Margaret Packham Hargrave

Margaret Packham Hargrave (born Margaret Ruth Packham, 1941) is an Australian poet and writer. She is the author of two novels, Jake's Luck and A Woman of Air (1996), winner of the inaugural Elle/Random House Fiction Prize. Her early career was as a nursing academic and then as a secondary English teacher.

Life and career Margaret Packham Hargrave was born as Margaret Ruth Packham on 8 November 1941 and grew up in the Sydney suburb of Auburn, Beverly Hills, and Jannali. Subsequently, she completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English and Psychology, and Master of Letters in Middle English/Chaucer at the University of New England and a Diploma of Education at Mitchell College. She had an early career as a nurse from March 1964 to June 1967, including as a lecturer in Nursing Studies, publishing a research paper, "Literature in the Nursing Course", in The Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing (1985).