Cara Finegan is a Northern Irish LGBTQ writer from Newry, right on the Irish border. She graduated with a B.Ed Hons degree in English and Drama in 1995 and has been a Primary School teacher ever since. She tries to surround myself with as many wonderfully wicked women as she possibly can. These women manage to keep her sane.
She has authored stories and poems from a young age. However, she did put her writing on hold for several years to follow one of her dreams – becoming a burlesque performer. She opened a dance studio and still has her own Burlesque dance troupe. After a few detouring years in dance, she decided to spend more time on her writing. She has had short stories published in online magazines eg Cafe Lit, Aesthetica and Influenza. Her debut novel ‘Don’t Call Me Baby’ was shortlisted in 2023 for the Novel London Prize. Her novel LIE DOWN WITH DOGS won the Page Turner Awards in 2024 it is currently out for submission.
At the minute she is working on her seventh domestic noir novel ’I See Her Now’. Cara is a lover of female led psychological thrillers, so her stories tend to have dark undercurrents with strong female leads, usually LGBTQ as she finds queer relationships are rarely represented in commercial thriller or crime fiction.
Her female characters come out on top and rarely end up the real ‘victims’. She enjoys reading dystopian themed novels like those of Margaret Atwood and Louise Erdrich (She like scaring the life clean out of herself). Jade Sharma has had a huge impact on her life and on her writing. Her unapologetic way of writing and talking about things that are uncomfortable, real and impactful for women gave Cara the courage to do the same.