Maria McManus was born in Enniskillen, in the North of Ireland in 1964. She is a poet and playwright. After a 27-year career detour in health and social care she has worked full time as an artist since 2012.
 
‘The Moon. A Plane. A Crow’ was written in October 2014 in homage to Georges Perec. Maria’s poetry collections are We are Bone (Lagan Press 2013), The Cello Suites (Lagan Press 2009), which has been recorded with an original score composed and played by the cellist Tom Hughes. Reading the Dog (Lagan Press 2006) was runner up in the 2007 Strong Awards at the Poetry Now International Festival and was also short-listed for the 2007 Glen Dimplex New Writers Award.
In 2008 & 2012 she was awarded an Arts Council individual artist award. In 2005 she was awarded the inaugural Bedell Scholarship for Literature and World Citizenship, by the Aspen Writers’ Foundation, Colorado USA. In 2008 she co-wrote Bruised for Tinderbox Theatre Company. In 2006/07 she was playwright on attachment to Tinderbox. Previous theatre credits include His n Her’s and Nowhere Harder (2006) for Replay Theatre Company, and The Black-Out Show (2006) for Red Lead Arts. A screenplay adaptation of the sequence Aill na Searrach; The Leap of the Foals, was developed in 2013 with NI Screen. Residencies include, Clones Arts Studio, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Inishlacken Project Connemara, Koldemo Sweden, Antibes, France. The Moon. A Plane. A Crow skrevs 2014 som en hyllning till Georges Perec. Marias diktböckerWe are Bone (Lagan Press 2013), The Cello Suites (Lagan Press 2009) har blivit musiksatta och inspelade av cellisten Tom Hughes. Reading the Dog (Lagan Press 2006) var tvåa i 2007 års Strong Award vid Poetry Now International Festival och blev också nominerad till 2007 års Glen Dimplex New Writers Award.
Residencies som Maria McManus medverkat i: Clones Arts Studio, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Inishlacken Project Connemara, Koldemo Sverige, Antibes, Frankrike.