Margaret McQuade McAuslan was born in 1953 in the Calton district of Glasgow, Scotland.  She has been writing poetry since her teens and has had work published in a variety of magazines and anthologies.

As a political activist, she helped produce the anti-Poll Tax newsletter Refuse and Resist and was co-organiser of a number of anti-Poll Tax conferences in Scotland.

Margaret also worked in the women’s movement and worked for both Glasgow Women’s Aid and SAY Women. In 1994 she attended the Institute on Women, Violence and Human Rights at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, at Rutger’s University. That same year, Margaret launched the first Scottish 16 Days Against Gender Violence campaign in Glasgow.

She has individually, and collaboratively, organised numerous poetry events and helped publish three anthologies of writing by Scottish women: Stretch Marks and Other Scar Tissue; Silent when I Should Be Screaming; Different Boundaries.

Between 1998 and 2000, she initiated and organised a poetry project funded by the Scottish Arts Council. This involved a poetry tour of New York with 4 poets and a video maker, and produced a new volume of work, videos and an exhibition. Two Weegies, One Quine, An Edinbury Whoor and a Sassenach Too was published in 2000.

Margaret currently resides in rural Bulgaria where she has hosted numerous artists, musicians and writers over the past nine years.

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