MAUREEN McCARTHY

Author

Maureen McCarthy, the ninth of ten children was born in country Victoria. She has worked as a teacher in Victorian Secondary Schools and has also written scripts for television and educational films. She researched and wrote the SBS series "In Between" and later revamped the scripts as separate novellas. This series, researched in various Melbourne suburbs , concerns teenagers from different cultural backgrounds. "In between" won the prestigious AFI award for scriptwriting in 1987 and the book has recently been rereleased by Penguin.

Maureen has taught writing to adults and adolescents while pursuing her own writing career. Her first novel "Ganglands" Penguin 1992 focuses on the llives of a group of 17 to 19 year olds and is set around inner suburban Melbourne. A moving "first-love" story it also explores the diferent cultural values of Greek and Australian families.

Her powerful second novel "Cross My Heart" is a hard hitting but optimistic book about two young people struggling to survive and escaping the pressures of small town life.

Maureen’s third novel :"QueenKat, Carmel and St Jude Get A Life" was critically acclaimed and also made into a successful television miniseries. It has been popular with a wide teenage and adult audience. This book was shortlisted for both the 1996 Victorian and NSW Premiers’s Awards.

"Chain of Hearts" is her most recent novel and the story alternates between a 17year old girl and her personal turmoil and her 48 year old aunt who is going through her own self questioning. As the two develop a close bond ,an interesting picture emerges of the differences and similarities of being a teenager in the late Sixties and the late Ninties.

Maureen has said of her subject matter : "I am interested in the emerging adult from sixteen to the early twenties — the wild time when relationships are shifting, sexual identity is fiercely sought and life is imbued with conflicting desires and emotions."

Based on her work as both author and scriptwriter, Maureen can do a combination of talks and workshops. Her novels appeal to upper secondary students and adults.