{{short description|American author and teacher (1931-2009)}} {{Infobox writer | image = | imagesize = | birth_name = Norma Fox | birth_date = {{Birth date|1931|5|15}} | birth_place = New York City, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|2009|10|17|1931|5|15}} | death_place = Montpelier, Vermont, U.S. | occupation = Author | nationality = American | ethnicity = | genre = Children's, young adult | notableworks = | spouse = {{marriage|Harry Mazer|1950}} | children = 4 | awards = Edgar Award (''Taking Terri Mueller'')<br> Lewis Carroll Shelf Award (''Dear Bill, Remember Me?'')<br> Newbery Honor (''After the Rain'') }}
'''Norma Fox Mazer''' ({{nee}} Fox; May 15, 1931 – October 17, 2009) was an American author and teacher, best known for her books for children and young adults. Her novels featured credible young characters confronting difficult situations such as family separation and death.<ref name="upi">{{cite news|url=http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2009/10/25/Cancer-claims-life-of-novelist-Mazer/UPI-66241256485000/ |title=Cancer claims life of novelist Mazer |publisher=Upi |date=2009-10-25 |accessdate=2013-10-16}}</ref>
She was born in New York City but grew up in Glens Falls, New York, with parents Michael and Jean Garlan Fox. Mazer graduated from Glens Falls High School, then went to Antioch College, where she met Harry Mazer, whom she married in 1950; they had four children, three of whom survived Mazer,<ref name="upi"/> one of whom, Anne Mazer, is also a writer. In addition to Antioch, Mazer also studied at Syracuse University. In 2009, she died at the age of 78 from brain cancer.
Mazer began writing professionally as a young mother and for several years she and her husband Harry wrote confessional stories for pulp magazines; they would later write several novels together.<ref name="nyt">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/arts/25mazer.html|title=Norma Fox Mazer, Novelist for Young Adults, Dies at 78|author=Margalit Fox|work=The New York Times|date=October 24, 2009}}</ref>
Mazer's books were praised for the intelligence of their dialogue, psychological acumen, and the nuance with which domestic difficulties and tragedies were portrayed in the lives of young people. Rather than offering simple resolutions, her stories charted more complex and sometimes suspenseful paths that followed the characters' growth and self-knowledge.<ref name="nyt"/>
''New York Times Book Review'' contributor Ruth I. Gordon wrote that Mazer "has the skill to reveal the human qualities in both ordinary and extraordinary situations as young people mature....it would be a shame to limit their reading to young people, since they can show an adult reader much about the sometimes painful rite of adolescent passage into adulthood".{{citation needed|date=August 2022}}
In 1988, Mazer said:<blockquote>I hesitate to say I'm delivering messages....I'm writing stories and novels. I hope there's an underlying feeling for the reader -- a hope, perhaps a moral. But I'm not preaching. I'm telling stories.<ref name="upi"/></blockquote>
Among the honors Mazer earned for her writing were a National Book Award nomination in 1973,<ref>{{citeweb |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/people/norma-fox-mazer/ |website=NationalBook.org |title=Norma Fox Mazer - National Book Foundation |access-date=2025-12-09}}</ref>, inclusion on the ''New York Times'' Outstanding Books of the Year list in 1976,<ref>{{citeweb |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/11/14/archives/outstanding-books-of-the-year-teenage.html |website=NYTimes.com |title=Outstanding Books of the Year |date=November 14, 1976 |access-date=2025-12-09}}</ref> the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1976 and 1977,<ref>{{cite book | editor-last = Carlson | editor-first = Laura | editor2-last = Creighton | editor2-first = Sean | editor3-last = Cunningham | editor3-first = Sheila | title = Literary Laurels: A Reader’s Guide to Award-Winning Children’s Books | publisher = Hillyard | year = 1996 | isbn = 9780964736115 | page = 31}}</ref> an Edgar Award in 1982,<ref>{{citeweb |url=https://edgarawards.com/all-winners/?listpage=7&instance=1 |website=EdgarAwards.com |access-date=2025-12-09 |title=All Winners - Edgard Awards info & Databse}}</ref> German Children's Literature prize in 1982,<ref>{{citeweb |url=https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/biography/norma-fox-mazer |website=EBSCO.com |date=2023 |author=Schafer, Elizabeth D. |title=Norma Fox Mazer |access-date=2025-12-09}}</ref> and a Newbery Medal in 1988.<ref>{{citeweb |url=https://jwa.org/weremember/mazer-norma |title=Norma Fox Mazer, 1931-2009 |author=Anne Mazer |access-date=2025-12-09}}</ref><ref name="award">{{cite web |url=https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/2025-09/newbery-medals-honors-1922-present.pdf |title=Association for Library Service to Children - Newbery Medal Winners & Honor Books, 1922 – Present |website=ALA.org |access-date=2025-12-07}}</ref>
From 1997 to 2006 Mazer taught in the Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children & Young Adults Program at Vermont College.<ref name="nyt"/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Portal|Children and Young Adult Literature}} * [http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/winter97/w97-10-Censorship.html "The Censorship Connection: 'Shhhh!' by Norma Fox Mazer"], ''The ALAN Review'' 24:2 (Winter 1997), ALAN — "Novelist discusses the impact on her of being disinvited to speak to students at a school and considers the implications of such reactions to literature and its authors." * [http://lccn.loc.gov/n50000656 Norma Fox Mazer] at Library of Congress Authorities — with 40 catalog records
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mazer, Norma Fox}} Category:1931 births Category:2009 deaths Category:American children's writers Category:American writers of young adult literature Category:Edgar Award winners Category:Newbery Honor winners Category:Writers from New York City Category:People from Glens Falls, New York Category:Antioch College alumni Category:Syracuse University alumni Category:20th-century American women novelists Category:21st-century American women writers Category:Vermont College of Fine Arts faculty Category:American women children's writers Category:20th-century American novelists Category:American women writers of young adult literature Category:Novelists from New York (state) Category:Novelists from Vermont Category:American women academics Category:Deaths from brain cancer in Vermont