By Nell Geraets
Australian author John Marsden was much more than an award-winning writer – he was “an exemplary educational entrepreneur, a lover of literature and linguistics, a wilderness warrior, and a Coke Zero connoisseur”.
Comedian, former ABC radio host and Marsden’s “resident stalker” Sammy J made the comment as he paid tribute to the late novelist at a memorial service at Melbourne Town Hall on Monday following Marsden’s death in December aged 74.
At least the first four rows were occupied by school students and teachers – evidence of Marsden’s lasting impact as an educator and mentor. The rest were filled by friends, family, fellow authors, and a countless number of fans, some of whom wiped away tears as they reflected on the author’s legacy.
Marsden sold more than 5 million books, including the seven-book young adult fiction Tomorrow series, which was adapted into a film and a TV show.
But on listening to each person pay tribute to him on-stage – from his stepsons to other authors – his true life’s work quickly became apparent: lifting young people to their full potential.
“His great skill was talking to young people, no matter what age, as if they were equals,” former student Charlotte Austin, who inspired the protagonist of the Tomorrow series, told this masthead. “He had a huge belief in them. When everyone else in society was decrying teenagers as being hopeless, he gave them positions of responsibility in his books, positions of power. He gave them autonomy because he believed that we could do it.”
John Marsden found fame through his books, but his true legacy lies in how he lifted young people to their full potential.Credit: Michael Copp
He similarly advocated for young, new authors. Speaking before the memorial, award-winning author Alice Pung said she met Marsden at a writers’ festival, where he immediately took her under his wing.
“He would collect friends along the way at writers’ festivals through being kind – Jackie French, myself, Isobelle Carmody,” said Pung, who wrote a book about Marsden in 2017.
“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.”
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.