Author of the Week - Daisy Ashford

I'm not entirely sure where the line is drawn for child prodigies, but Daisy Ashford was considered just that. Born 1881 in Pertersham, Surrey; Daisy wrote her first story at the tender age of four called The Life of Father McSwiney. She dedicated it to her father. Eventually it was published in 1983. At nine her first book, The Young Visiters, was published. Despite numerous grammatical and spelling errors, the published the story in its original form. Audiences loved it. The book was such a success that within a year another book featuring Daisy's short stories was published. Daisy stopped writing as a teen, later working as a secretary and in a canteen during World War I. Later in life Daisy wrote several other stories, a play, A Woman's Crime, and one other short novel, The Hangman's Daughter, which she considered to be her best work. Daisy quit writing the last decade of her life, although she did begin an autobiography that she quickly destroyed. Daisy's name was sometimes used as a way to criticize adult authors in the 1920's. Surely, if a nine-year-old could write such good fiction, an adult could do better.

I believe many children have this kind of potential to create amazing stories. Perhaps Daisy was a prodigy or perhaps she was doing what children do best, playing.