Mary McClarey - Creating a Novel Using One’s Own Life Experiences
Saturday 15th October, 2022
15.00 – 16.00 Talk 5: Mary McClarey
'Creating a Novel Using One’s Own Life Experiences'
Having published three novels, Mary will be sharing her experiences and will focus on how uncovering details of her own family history gave her material to use within her books. This will be a relaxed and approachable session,. Mary's books will be available and she will share both her creative writing process as well as the opportunities and challenges of self publishing.
There will be information and resources available from both the Alliance of Independent Authors, of which she is a member and from Matador, the self publishing company that she uses.
Mary McClarey is the author of three novels ‘Long Road, Many Turnings’, ‘Time for a Change’ and ‘Another Mother’s Child’.
Her books are family saga/historical fiction genre and have a strong Irish immigrant flavour.
She was brought up in Northern Ireland, the eldest of nine children, and she led an adventurous, if somewhat unusual, childhood on a small farm, miles from the nearest bus stop.
She was a student nurse in Belfast, in 1968, where the civil rights marches and “The Troubles” formed, the backdrop to her life and work.
As a young woman, she became adept at dodging bullets and any form of authority. She has used many of her experiences as nurse, midwife and health visitor in London, Jersey, Belfast, Derry, Oxford and Plymouth to enrich her work.
She hopes to convey a sense of ordinary people living in extraordinary times without taking themselves too seriously.