Welcome. I hope you will enjoy looking around this site to find out about me and my work. Please feel free to contact me.

I write non-fiction – both full length and articles – fiction and poetry.

I have also enjoyed working on a number of community-based oral history projects and exhibitions for Dumfries and Galloway Women's Forum, Community Learning and Development, Poverty Alliance and the new National Theatre of Scotland's inaugural 'Home' project.  I have also done collaborative work with artist Silvana McLean and sculptor Matt Baker.

My first full length non-fiction work, Before The Taliban: Living with War, Hoping for Peace, provides a unique insight into the lives of Afghan women before and immediately after Taliban's rise to power. For more information and purchasing details click here.  

My novel No More Mulberries, also set in Afghanistan, was published on March 01 2009. Click here for more information.

UPDATE

May 2010: I am adding two of my features (one on Penninghame House near Newton Stewart and one on The Crichton Royal Hospital in Dumfries) which appeared in recent issues of Dumfries & Galloway Life magazine. Both received a great deal of feedback so I thought website visitors might appreciate reading them.

The Dumfries Writers' Group now has its own website, thanks to member Sally Hinchliffe, which is being used to promote Fankle, a new publication containing writing by group members. It is hoped to produce several issues a year and these will be available at various outlets around Dumfries & Galloway and also through the website.

Markings Magazine is celebrating its 30th edition with a magazine which features writers from over 30 countries. I'm delighted my poem Word Connections is being included. This poem was awarded second place in the Scottish Association of Writers (SAW) competition earlier this year.

As always, many thanks to people who have contacted me through my website - from Afghanistan, America and Australia as well as all parts of the Britain. I appreciate and enjoy your comments and queries.  

I finally gritted my teeth and took the plunge so you can also find me on Facebook, too, now.

February 2010: Apologies to regular visitors for not updating my website for so long - put it down to so much happening.

The big news to pass on is that Dumfries & Galloway Life magazine won the Consumer Magazine of the Year category AND the overall Scottish Magazine of the Year award at the annual PPA Scottish Magazine Awards. What is really lovely to know is the judges decided unanimously.

Over the coming months I have a diary of events including talks to University of the Third Age (U3A), book groups and school visits who want to hear about No More Mulberries and/or my life and work in Afghanistan. Do get in touch (if you are within reasonable travelling distance) if your book group or writers’ group would like to book me.

The collaborative project with photographer Phil McMenemy – his pictures/my words – is beginning to make progress with our collaborative project. We’ve had a couple of outings to Hestan Island led by wildlife photographer and ranger Keith Kirk (see Phil’s blog at www.pmcphotography.blogspot.com for details of our first trip). We have now decided on the other areas of Galloway on which we are going to focus and are planning future outings. Now Christmas, New Year and the worst of the winter weather are gone we are enjoying trips to some of Galloway’s special places. Watch this space…

Mary was interviewed by acclaimed journalist Jackie McGlone for a feature about Afghanistan and No More Mulberries which appeared in The Scotsman on Saturday, May 2. You can read the article here.

I was recently interviewed by feature writer Janice Hally on the topic of writers' rituals for online magazine Suite101 You can read the article here. 

New Biography
I have for some time been researching into the life of a woman whose biography I am now writing. She was a remarkable woman – a car manufacturer in the 1920s, a gold and silver medal trials driver and one of the first two women invited to join the Institute of Automobile Engineers. Her achievements were tremendous and her story is a fascinating one.

previous updates