Mary Moore

Born 1928 into a farming family. In spite of an education interrupted by a teacher shortage & a stay in hospital, Mary achieved School Certificate and got a government job in Wellington. After three & a half years, her elder sister and her husband took over the family farm, and Mary moved in with her parents in Christchurch.

Her sister introduced her to a herd tester named Ray - they married three and a half months later. They had a small farm in Kokatahi on the West Coast.

Her husband challenged her to write a book after she criticised a book by another author. By this time Mary was the Postmistress in Cronadun. Mary described this as a job that gave her a lot of thinking time. She sent her second book off to Reed's Publishers, who liked the book but said the New Zealand market would be too small and to send it overseas. The third publisher the book was sent to was Mills & Boon who published it after some minor edits were done.

When May and Ray left the farm and moved to Christchurch, Mary didn't write for a few years. After attending a writing school, she took six weeks leave from her job to see if she could still write. This was successful and she started writing again.

date of Birth from National Library website, other information from The Passionate Pen by Rachel McAlpine.