About Maria
Maria McCarthy started her career at the age of 12, selling charity bingo cards for Kidney Research door to door (‘Kidney bingo?’), and moved on through Woolworth’s, International Stores (University of Life) to Thames Polytechnic (now University of Greenwich). Through involvement as a volunteer in her local community as a young mother, she later became a paid worker for community groups, culminating in managing a mental health charity in the Medway Towns.
Illness ended one career, and gave birth to another. Medwaymaria the writer emerged with the new millennium. Encouraged by early success in a National Poetry Day competition, she went on to win a short story competition, which paid half her fees towards a creative writing certificate course. Five years later, she gained an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Kent.
Maria enjoys performing her work, and has arranged two themed events at Medway libraries featuring her own work and that of other Medway writers and musicians. She has also taken part in events at the University of Kent, at the Medway Fringe Festival 2006, and at Foyles Bookshop in London. She is currently working on a collection of short stories As long as it takes, about first and second-generation Irish women living in England. She hopes to find a publisher for this.
Contact
