Margaret Mahy - Librarian of Babel

I don't think I've ever had an article with such a long gestation time as this. I gave the paper it's based on in Cambridge, one very snowy day in January 2013, and it's only just appeared - even though though the journal issue is officially dated April.

I'm particularly pleased to see it, because I think I had more fun with this than with any other article I've written. Mostly this was due to Margaret Mahy herself, whose work is always such a pleasure and a provocation. In fact, I was so into it while writing that I started (rather obviously) channelling her habits of thought and style, which could be a dangerous strategy, but in this case I think worked. And I also got to talk about Borges and John Wilkins - whose Selected Works I was once ambitious to edit.

Like the man said: "I thought it all out twenty years ago."

Margaret Mahy - Librarian of Babel

I don't think I've ever had an article with such a long gestation time as this. I gave the paper it's based on in Cambridge, one very snowy day in January 2013, and it's only just appeared - even though the journal issue is officially dated April.

I'm particularly pleased to see it, because I think I had more fun with this than with any other article I've written. Mostly this was due to Margaret Mahy herself, whose work is always such a pleasure and a provocation. In fact, I was so into it while writing that I started (rather obviously) channelling her habits of thought and style, which could be a dangerous strategy, but in this case I think worked. And I also got to talk about Borges and John Wilkins - whose Selected Works I was once ambitious to edit.

Like the man said: "I thought it all out twenty years ago."