Margot Douaihy

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Agent: Laura Macdougall

Laura Macdougall

LMacdougall@unitedagents.co.uk

Assistant: Eleanor Horn

ehorn@unitedagents.co.uk

Books

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Margot Douaihy, PhD, is the author of Bandit/Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr, Scranton Lace, and Girls Like You (Clemson University Press). Her writing has been featured in Colorado Review, Diode, Florida Review, North American Review, PBS NewsHour, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Portland Review, Wisconsin Review, ONE ART, and elsewhere. She serves as a Section Editor of Journal of Creative Writing Studies (RIT ScholarWorks). Currently, Dr. Douaihy teaches Creative Writing at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, NH, where she also serves as the Editor of the Northern New England Review literary journal. Her honors include: Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award Finalist (2021), Ernest Hemingway Foundation Hemingway Shorts Finalist (2021), Madville Publishing Blue Moon Prize for the Novel Finalist (2021), Sunspot Lit Geminga Fiction Contest Finalist (2021), Novel Slices Prize Finalist (2021), Palette Poetry Sappho Prize Finalist (2020), UNO Publishing Lab Novel Prize Semifinalist (2020), Red Hen Press Quill Prose Award Finalist (2019), C&R Press Best Novel Award Longlist (2018), Lambda Literary Award Poetry Finalist (2015), and the First Book Foundation of Greater New Orleans Grant Winner (2009). A founding member of the Creative Writing Studies Organization, Margot Douaihy is an active member of the Radius of Arab American Writers.

Current publication:

BLESSED WATER: A Sister Holiday Mystery - Zando Books (US) and Puskin Press (UK) - 12th March 2024

Tattooed from her neck to her toesand sporting a gold tooth as sharp as her wisecracks, Sister Holiday struggles to stay on the righteous path. Never one to make things easy for herself, she’s committed to taking her permanent vows with the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and joining former fire inspector Magnolia Riveaux’s latest venture, Redemption Detective Agency—both in service of satisfying her eternal quest for answers.

When Sister Holiday and Riveaux set out to bust a philandering husband, they instead find the body of a priest floating in the swollen Mississippi River, and with it, Redemption’s next case. It’s significantly more gruesome than their original mission, but Sister Holiday feels called on by God to hunt down the murderer and keep her community safe.

As a torrential rainstorm drowns New Orleans for three harrowing days over Easter weekend, Sister Holiday and Riveaux follow the clues. With the stakes rising alongside the relentless floodwaters, our favorite punk nun-sleuth throws herself into the deep end yet again.

A lacerating and lyrical plunge into obsession, deception, and the questions that hold us captive, Blessed Water is a lights-out mystery that will leave you breathless.

Praise:

"Margot Douaihy follows up an extraordinary debut with an even more exceptional sophomore novel! She combines a poet's soul and an artist's eye with a powerful and strong authorial voice to create layered, complex characters involved in a story so well paced you cannot put it down. I am already hungry for her next book!" –G reg Herren, Lambda-winning author of Murder in the Rue Chartres, Drop Dead, and the Scotty Bradley series

“Douaihy follows up Scorched Grace with another deliriously enjoyable, relentlessly plotted adventure for chain-smoking ‘punk nun’ . . . Douaihy is more concerned with Sister Holiday’s faith in this entry (a key subplot involves her preparing to take her final vows), but there’s still plenty of local color and high-stakes action to keep fans of the first book on board, and the mystery itself is even more gripping this time out. This series continues to impress.” - Publisher's Weekly

“Beautifully constructed with writing like a fine razor, Blessed Water bathed me in the mysteries of faith. Sister Holiday is slowly healing my deep religious trauma, one page at a time. As much as I loved Scorched Grace, the quick pace and increased character development in Blessed Water made this book even better than the first. I didn’t want to put this book down and ended up powering through it in less than 48 hours. I’m so glad this series found a home with Gillian Flynn’s imprint. She’s the godmother of twists you never see coming.” –Renee Powers, Feminist Book Club

'A picaresque yet powerful tale that plumbs the depths of human cruelty' - The Times

'You might think a mystery about an inked-up lesbian Punk musician-turned-nun is a little far-fetched; but New Orleans, the setting of the Sister Holiday series, is the city of far-fetched phenomenon, both sacred and profane. Margot Douaihy’s second book in this queer cozy series is called Blessed Water and it finds the 34-year-old Sister Holiday up to her neck in murky flood waters and priests with secrets. Douaihy’s writing style — pure hard-boiled Patti Smith -- contains all the contradictions that torment Sister Holiday in her bumpy journey of faith." - NPR Summer Pick

'With her first two novels, Margot Douaihy has created one of the most memorable characters in contemporary crime fiction. In Scorched Grace and Blessed Water, her tattooed, punk rock nun/private investigator, Sister Holiday, solves crimes while following her vocation in the troubled, magnolia-scented streets of New Orleans. One of the things I love most about her novels is the way they draw on the tropes of classic crime fiction while creating something that is inarguably new.' - CrimeReads

Previous Publication

SCORCHED GRACE: A Sister Holiday Mystery - Zando Books (US) and Pushkin Press (UK) - 2023

Indie Next Pick
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and New York Times 'Best Crime Books of the Year' 2023
One of Apple's Best Books of 2023
Boston Magazine’s Best Author of 2023
An Amazon Editors’ Pick for Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Indie Bestseller (St. Louis, Boswell)
2023 New England Book Award Finalist

Winner of the 2023 New Orleans Pinckley Prize for Crime Fiction (Debut Novel)

Praise:

"Within five pages, I was in love with this novel. It is so much more than a mystery (which is my favorite kind of mystery), it’s an exploration of faith, love, and the worthy struggle to be a better human. I just loved it!" –Gillian Flynn, bestselling author of Gone Girl

'One chapter into Margot Douaihy’s Scorched Grace and you’ll be ready to follow Sister Holiday wherever her instincts take her. Vibrant, crackling and deliciously insubordinate, it’s a mystery full of trapdoors and surprises but with a keen emotional force that leaves you shaken, hooked.' - Megan Abbott

“Margot Douaihy’s bold entry into the hardboiled genre revitalizes it for our times. Skillfully plotted, propulsive, and deeply engaged with the communities it represents, Scorched Grace is one of the best crime fiction debuts I’ve come across in a long while.” – Don Winslow, #1 internationally bestselling author of The Power of the Dog and City on Fire

"I inhaled this book. Sister Holiday drew me in with attitude and world-wisdom that, as she herself says, holds a kind of grace; meanwhile the hot, gnarly, beautiful world of New Orleans and all the edgy, intimate characters of the convent, school and investigation (and, of course, the series of deadly arson attacks that drive Holiday and the book), had me turning the pages. Margot Douaihy gives Sister Holiday a sharp tongue and a body blessed by ink, and in this story Douaihy’s writing is the fuel, the spark, the oxygen. It is the fire and the ashes." –Elizabeth K Reeder, MacDowell Fellow, author of Archive of Happiness and Ramshackle

"Harrowing and gorgeously written, with an unforgettable protagonist—Sister Holiday, “the first punk nun”—Margot Douaihy’s Scorched Grace takes readers on a searing journey through faith, fire, and female rage. A brilliant debut mystery."—Elizabeth Hand, author of Hokuloa Road and Generation Loss

“Fearless, ebullient, and twisty as hell, SCORCHED GRACE remixes the crime novel for our current age, and debuts a magnetic noir heroine, whose brash wit and profound soulfulness command our instant and utter devotion.” —Debra Jo Immergut, author of YOU AGAIN and THE CAPTIVES

“The twisty plot, gorgeous language, and the renegade nun as a main character bring this novel into its own category. One often thinks of the amateur sleuth as belonging in cozy mysteries. This is not that. Scorched Grace is a novel both exciting and profound. The crisp pacing keeps things moving briskly forward while the writing takes you deep. I can’t ask for more than that.” - Lambda Literary

“It is a story about love and faith and despair, and Margot Douaihy has created an instantly memorable character – edgy, headstrong, hardboiled, deeply flawed, darkly funny, with a voice that crackles and burns with passion and wit. Sister Holiday may not know where she’s headed, but you’ll follow her anywhere.” - BookTrib

'Douaihy brings the sights, sounds and smells of New Orleans alive, with twists and turns aplenty'' - Marie Claire

'[A] striking debut... Sister Holiday becomes ever more determined to discover who is targeting the order and its school, and turns to her knowledge from her former life, becoming a modern-day Marlowe in the process' - Daily Mail

‘[Sister Holiday] is a terrific character’ - Literary Review

'Margot Douaihy has written a provocative and hugely entertaining mystery, the first of a series, in which the soupy atmosphere of the Big Sleazy is almost a character in itself. Fans of dark academia and neon-noir are guaranteed to get the Holiday feeling. Her second coming can’t come too soon' - Mark Sanderson, The Times

'If you’re looking for a queer edgy Agatha Christie-type read, then this is one for you' - Gay Times

“Not a translation, but a noteworthy entry . . . Douaihy offers a new take on the figure of the hard-boiled detective.” - Esquire Middle Eas

“Margot Douaihy’s chain-smoking nun Sister Holiday may be the most original character you’ll come across for quite some time. Douaihy wanted to reclaim pulp tropes for a female protagonist, and I have to say, Sister Holiday is punk AF.” - CrimeRead

“If you’re not sold by a punk rock nun solving mysteries then can your soul even be saved?” - Electric Lit

“The author of Gone Girl and Smart Objects, Gillian Flynn, has a new publishing imprint. This is the first book on the release slate, and we’re loving it. It’s a series starter about a queer, chain smoking, profane nun who solves crimes. Think Bad Santa pushes both Sister Boniface and Father Brown out a sixth floor window.” —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor

“The rough, sarcastic, first-person voice of Scorched Grace seizes the reader in a headlock from the first page. Throughout Sister Holiday’s obsessive search for the fire-starter, her narration takes its solid place in the lineage of classic, hard-boiled detectives filled with both self-effacing cynicism and dogged purpose.” - Alfred Hitchcock Literary Magazine

Previous publications:

SCRANTON LACE - Clemson University Press - 20 Feb 2018

Praise:

'Combines tremendous lyric gifts - dense, nervy music, evocative images, an almost classically tragic sense of life's doomed blooming - with a gritty vernacularity that roots these poems in the rusted factory life of the title. Often formally playful but always brimming with emotion, using repetition in ways that evoke the ghostly graphics of lace woven through the book, Douaihy sings poetry's repertoire of love, loss, time and trial in keys that are wholly her own.' - Joy Ladin

'A gorgeous meditation on place, on where we come from and what shapes and makes us. [Douaihy] speaks for anyone who's ever been too scared to go 'into the unknown, &... too scared not to.' This book immerses us into the beautiful and broken parts of ourselves in gorgeously-crafted, soul-showing poems.' - Aaron Smith

'Douaihy unpacks an intimate gay American past, layers it like an essay, complicates it with detail, cool, big images, memory, loss and slippages, so that back in the present, we can learn again what difficulty, privacy and history a person is, and how tender, profound and unlikely, our connections can be.' - Jack Underwood

GIRLS LIKE YOU - Clemson University Press - 15 November 2015

Praise:

'Girls Like You is a masterful collection—at turns haunting, hilarious and heartbreaking. Douaihy pulls off a magic trick: by focusing our attention to deeply intimate moments and memories, her gorgeously wrought poems conjure the epic.' - Stephen Karam, 2012 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, author of Sons of the Prophet

'In Girls Like You, Margot Douaihy spins us into the heart of living with a direct, passionate voice:…Even when I’m still, something’s clawing—what’s clawing are these stunning poems, alive with bravery and crisp imagination.' - Jan Beatty, author of The Switching Yard

'Part Sappho, part Sexton, part Bishop and part Akhmatova, Margot Douaihy’s poems have urban sophistication, energy and a conscience.' - Kathryn Maris, author of God Loves You

'With technical virtuosity, Douaihy deftly moves from crystalline free verse, to densely wrought prose poems, to tight forms like the triolet or villanelle. Her speakers are plaintive, seductive, and strident in turn, bearing witness to a young woman’s coming of age on the cusp of the twenty-first century.' - Amy Lemmon, author of Saint Nobody

'5 out of 5 Stars. Girls Like You is not only a refreshing addition to LGBTQ literature, but also a collection that speaks to all who seek introspection.' - The San Francisco Book Review

'Deceptively lighthearted, or whimsically serious—or both, and full of surprises.' - The Columbia Review of Books

'Douaihy’s poems are built, layer upon layer...all with the weaving skill of a spider.' - Grant Clauser

I WOULD RUBY IF I COULD - Factory Hollow Press - February 2013

Margot Douaihy plays with the limits of language in this 'impressively broad' (Philadelphia Stories) chapbook. Reflecting on youthful naiveté as well as American pop culture tropes, i would ruby if i could inhabits the space where alienation and the desire for connection coexist.

Fiction

Publication Details	Notes
Scorced Grace 2023 Zando (US) / Puskin (UK)	Sister Holiday, a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed, queer nun, puts her amateur sleuthing skills to the test in this "unique and confident" debut crime novel (Gillian Flynn). When Saint Sebastian's School becomes the target of a shocking arson spree, the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and their surrounding community are thrust into chaos. Unsatisfied with the officials' response, sardonic and headstrong Sister Holiday becomes determined to unveil the mysterious attacker herself and return her home and sanctuary to its former peace. Her investigation leads down a twisty path of suspicion and secrets in the sticky, oppressive New Orleans heat, turning her against colleagues, students, and even fellow Sisters along the way. Sister Holiday is more faithful than most, but she's no saint. To piece together the clues of this high-stakes mystery, she must first reckon with the sins of her checkered past-and neither task will be easy. An exciting start to Margot Douaihy's bold series for Gillian Flynn Books that breathes new life into the hard-boiled genre, Scorched Grace is a fast-paced and punchy whodunnit that will keep readers guessing until the very end.

Publication Details

Notes

Scorced Grace

2023

Zando (US) / Puskin (UK)

Sister Holiday, a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed, queer nun, puts her amateur sleuthing skills to the test in this "unique and confident" debut crime novel (Gillian Flynn).

When Saint Sebastian's School becomes the target of a shocking arson spree, the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and their surrounding community are thrust into chaos. Unsatisfied with the officials' response, sardonic and headstrong Sister Holiday becomes determined to unveil the mysterious attacker herself and return her home and sanctuary to its former peace. Her investigation leads down a twisty path of suspicion and secrets in the sticky, oppressive New Orleans heat, turning her against colleagues, students, and even fellow Sisters along the way.

Sister Holiday is more faithful than most, but she's no saint. To piece together the clues of this high-stakes mystery, she must first reckon with the sins of her checkered past-and neither task will be easy.

An exciting start to Margot Douaihy's bold series for Gillian Flynn Books that breathes new life into the hard-boiled genre, Scorched Grace is a fast-paced and punchy whodunnit that will keep readers guessing until the very end.

Poetry

Publication Details	Notes
Scranton Lace 2017 Clemson University Press	Mirroring the narrative possibilities of fabric that is both luxury and utility, SCRANTON LACE occupies the space between the real and imagined. Forty-four poems and twenty illustrations interact to explore themes ranging from inter-arts expression to the time/timelessness of derelict spaces to queerness and love. The illustrations by Bri Hermanson incorporate relief prints made from actual lace manufactured in the now-abandoned Scranton Lace factory.
Girls Like You 2015 Clemson University Press	Girls Like You investigates identity and lesbian phenomenology through prismatic forms such as the persona poem, prose poem, triolet, sonnet, and villanelle. The trailer for Girls Like You, created by scratchboard illustrator Bri Hermanson, offers a queer re-imagining of Plato's 'Allegory of the Cave'.
I Would Ruby If I Could 2013 Factory Hollow Press	Margot Douaihy plays with the limits of language in this 'impressively broad' (Philadelphia Stories) chapbook. Reflecting on youthful naiveté as well as American pop culture tropes, i would ruby if i could inhabits the space where alienation and the desire for connection coexist.