Born and raised in England, Margaret Thompson immigrated to Canada with her family in 1967. She taught English in Merritt, Sechelt and Fort St. James, where she lived for 20 years, prior to settling in Victoria. She has three grown children and has spent most of her working life teaching English at the high school and college levels until her retirement in 1996. Drawing upon her long association with the Friends of Fort St. James Historic Park Society, she re-created the rough and perilous life of the fort during the 1820s for her first book, Squaring the Round: The Early Days of Fort St. James, a combination of prose and poetry. In her children's book, Eyewitness, a young orphan named Peter witnesses a murder which threatens the tenuous balance between the Hudson Bay Company's main northern outpost and the Carrier people. Thompson has contributed to numerous anthologies and literary publications; and her submission "On Life and Livestock" received top honours in the Creative Non-Fiction category for Event magazine's annual contest (Vol.27, Number 3) in 1998. A member of the Federation of BC Writers for more than 10 years, she became its President in 2003. During her presidency she published her fifth book, a new collection of personal essays about her European travels and spiritual explorations in Canada and abroad, Knocking on the Moonlit Door. It was followed a collection of personal memories of her encounters with birds and other animals beyond the two-legged variety, Adrift on the Ark: Our Connection to the Natural World.

Margaret Thompson's first novel for adults, The Cuckoo's Child (Brindle & Glass $19.95), is about middle-aged Livvy Alvarsson who has lost a son. In trying to save her brother, she discovers her own identity is false. The Cuckoo's Child follows Livvy on her travels to the U.K. to uncover her actual heritage.

CITY/TOWN: Victoria, BC

DATE OF BIRTH: November 5, 1940

PLACE OF BIRTH: Surbiton, England

ARRIVAL IN CANADA: 1967

ANCESTRAL BACKGROUND: British

AWARDS: BC 2000 Book Award

BOOKS:

Squaring the Round: The Early Days of Fort St. James (Self-published 1992)
Hide and Seek (Caitlin 1996)
Eyewitness (Ronsdale 2000) -- children's title
Fox Winter (Hodgepog Books 2003) -- children's title
Knocking on the Moonlit Door (NeWest 2004).
Adrift on the Ark: Our Connection to the Natural World (Brindle & Glass 2009)
The Cuckoo's Child (Brindle & Glass 2014) $19.95 9781927366295

[BCBW 2014] "Local History" "Travel" "Kidlit"