Margot McCuaig

I’m a novelist and an award-winning documentary filmmaker. I have a PhD in Film and Media from the University of Stirling.

My debut novel, The Birds That Never Flew, was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize in 2012 and longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2014. In the bleak and impersonal Glasgow housing office Elizabeth meets the provocatively intriguing drug addict Sadie, who is desperate to get her own life back on track. The two women forge a fierce and interdependent relationship as they try to rebuild their shattered lives, but despite their bold, and sometimes illegal attempts it seems impossible to escape from the abuse they have always known, and tragedy strikes.

Almost Then, published by Linen Press in 2021 is a compelling story about roots, belonging and kinship set against the powerful backdrop of two houses in Kintyre. When twins, Rathlin and Breacán Doherty, approach their twenty-seventh birthday, they come together after a long time apart to fight for their beloved Ballynoe, a house that is rich in folklore and which holds the ghosts of their parents. They slowly reveal their own secrets and uncover family lies that are shocking, far-reaching and tragic in their consequences.