Specialisms: 

Literary fiction, flash fiction, short stories, unlikeable women.

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Services offered: 

Three month mentoring. 

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***Please note: Helen only has availability for one mentee.

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About Helen:

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Helen McClory writes flash fiction, short stories, poems and novels. Her debut collection, On the Edges of Vision, won the Saltire First Book of the Year in 2015.

 

Her second collection, Mayhem & Death, came out in 2018. She has appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and crowdfunded a book tour of the East Coast of America, though her top achievement to date may be in writing a collection of microfictions celebrating Jeff Goldblum which received the highest of all praise from a reader on Goodreads as being '10/10 Goldblums'.

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Flesh of the Peach: 

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Blurb: 

An intense journey into and out of rage and grief, via sex and violence, following 27 year-old artist, Sarah Browne and set mostly in the American Southwest. In New York, the ending of Sarah's recent relationship with a married woman has coincided with the death of her estranged, aristocratic mother, leaving her a substantial amount of money and an unrecognised burden of toxic grief. Rather than return home to England, she decides to travel by Greyhound to her mother's cabin in New Mexico. There she's drawn into a passionate relationship with Theo, a man whose quiet stability seems to complement her mercurial character. 

But as Sarah's emotional turmoil grows, there are warning signs that tragedy could ensue. In Flesh of the Peach Scottish First Book of the Year winner, Helen McClory, paints a beautiful and painful portrait of a woman's unravelling, combining exquisite, and at times experimental, prose with a powerful understanding of the effects of unresolved loss. 

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Reviews: 

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'Shiny dark liquorice mind candy: nothing quite like them.' Margaret Atwood

'Enthralling. Dark and dangerous, each of these fabulist, magical stories defy easy description. Helen McClory effortlessly combines the seasoned gravitas of the shaman, the melancholic preoccupation of the poet and the sharp, sensual eye of a cinematographer. This is prose that pulsates, her stories are so visceral you can hear their beating heart. Angela Carter for the millennial generation.' Meena Kandasamy

 

'A story of grief, selfishness, and the lasting damage caused by damaged people.' Amazon review.

'McClory is clearly one of the best new writers to have emerged in Scotland in the last few years.' The Herald

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Read more about Helen's debut Flesh Of The Peach here >>

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More resources: 

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Website: schietree.wordpress.com

Twitter: @HelenMcClory

Listen to Helen on The Riff Raff Podcast