Megan McGrath is an award-winning writer from Minjerribah / North Stradbroke Island in Queensland, Australia. She has written for The New York Times, Overland, Griffith Review, Meanjin and Tracks, among others. Her short story collection, All Hands, is published by Spineless Wonders.

Megan has worked as a bookseller, a literary festival producer, a literary awards manager, a children's book publisher, and in international print production. After working with books for two decades, Megan is the Director of a construction-solutions company, in Meanjin / Brisbane. (She still reads 100+ books each year).

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What it means to say yes

Short fiction

Published in Overland

Issue 248

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All Hands

Short Story Collection

Finalist for the Carmel Bird Literature Award

Published by Spineless Wonders

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Reflecting Light

Novella

Winner of the Varuna Fellowship

Published in Griffith Review 74: Escape Routes

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Brother Bird | Fins | The Cape

Surf Fiction

Published in Tracks Magazine

Issue 534

Issue 538

Issue 546

The Lunar Coast

Short Story

Winner of the State Library of Queensland Young Writers Award

Published in Griffith Review 28: Still the Lucky Country?

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Wreckage

Short Story

Finalist for the Tasmanian Writers Prize

Published by Forty South in the Tasmanian Writers Prize Short Story Anthology

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Awards & Residencies

  • Finalist for the Tasmanian Writers Prize (2026) for ‘Wreckage’

  • Awarded the Kill Your Darlings (KYD) Fiction Mentorship (2023)

  • Winner of the Griffith Review Varuna Fellowship Residency (2020)

  • Finalist in the joanne burns award (2020) for 'Babe'

  • Finalist in the Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award (2019) for 'All Hands: collected stories'

  • Winner of the Fellowship of Australian Writers Alice Sinclair Award (2016) for ‘Tell-tale’

  • Winner of the Queensland Literary Awards – Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award (2015)

  • Winner of the Griffith Review Novella Project II (2014) for ‘Whale station’

  • Winner of AusLit Short Story Competition (2011) for ‘Farewell, the Sea’

  • Finalist for the Katharine Susannah Prichard Young Writer-in-Residence Program (2010)

  • Winner of the State Library of Queensland Young Writers Award (2009) for ‘The lunar coast’

  • Winner of the State Library of Queensland Young Writers Award: Maureen Donahoe Prize (2007) for ‘Fuel for Loneliness’

  • Highly Commended for the State Library of Queensland Young Writers Award (2006) for ‘NSI’.