Fonds F0171 - Monica Hughes fonds.

Monica Hughes OC (November 3, 1925 – March 7, 2003) was an English-Canadian author of books for children and young adults, especially science fiction. She also wrote adventure and historical novels set in Canada, and the text for some children's picture books. She may be known best for the Isis trilogy of young-adult science fiction novels (1980–1982).

Born in Liverpool, England, on November 3, 1925, her early educational experiences encouraged her to write and join essay-writing competitions. Hughes attended Edinburgh University from 1942 to 1943. While in school, Hughes' academic studies were interrupted as a result of World War II. She joined the Military service, the Women's Royal Naval Service, from the years 1943–1946, cracking German codes.

Before becoming a writer, Hughes had many other careers. She was a dress designer in London, England, and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe between the years 1948–1949. She was also a bank clerk in 1951 and a laboratory technician from 1952 to 1957.

After returning from the war, Hughes went back to school to study Meteorology. Arriving in Canada in 1952, she married Glen Hughes on April 22, 1957, and together they had 4 children.

Hughes wrote about 40 books including more than 20 speculative fiction novels. Although she spent a large part of her life writing, she was almost fifty when her first book, Gold-Fever Trail: A Klondike Adventure, a Canadian historical novel, was published.

Her popular Isis trilogy comprises The Keeper of the Isis Light and two sequels, originally published by Hamish Hamilton of London, from 1980 to 1982. Upon accepting the Phoenix Award for Keeper twenty years later, Hughes discussed her writing process in general and specifically for that work. WorldCat reports that Invitation to the Game (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1990) is her work most widely held in participating libraries, by a wide margin. It is a dystopian novel set on Earth in year 2154. Her last book was The Maze (2002). It features a female protagonist and two bullies magically placed in a maze, where they all depend on her for rescue.

Monica Hughes died in Edmonton, Alberta, on March 7, 2003.

Biographical information available in The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, 2nd ed., p. 555-556; and Something About the Author: Autobiography Series, v. 11, p. 149-162.