Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire '78MA (born 1954) belonged to one of the first graduating cohorts from Simmons’ Master of Arts in Children’s Literature program. He is perhaps best known for his first adult novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Harper, 1995). This book, which has sold over three million copies in print, retells Frank L. Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz story (1900) and The Wizard of Oz film (1939) from the perspective of its villain, rendering her more sympathetic. Maguire felt compelled to rewrite the legacy of the Wicked Witch of the West, who, as he conveyed to Simmons News, “is the second most evil character in our collective American subconscious.” Wicked became a Broadway musical in 2003, and remains a smashing success. An incredibly versatile author, Maguire has written more than 20 books for children, eight novels for adults, and a selection of short stories.

Wicked’s first Broadway producer, Marc Platt, praised Maguire’s nuanced style in The New York Times: “Part of the genius of Gregory’s idea is taking a character from a beloved story in our culture, about whom we have a very specific point of view, and seeing her in a completely different light. Elphaba [i.e., Maguire’s reimagined Witch] is very much an outsider, and Gregory tapped into that. All of us have had that feeling of being outside and wanting to be in, loved and cared about. It’s a classic underdog story.”

Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Creative Commons. Photo credit: Jeremy Goldstein.