Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Mcgrath
Hi Sarah, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I began writing as a teenager. I didn’t quite grow up in St. Louis, but I did go to Webster Groves High School, and I recall sitting in my classes, introverted and shy and scared of everything social, writing poems and doodling in all of my notebooks. As a senior, I composed my first novella, and to this day I’m quite proud of it. After high school, I went to the University of Missouri for education. I had a particular interest in teaching middle school and at that time, I wrote for the age I loved. Throughout my late teens and twenties, I wrote something like twenty middle grade and young adult novels.
As I prepared for my teaching career, I simultaneously began seeking publication, believing I had what it took to achieve my dreams of being a published author. After countless rejections, I at last had a book accepted for publication by Boyds Mills Press, an imprint of Highlights Magazines for Kids. I’d been teaching only a year and was thrilled with what I felt was (in my romantic young heart) a step toward fulfilling my destiny. I moved to Chicago, and because I was a soon-to-be-published author, several public schools invited and paid for me to come speak with their students. I loved it! Unfortunately, fast-forward a year, and the publisher dropped my book. I was crushed; not only was I not going to be professionally published, but I felt like I’d cheated all those schools who’d paid me as well as their students, who’d written me countless letters expressing how excited they were to read my book when it came out.
I moved back to St. Louis and began teaching once again, this time at the high school from which I’d graduated. My writing became darker, and I branched into young adult, but ultimately, I stopped writing novels for nearly a decade as I focused on other aspects of my life. I felt as if my dream had slipped through my fingers, and I told myself I wasn’t meant to be an author. I wrote a lot of angsty poetry but otherwise, the motivation and inspiration flatlined.
About four years ago, however, something changed. I attribute it to a combination of aging, the pandemic, and turbulence in my previously-solid teaching career. With age came the wisdom that while I fill many roles in my life, they do not define me; I am a creative at my core. Additionally arrived the broader understanding that my self-worth was not linked to some arbitrary goal I’d made in my teens. The upset caused by the pandemic and my troubles at work pushed me to pay attention to myself, to my own needs, as for so long I’d been caring for others and taken little time to pursue my own passions. Refined perceptions of life and human nature and cosmic indifference led me toward darker topics, and I began writing adult horror.
Since my re-awakening, I’ve written seven horror novels, and I’ve absolutely found my niche. I gave up the time-consuming and fruitless task of trying to find some agent or publisher to believe in me and decided to believe in myself: I created a website and have been promoting and selling my work on my own.
At this point, I’m having so much fun, and I don’t foresee stopping any time soon!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I mentioned my biggest struggle in the previous question, how I lapsed into creative indifference after believing I’d failed. If I focus on my recent path, though, sure, there have been struggles, but writing has actually tended to pull me out of life’s gutters when I feel most downtrodden. When I experienced devaluation at my workplace, when I struggled with illness and poor health, when others have hurt or confused me–I turned to writing to make sense of the world and find my place in it. I struggled with telling myself to give up the search for an agent, and I struggled with relinquishing the dream of traditional publishing. I continue to struggle with balancing how much time and money I want to put into my indie-publishing and promotion, and I struggle with balancing my job and family with my hobby, but all of these struggles pale in comparison to the challenge of overcoming what I felt was certain defeat. Now that I’ve surpassed that barrier and freed myself from the limiting definition of success my former self ascribed to, I’m ready to leap all subsequent hurdles.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I write horror novels; I also write poetry. These are my two favorite genres. In addition, I spend a lot of creative energy producing material (ads, trailers, videos) to promote my work.
As far as my novels, people tend to misunderstand me when I say I write horror. The horror genre is as broad as any other. I find inspiration in mythology and folklore, cosmic forces and the natural world, secrets and unsolved mysteries, the dark corners of the mind, the hidden shames of the human heart, and the occult. I love to layer my works with literary allusion and cryptic meaning; I adore twists and turns; and I cannot always promise a happy ending. In general, I strive to explore what makes us human, what divides us from one another, and what preys upon us.
My poetry is rife with allusion and wordplay. In it, I seek to express the ineffable and pique curiosity.
I tend to rely more on implication and inference than depictions of graphic violence and other content. I am quite proud of my pacing–I’m able to churn out about two full-length novels a year as well as a bunch of poetry. I am also proud of my ability to craft a well-written page turner and the fact that I can edit and proof and prepare and publish my work all on my own.
If I am set apart from others, I’d like to think it’s due to my ingenuity. I do realize all writers tend to think their stories are unique, and I am no exception. Since I forge my own path, however, I do not have to rely on what might sell. I can make my work as literary or commercial as I wish, as weird or genre-bending as I desire. I can combine poetry with alternating timelines with time loops with Biblical passages or whatever else I want and get away with it, because I answer only to me . . . and I love that!
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I grew up a US Air Force brat. My family moved every year or two before finally arriving in St. Louis, and we lived in Germany, Colorado (twice), Canada, and Turkey. I traveled a ton, and that absolutely shaped my world view. The ability to see new and exotic places and meet all sorts of people instilled in me a love of change, diversity, and learning. Conversely, moving so often kept me from making any long-term friends. While I was a social enough child, I never developed lasting relationships with peers.
In spite of having five sisters, I was never particularly “girly.” I loved animals and remember digging in creeks, catching tadpoles, trapping bugs, building tree forts, and biking everywhere. I remember late-night games of man-hunt and capture the flag. I had a theatrical side and enjoyed writing and performing plays with my siblings. As I grew into middle school, my interests in reading expanded. I was obsessed with Grimm’s Fairytales and The Chronicles of Prydain. I loved everything mystical and magical.
Once I entered eighth grade, however, things changed. Coming to St Louis from Turkey, I ended up in a small private school, and most of the girls there were, for lack of a better phrase, absolute mean girls. I was ridiculed for all manner of things from the way I wore my socks to the manner I posed my hand on my desk to the fact I hadn’t begun my period, and because of that year, I turned inward. I entered high school afraid of everyone, paranoid that I was being judged by every eye. As the years passed, I grew less anxious, and yet I am happy for all of my experiences, including those difficult adolescent years, because they led me to seek solace and stories within. I’m not sure I would’ve begun writing had I not needed the outlet.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sqmcgrath.com
- Instagram: @s.q.mcgrath
- Facebook: @s.q.mcgrath
