My name is Stephen McCabe and I write fiction. I am inspired by folklore, Nature and everyday dialogue. I am a practising Zen Buddhist, a gay man with a history in queer activism, and I come from the edge of Liverpool, England’s working-class hero. All of these things influence my writing, which is brewed in a cottage somewhere in the Scottish Lowlands. 

I am a geek for myths and legends, particularly Scottish ones. I appreciate Chekhov’s short stories and mammoth European classics like The Magic Mountain and Anna Karenina. My favourite novel is Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin – a spiritual four-volume epic written in 18th Century China. It cares nothing for structure and that inspires me! In terms of modern writers, I am in love with Murakami’s magical worlds. I enjoyed Madeleine Miller’s mythic novels. I love Daniel Allison’s Scottish lore, and I am proud to have been taught storytelling skills by him. Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist stories, Irvine Welsh’s grit, and Sarah Water’s Victorian queerness have all captivated me, too. 

I write to express the strange worlds that are inside of me. I want your heart rate to slow down when you read my work. I don’t want to excite. Excitement and anxiety are closely related, and there is enough of that in the world already. My stories are meditations.  

My debut novel, Widdershins Around the Mother Tree, is a dreamy, folkloric soap opera set in the Scottish hills. Faeries and shapeshifters mingle in an everyday world where addiction, isolation and illness blight the working class heroes and heroines of the tale. The novel is currently looking for a publisher.

My short stories have been published by Flash Fiction magazine and Gay Flash Fiction. My story, ‘Kitten Fever’, was published in the anthology ‘Revolutions 2’ by Manchester Speculative Fiction. In 2022, I published a book of folktales based on lore from my area, called The Moorfoot Tales: Lost Myths from Scotland.

Here is some praise for The Moorfoot Tales:

‘The Moorfoot Tales is an enchanting book, threading together longer tales, short snippets and original prose to make something altogether new.’ – Daniel Allison, USA Today bestselling author of Scottish Myths & Legends

‘A delightful ensemble of imagery and character, this book is beautifully written. Words seem to read themselves, dancing off the page with the energy of a hill-stream and carrying the reader into the magical in-between space of folklore, legend and the imagination.’ – Caroline Brazier, author of Acorns Among the Grass: Adventures in Ecotherapy

‘Admirably researched and respectfully acknowledged, contemporary storytelling.’ - Dr Linda Williamson, Editor, Folklorist and Storyteller

For more info on my writing, please email me at stephen@naturetherapyonline.net