About

MG Harris in Becan, Campeche, Mexico

Hi, I’m MG (Maria Guadalupe) Harris, the author of this website and also of the best-selling ‘Joshua Files’ series of children’s adventure books.

In ‘The Joshua Files’ the hero, a British teenager, discovers that he is linked to an ancient secret society which has been set up to protect the world from a global catastrophe in 2012, predicted by the Mayans.

As a children’s author I often visit young readers in schools, libraries and literary festivals. Once when I was visiting a school, a young person asked me if I believed that the world would end in December 2012. I chuckled and said “Of course not - it’s just a date, like the year 2000. But it makes for an interesting story.”

Later the librarian told me quietly “I’m so glad you said that!” Turns out that the youngster had seen me talk in her primary school the previous year, and had suffered nightmares worrying that the so-called ‘2012 prophecy’ might come true. So she’d been relieved to hear from my own lips that I didn’t take the idea seriously, that it was just the premise for a fun adventure story.

I don’t want to give young readers nightmares…not until I write a horror story, at least! I DO want readers to know where the idea of a ‘2012 prophecy’ comes from though. I also want to interest readers in the study of ancient cultures.

So I’ve set up this little site as a starting point for readers who want to know more about 2012.

I live in Oxford, UK, but was born in Mexico. During my teenage years I spent summers visiting Mayan ruins and developed a fascination for the ancient cultures of Mexico. British universities didn’t offer many opportunities to study Mesoamerican cultures, so instead I studied biochemistry. I never forgot my fascination for those jungle-infested pyramids, lost civilisations and mysterious hieroglyphs.

My credentials for writing about the Maya?  I’m not a Mayanist but I do have a doctorate (molecular biology) from the University of Oxford  so I know how to research, how to decide whether to trust information or not.

Most of what is written here comes from my own reading about the Maya in books by Michael D. Coe, a highly respected Mayanist, and others. I’ve also used Wikipedia and the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies Inc. I also like to peek in at Professor David Stuart’s Decipherment blog.

If you’d like to find out more about the Maya, I’ve compiled a short list of  select references.