“John had a knack for seeing new authors … who felt the most left out of a room or a scenario, and really including them – making them feel that they were a writer, that they could be at any writers’ festival.”
His influence within the literary realm was so significant that the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Writing for Young Adults was renamed the John Marsden Prize for Writing for Young Adults, a change that will take place in 2026.
John Marsden’s friend and fellow author Alice Pung at the memorial. Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Marsden was an educator before shifting into writing, a move he made a little later in life. Some were sceptical of a middle-aged man writing about teenagers, Pung said, especially female teens. But these concerns were quickly allayed once they read his work.
“He’s the consummate person at writing young adult fiction,” Pung said. “He never saw life as a separate set of stages – childhood, adolescence, teenager-hood, adulthood. He just saw it as a continuum. He understood that some teenagers had more responsibilities than some 35-year-olds. So they were, in terms of the continuum of life, more enlightened,” Pung said. “That’s what made him so compelling to teenage readers.”
Loading
In his 50s, Marsden opened Candlebark, a prep to year 7 school in the Macedon Ranges. A decade later, he opened secondary institution the Alice Miller School. Through these schools, which he reportedly described as having a philosophy “somewhere between Steiner and The Simpsons”, his dedication to emboldening young people could live on.
“John’s dream is ultimately a dream for children,” said Sarita Ryan, current principal of both schools. “Through building these schools, this dream has become a collective one … It’s now our task to protect this vision with the integrity and dedication that John had.”
To his sisters, Marsden was a “complicated, charismatic and caring” person, someone who was always loved, even if they never once saw him help out by cleaning the toilet. To his former colleague Jeremy Madin, he was someone who “genuinely walked the talk”, carefully collecting stories from anyone he encountered and turning them into riveting novels. And to his stepsons, he was, and always will be, their first thought when they finish a book
Punctuated by performances by young people from Marsden’s schools, including a heart-wrenching rendition of Mary Poppins’ Feed the Birds, the memorial highlighted what the prolific author stood for – young people engaging in the world and having their voices heard.
“Now, as a middle-aged lady, I recognise that having an adult in a position of authority in your life who just believes in you – for your failings and your successes, just believes in you and champions you, I realise now what a gift that is,” Charlotte Austin said.
The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.
