Sheila MacAvoy

The author, reading an excerpt from her story "In the Valley of the Trinity" to the Historical Novel Society, London 2006

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Biography


Sheila MacAvoy grew up in New York City and attended local parochial schools before matriculating at CUNY Queens College where she earned her B.A. in Art. While at school, she became interested in the work of Robert Lowell and began writing and publishing poetry. Short fiction followed soon after.

Marriage and three children temp­orarily intervened, but, when her children were old enough, Ms. MacAvoy gained admission to St. John's University School of Law and was awarded her J.D. in 1976. The same year, she came with her family to California and, after admission to the State Bar, worked as a lawyer in a large corporation in Los Angeles. Evenings and weekends were reserved for writing until 1995 when she retired from the practice of law to write full time.

Her work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Writers' Forum, Chiron Review, Red Rock Review, Northern Review, RiverSedge, Eclectica, The Monarch Review, and Peregrine, among other journals. She is included in several anthologies: "The Next Parish Over," published by New Rivers Press; "Scrap Magic," published by FISH in County Cork, Ireland (Editor's Choice); "All The King's Horses," published By FISH in conjunction with the Historical Novel Society of Cambridge, England (prize winner). She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2004 for her story, "Finisterre."

Sheila MacAvoy lives with her hus­band, Robert Block, in the beautiful seaside town of Santa Barbara in California.