Welcome to my webpages. I'm a writer and I also teach Creative Writing with the Open University and through the Scottish Book Trust. I hope you enjoy browsing.
Recent comments on Carol's work
'You write beautifully.' - Polygon
'Dramatic and tense.' - Jane Rogers
'Very well written.' - Two Ravens Press
'Floats off the page.' - Dom Scripting
Ready Now
Carol is now represented by Edwin Hawkes of the McKernan Literary Agency, to whom all expressions of interest in publishing the following titles should be addressed.
The Incunabulum Notebooks
An adventure story starring a woman who’s past her prime? Sci-fi meets dirty realism? Murder-mystery romance? This 110,000 word utopian-dystopian novel is available to publishers now. To read the extract that was short-listed in the Daily Telegraph’s Novel in a Year competition in 2007 click here.
Walking to Dun Ara
Carol’s short stories have been published in literary magazines in Scotland and beyond. Now gathered for the first time, Macallan short-listed Unrestricted, Mslexia’s Decomposing, Chapman’s Total Obliteration and Ugly Duckling are joined by new stories including Frozen Waste and Ordinary Domestic. In a new slant on short story publishing, accompanying teaching notes make this volume particularly suitable for use by writers’ groups and students of creative writing. 60,000 words of original fiction plus 400 word commentary after each story.
News From the Writer's Room
As I Lay me Down to Sleep
7 August 2008 sees the publication of As I Lay Me Down to
Sleep, a memoir by Eileen Munro, co-written by Carol
McKay.
The book looks at Eileen’s life from birth to sixteen and
it’s an emotionally honest and poignant account. Early
childhood neglect, abuse at the hands of a family friend, being
sole witness when her adoptive mother died from alcohol
asphyxiation – these are all part of Eileen’s story.
The book also follows her teenage years as a disregarded
‘looked-after’ child and her tentative searching for
relationships. Ultimately uplifting, the story ends with Eileen
on the cusp of independent life as the mother of a baby
son.
Much more than a ‘misery memoir’, this book is the
coming-of-age story of an alienated and lonely teenager
who’s desperate to belong. Mainstream Publishing in
Edinburgh bought the story from Eileen and Carol after seeing
only the first few chapters and after Bill Campbell, a Mainstream
MD, was won over by Eileen’s drive and exuberant
personality. By turns up-beat and sorrowful, and beautifully
expressive, this book will propel its readers far out of any
misery lit compassion fatigue.
Launch in the UK will be followed by publication across the USA
and Canada in September 2008. See more
here. Eileen's website is here
