34 ratings | 5 reviews | avg rating:4.21

Mary's Bookshelves

read (34)
currently-reading (1)
to-read (3)
old-favorites (0)

Mary's Friends (34)

Maura Bieber ;)

209 books | 71 friends

Amanda

323 books | 12 friends

Sheridan Reid

884 books | 23 friends

Maggie

91 books | 19 friends

☮Artemis the Hunter♬

121 books | 120 friends

Taylor

25 books | 1 friend

Kat Warren

3,115 books | 56 friends

Katie (Taylor Lautner&Justin Bieber's #1 fan ;:) )

329 books | 79 friends

More friends…

Mary is following 7 people

Mary Downing Hahn

Goodreads author profile

url

http://www.goodreads.com/Catwoman2

born

December 09, 1937 in Washington D.C., The United States

gender

female

website

http://www.hmhbooks.com/features/mdh/

genre

Children's Books, Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Horror

member since

January 2012

About this author

edit data

I grew up in a small shingled house down at the end of Guilford Road in College Park, Maryland. Our block was loaded with kids my age. We spent hours outdoors playing "Kick the Can" and "Mother, May I" as well as cowboy and outlaw games that usually ended in quarrels about who shot whom. In the summer, we went on day long expeditions into forbidden territory -- the woods on the other side of the train tracks, the creek that wound its way through College Park, and the experimental farm run by the University of Maryland.

In elementary school, I was known as the class artist. I loved to read and draw but I hated writing reports. Requirements such as outlines, perfect penmanship, and following directions killed my interest in putting words on pa...more I grew up in a small shingled house down at the end of Guilford Road in College Park, Maryland. Our block was loaded with kids my age. We spent hours outdoors playing "Kick the Can" and "Mother, May I" as well as cowboy and outlaw games that usually ended in quarrels about who shot whom. In the summer, we went on day long expeditions into forbidden territory -- the woods on the other side of the train tracks, the creek that wound its way through College Park, and the experimental farm run by the University of Maryland.

In elementary school, I was known as the class artist. I loved to read and draw but I hated writing reports. Requirements such as outlines, perfect penmanship, and following directions killed my interest in putting words on paper. All those facts -- who cared what the principal products of Chile were? To me, writing reports was almost as boring as math.

Despite my dislike of writing, I loved to make up stories. Instead of telling them in words, I told them in pictures. My stories were usually about orphans who ran away and had the sort of exciting adventures I would have enjoyed if my mother hadn't always interfered.

When I was in junior high school, I developed an interest in more complex stories. I wanted to show how people felt, what they thought, what they said. For this, I needed words. Although I wasn't sure I was smart enough, I decided to write and illustrate children's books when I grew up. Consequently, at the age of thirteen, I began my first book. Small Town Life was about a girl named Susan, as tall and skinny and freckle faced as I was. Unlike her shy, self conscious creator, however, Susan was a leader who lived the life I wanted to live -- my ideal self, in other words. Although I never finished Small Town Life, it marked the start of a lifelong interest in writing.

In high school, I kept a diary. In college, I wrote poetry and short stories and dreamed of being published in The New Yorker. Unfortunately, I didn't have the courage or the confidence to send anything there.

By the time my first novel was published, I was 41 years old. That's how long it took me to get serious about writing. The Sara Summer took me a year to write, another year to find a publisher, and yet another year of revisions before Clarion accepted it.

Since Sara appeared in 1979, I've written an average of one book a year. If I have a plot firmly in mind when I begin, the writing goes fairly quickly. More typically, I start with a character or a situation and only a vague idea of what's going to happen. Therefore, I spend a lot of time revising and thinking things out. If I'd paid more attention to the craft of outlining back in elementary school, I might be a faster writer, but, on the other hand, if I knew everything that was going to happen in a story, I might be too bored to write it down. Writing is a journey of discovery. That's what makes it so exciting.(less)

combine editions
Books by Mary Downing Hahn

Average rating: 3.98 · 22,482 ratings · 3,948 reviews · 36 distinct works

	Wait Till Helen Comes: A Ghost Story 4.09 avg rating — 4,952 ratings — published 1986 — 20 editions	My rating:
	Deep and Dark and Dangerous: A Ghost Story 4.12 avg rating — 3,277 ratings — published 2007 — 9 editions	My rating:
	The Old Willis Place: A Ghost Story 4.07 avg rating — 2,119 ratings — published 2004 — 13 editions	My rating:
	All the Lovely Bad Ones 3.92 avg rating — 1,921 ratings — published 2008 — 14 editions	My rating:
	The Doll in the Garden 3.95 avg rating — 1,677 ratings — published 1989 — 11 editions	My rating:
	Stepping on the Cracks 4.02 avg rating — 1,030 ratings — published 1991 — 9 editions	My rating:
	Look for Me by Moonlight 3.59 avg rating — 1,187 ratings — published 1995 — 9 editions	My rating:
	Closed for the Season 3.79 avg rating — 1,051 ratings — published 2009 — 12 editions	My rating:
	Time for Andrew: A Ghost Story 4.00 avg rating — 964 ratings — published 1994 — 7 editions	My rating:
	The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall 3.83 avg rating — 780 ratings — published 2010 — 13 editions	My rating:

More books by Mary Downing Hahn…

Upcoming Events

No scheduled events. Add an event.

Mary is Currently Reading

Mary is currently reading:

Bring Up the Bodies (Wolf Hall, #2)

by Hilary Mantel

bookshelves: currently-reading

My rating:

Mary said: "I loved Wolf Hall, and I'm enjoying Bring Up the Bodies which I just started reading a couple of days ago. "

May 20, 2012 11:46am · see review

rss
Mary's Recent Updates

Mary is now friends with Kat Warren
May 20, 2012 03:47pm
Mary marked as to-read: The Volcano Lover: A Romance by Susan Sontag	My rating:
May 20, 2012 11:49am
Mary liked Lydia's review of The Right-Hand Shore: " Opening this book is like falling into a time machine -- this place in space and history so beautifully rendered you'll feel disoriented getting back to 2012. Tilghman is a master writer, who spins a Shakesperean tale with effortless grace through... " Read more of this review »
May 20, 2012 11:48am · see review
Mary liked Kat Warren's review of The Right-Hand Shore: " Mighty tasty. Disguised as a generational saga, this book is a glorious examination of the sins of the father(s), the sons and the daughters; slavery and the Civil War; Maryland flora and fauna; Catholicism in Maryland; 19th-century education in th... " Read more of this review »
May 20, 2012 11:48am · see review
Mary liked Jaime Boler's review of The Right-Hand Shore: " Bound to the Land The Right-Hand Shore by Christopher Tilghman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 368 pages; $27). With The Right-Hand Shore, Christopher Tilghman gives us a quietly beautiful novel about a family, a place, and the ties that both bind and... " Read more of this review »
May 20, 2012 11:48am · see review
Mary marked as to-read: The Right-Hand Shore: A Novel by Christopher Tilghman	My rating:
May 20, 2012 11:47am
Mary is currently reading: Bring Up the Bodies (Wolf Hall, #2) by Hilary Mantel	My rating:
I loved Wolf Hall, and I'm enjoying Bring Up the Bodies which I just started reading a couple of days ago.
May 20, 2012 11:46am · see review
Mary gave to: The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht (Goodreads Author) read in May, 2012	My rating:
May 17, 2012 04:13pm
Mary made a comment on her review of Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art "Thanks, Ellyn! "
May 08, 2012 08:50am · see review
Mary made a comment on her review of Mudwoman: A Novel "Mud woman is a very dark book, gripping, hard to put down, a gut wrenching study of an abused child whose mother leaves her to die in a mud flat in up...more "
May 07, 2012 05:11pm · see review

More of Mary's books…

Quotes by Mary Downing Hahn

“You look back on some little decision you made and realize all the things that happened because of it, and you think to yourself "if only I'd known," but, of course, you couldn't have known.”
― Mary Downing Hahn, The Dead Man in Indian Creek

tags: adventure , mystery

39 people liked it

“I wished that the chains would break and the wind would sweep me up, up, up into the sky, beyond the clouds, beyond the sun and the moon, to some marvelous kingdom where no one ever changed and friends were friends for life.”
― Mary Downing Hahn, Daphne's Book

24 people liked it

“Odd, isn’t it? You know when your birthday is, but not your death day, even though you pass the date year after year, never suspecting that some day…”
― Mary Downing Hahn, The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall

tags: death

17 people liked it

See all Mary Downing Hahn's quotes »

Polls

What themed book (ghost story) would you like to read for April's group read?

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

28 votes, 29.8%

Shadowland by Meg Cabot

17 votes, 18.1%

A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb

17 votes, 18.1%

The Haunting by Joan Lowery Nixon

7 votes, 7.4%

Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender

6 votes, 6.4%

The Light by D.J. MacHale

5 votes, 5.3%

Stranger with My Face by Lois Duncan

5 votes, 5.3%

All the Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Hahn

5 votes, 5.3%

Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready

3 votes, 3.2%

The Presence: A Ghost Story by Eve Bunting

1 vote, 1.1%

94 total votes

comments and details

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Challenge: 50 Books: Emily agrees with Michelle 2009	30	167	Nov 14, 2009 09:57am
100+ Books in 2012: Susan's 100+ Reading Challenge	93	274	Dec 30, 2009 02:32pm
GR-101: Book Appr...: 2010 Final Grades Master List	34	14	Jun 28, 2010 12:29pm
What's The Name o...: Young adult; cover is black and white photo of teenage guy and girl on motorcycle [s]	5	50	Aug 27, 2010 10:30am
The Seasonal Read...: Summer Challenge 2010 Completed Tasks (do NOT delete any posts in this thread)	3072	2867	Aug 31, 2010 10:39pm
"The BB's": Tuesday, September 28, 2010	31	12	Sep 29, 2010 12:59pm
GR-101: Book Appr...: It's Covered!	146	16	Nov 12, 2010 07:45pm
Cover to Cover Ch...: CindyAnn's 2010 List	12	19	Dec 05, 2010 04:44pm
The History Book ...: ELIZABETH'S 50 BOOKS READ IN 2010	53	110	Jan 01, 2011 01:05pm
GR-101: Book Appr...: Satisfactory but No Gold Stars (C)	329	18	Jan 02, 2011 05:57pm

More…

Quotes Mary Likes

“If I had a large amount of money I should certainly found a hospital for those whose grip upon the world is so tenuous that they can be severely offended by words and phrases and yet remain all unoffended by the injustice, violence and oppression that howls daily about our ears.”
― Stephen Fry, Paperweight

120 people liked it

“What I mean by an educated taste is someone who has the same tastes that I have.”
― Edward Albee

1,342 people liked it