She also enjoyed writing, and because of her combination of talent and discipline--Daly adopted a strict writing regime at an early age--she was an award-winning writer by the time she reached age fifteen in 1936, when a story she entered in
Scholastic magazine's short-story contest won third prize. The next year, Daly's English teacher submitted another of her stories to the contest; "Sixteen," a tale about a boy and a girl who meet at a skating rink, was awarded first prize, and since
Scholastic first printed it in 1938 it has been included in over three hundred anthologies and published in twelve different languages. The story is also in Daly's collection
Sixteen and Other Stories. "Even now, when I get checks from the reprint of 'Sixteen,' it's like seeing an old friend from 1938," Daly commented to an interviewer for
Publishers Weekly. In 1938 Daly enrolled at Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois. Coming home after her freshman year, she announced that she was going to write her first novel. Making an office in the basement of her parent's home, she went to work, and after three years finished Seventeenth Summer.
This is a free page. This page contains 181 words. This
biography contains 2,456 words (approx. 8 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Maureen Daly Access Pass.
