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 and several events at Teynham and Faversham libraries, featuring her own work and that of other local 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 the winner of the Save As Writers' Prose Award, 2009, and recipient of a Swale Arts Bursary, 2010. 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.
What people say about Maria's writing:
'We are really pleased to publish "Our Father" in issue 8 [of 14 Magazine]. As well as being clever, it is also an intelligent and moving poem...Your work is always a welcome read, so we hope to hear from again in the future...'
Mike Loveday, editor, 14 magazine.
'This is a well-made and thoughtful collection of linked short stories on the theme of Irish migration. The stories are subtle and sophisticated, the characters well drawn and the world they occupy made vivid for the reader. Miss McCarthy handles the emotional and moving material very well, these are never mawkish or sentimental stories and the larger themes the stories inevitably touch on are implied and suggested rather than addressed directly. The writing overall is of a high standard and I can well imagine that these stories might form the basis of a published collection in due course.'
Stewart Brown (external examiner, MA in Creative Writing, on four stories from Maria's collection As Long As it Takes)
'1st Prize
And I’ve given first place to ‘Cold Salt Water’ for its stunning rendering of voice. From the first words, as a young man ‘comes in with his shirt splattered with blood’, the author of this piece grabs us with economic and yet effective dialogue: ‘”Honest to God, Kieran.”’ Kieran’s response to his mother captures the relationship aptly: “Don’t fuss, Mum,” he says like it’s nothing to walk in your house with you nose spread across your face.’ Depicting Anglo-Irish relations, this is a deceptively simple story, offering an account of a family struggling to cope with identity and difference through the eyes of a mother. The central image of a blood-stained shirt soaking in cold salt water haunts the story, and as the narrator ‘push[es] it down so it’s covered’, we’re reminded of the ways in which historical, cultural and domestic violence is often pushed down, again and again, until it’s covered. It’s a quietly shocking story, beautifully written with a powerful voice, and thoroughly deserves to win this competition.'
'Dear Maria
It was very thoughtful of you to send me your
pamphlets. I have read many of the poems in 'nothing but', and look
forward to 'Learning to be English'. I certainly do remember July
1969 - it was so sharp and moving. In fact so many of your poems are
sharp and moving, richly
suggestive with evocative details. I
alighted on 'Flowerpot' in 'Learning to be English' - a very
surprising, quietly devasting poem!
... Are you working towards a full-length
collection?
Wishing you all
the best,
Moniza Alvi'
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