Mandy McCarthy Writer
Mandy McCarthy
Mandy McCarthy is an award-winning writer across many disciplines, including literature, short stories, film and television.
She has written for ABC TV’s medical drama Pulse and spent four years with the ABC’s Scripted Drama and Comedy department.
A graduate of the Faber Writing Academy, she is currently working on her fourth novel, If These Walls Could Talk.
Prior to this Mandy worked in the script departments and writers’ rooms of some of the most critically acclaimed Australian television dramas.
Projects
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If these walls could talk
(Novel)
When Jimmy McCreary’s wife kicks him out over his gambling debts he finds refuge in a crumbling mansion in Kings Cross. As he sets about restoring it to its former glory, he uncovers a palimpsest of those who have lived and loved and laughed and cried within its walls: a Jewish refugee, an Italian boxer, a lonely child. But as the house reveals their stories, Jimmy reveals his own, eventually coming to realise how he hurt the ones he loves the most, and that his is just one story in the colourful history of the house itself.
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Click here to read an excerpt.
Shorn
(Novel)
Outback NSW, 1983: a young woman flees an abusive relationship, falling in with a group of itinerant Maori shearers, picking up the shears and finding love during what will become one of the most violent, bitterly fought and divisive shearing strikes ever. Based on real events and Mandy's award-winning feature film script.
Click here for excerpt.
From Halfway There, With Love (Short film)
It’s the 1970s and opportunities for women in rural Australia are few and far between. But every Sunday into 18-year-old Debbie’s roadhouse, and into her life, bursts The Looney. An inmate from the asylum up the road, with a penchant for disco and a penchant for her.
To her colleagues at the roadhouse he’s a joke, and possibly dangerous. But Debbie sees something else. She reckons he looks a little bit like Jesus. But can he save her? Or is redemption off the menu?
This script won the Australian Writers' Guild Monte Miller Award for an unproduced screenplay.
Click here to read.
Awards and nominations
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2017: Nominated for Diversity TV Excellence Award at MIPCOM – Best Representation of LGBTQ, Scripted, for Episode 6 of Pulse.
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2016: Nominated for an Australian Writers’ Guild Monte Miller Award (Long Form) for an unproduced screenplay, The Long, Wide Blow.
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2015: One of eight participants worldwide to take part in the eQuinoxetbc international script mentoring workshop for feature film script, The Long, Wide Blow.
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2015: Winner – Drama Category – Table Ready My Screenplay, Austin for The Long, Wide Blow.
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2010: Winner, Australian Writers’ Guild Monte Miller Award (Short Form) for an unproduced screenplay, From Halfway There, With Love.
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1994: Runner-up, National Australian Short Story Competition (ANU) for Bruce Bloom Responds.
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