I don't just dream fantasy and legend; I live it". Indeed, she has been prominent in her involvement with the Grail Quest Festival at Sydney University, and also in promoting the Arthurian Association of Australia, as an indication of her 'living the legend'.

Her titles include 'Cold Iron', 'Clementine', 'Red City', 'the Green Prince' and many others based on tales we all know, but told with a twist. In these tales, Sophie has developed vast worlds far beyond the simple stories we remember from childhood bedtimes. In a new development, her latest series, Chronicles of El Jisal, creates a parallel world to the modern Muslim world, and draws magical beings from Muslim folklore. The first in this series is 'Snow, Fire, Sword', followed by 'Curse of Zohreh' (recognised as a notable book in this year's Childrens Book Council awards), with 'Tyrant's Nephew' and 'the Mahahrajah's Ghost' being the latest, and planned releases in the series.

Reviewers have called her work poetic. They state that she uses tricks with prose, and that her work is threaded with elements of mystery and suspense. Since her work has been shortlisted for many awards, and has been published in Australia, the US, Italy and the UK, her work travels as well as she has. For more detail about Sophie and her work see: http://www.laterallearning.com/authors/masson.html or Sophie's website: http://users.northnet.com.au/~smasson/

Image source: http://www.laterallearning.com/authors/masson.html and http://www.randomhouse.com.au

Updated on: May 15, 2007