Hello, I'm Margot.
I grew up in a village where the sea took a little more of the cliff every winter, and I've been writing about what it leaves behind ever since.
I'm the author of three novels and a collection of short stories, including A Lantern for the Drowned, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and translated into eighteen languages. My books have been described as "weather-beaten and tender," which is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me.
Before writing full time I worked as a bookseller, a lighthouse tour guide and, briefly and disastrously, a fishmonger. I now live on the Northumberland coast with my partner, two children and a deeply opinionated lurcher called Biscuit.
A life in chapters
- 2011
First story in print
"The Key Collector" is published in Granta's New Voices issue after eleven rejections.
- 2017
Small Hours
My debut collection of twelve stories, written almost entirely between midnight and 4am.
- 2019
Where the Tide Keeps Secrets
My first novel becomes a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and a surprise bestseller.
- 2022
A Lantern for the Drowned
Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award, with film rights optioned by Northlight Pictures.
- 2025
The Salt Orchard
My third novel, and the one I've wanted to write since I was twelve.
A few things about me
I write by hand first
Every first draft lives in cheap blue notebooks. I've filled 61 of them so far.
I swim in the North Sea
Year-round, at dawn. It's the best cure for writer's block I've ever found.
Currently reading
The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald, for the fourth time, and finding something new again.