Nan Hunt

Nan Hunt (1918–2015) was an Australian children's writer who also wrote as N. L. Ray. She was a two-time winner of the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature.

Life and career Nancy Louise Ray was born on 16 September 1918 and grew up in Bathurst, New South Wales. she contributed stories to her school newspaper From 1935 to 1943 she did office work in a Bathurst department store. In 1943, she enlisted in the WAAF and served in Melbourne in clerical roles until 1946, when she moved to Sydney, where she worked as a secretary until her marriage to Walter Gibbs Hunt in 1968.

She contributed to the NSW School Magazine from 1963 and was encouraged by its editor, Patricia Wrightson, to write a novel, the first of many.

Selected works

As Nan Hunt

Whistle Up the Chimney, illustrated by Craig Smith (1981) A Rabbit Named Harris, illustrated by Betina Ogden (1987) Never Tomorrow (1989)

The Dove Tree, illustrated by Alison Kubbos (1991)

As N. L. Ray

There Was This Man Running... (1979) Nightmare to Nowhere (1980)

Death and legacy Hunt died in Bathurst, New South Wales on 4 October 2015. She was predeceased by her husband in 1975.