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Phyllis McGinley (March 21, 1905 - February 22, 1978) was an American writer of children's books and poet about the positive aspects of suburban life.

McGinley was born in Ontario, Oregon. At age 3, her family moved to Iliff Colorado, and then to Ogden, Utah after her father died.

She studied at the University of Southern California and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, graduating in 1927, then moved to New York City. She wrote copy for an advertising agency, then taught at a junior high school in New Rochelle, New York for one year, until her career as a writer and poet took off.

A poet from the age of six, she published prolifically. Her poems appeared primarily in The New Yorker, where she first published in 1934 or earlier, but she also wrote for such outlets as New York Herald Tribune and was the poetry editor for Town & Country. She also wrote the lyrics for a musical revue, Small Wonder, in 1948, and the script for the Czech animated feature film "The Emperor's Nightingale," in 1951.

In 1955, she was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

In 1961 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; in 1964 she was honored with the Laetare Medal by the University of Notre Dame (described as 'An honor to a man or woman who has "enriched the heritage of humanity"'). She also holds nearly a dozen honorary degrees - "including one from the stronghold of strictly masculine pride, Dartmouth College" (from the dust jacket of Sixpence in Her Shoe (copy 1964)).

She moved to Larchmont, New York in 1937 with her husband, Bill Hayden, and raised two daughters there, singing the praises of domesticity and small town suburbia for nearly 40 years. McGinley died in New York City in 1978.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Phyllis McGinley", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0