Marjorie Flack

Who was Marjorie Flack?

Marjorie Flack was an award-winning artist and writer of children's picture books. Flack was born in Greenport, Long Island, New York in 1897. She was best known for The Story about Ping, popularized by Captain Kangaroo, and for her stories of an insatiably curious Scottish terrier named Angus, who was actually her dog. Her first marriage was to artist Karl Larsson; she later married poet William Rose Benet.

Her book Angus Lost was featured prominently in the movie Ask the Dust, starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek, in which Farrell's character teaches Hayek's character, a Mexican, to read English using Flack's book.

Marjorie Flack's grandson, Tim Barnum, and his wife, Darlene Enix-Barnum, currently sponsor an annual creative writing award at Anne Arundel Community College. The award, called The Marjorie Flack Award for Fiction, consists of a $250 prize for the best short story or children's storybook written by a current AACC student.