Author
Ami McKay
Associated Country
Canada
Ami McKay is an American-Canadian novelist, memoirist, playwright, and journalist whose fiction blends historical research with folklore, magical realism, and the experiences of resilient women. Born in Lebanon, Indiana, she was raised in rural Indiana and studied music education and musicology at Indiana State University before teaching music in Chicago. In 2000, she moved to Scots Bay, Nova Scotia, where she transitioned from teaching to writing full time. There, she began producing award-winning documentaries for CBC Radio, using oral history and local folklore to explore the lives of overlooked communities. These experiences would become the foundation of her distinctive literary voice.
McKay achieved international recognition with her debut novel, The Birth House, a historical novel inspired by the stories of Nova Scotia midwives. The novel became a Canadian bestseller, won multiple Libris Awards, and was selected for CBC's Canada Reads. She followed it with The Virgin Cure, set in nineteenth-century New York City, and The Witches of New York, a richly imagined tale of magic, friendship, and women's independence in Gilded Age Manhattan. In addition to her novels, she has published the novella Half Spent Was the Night and the memoir Daughter of Family G, which chronicles her family's history with Lynch syndrome and reflects on inherited illness, identity, and resilience.
Known for combining meticulous historical research with elements of myth and folklore, McKay writes stories that place women at the center of history while exploring themes of family, healing, fate, and belonging. Her work has earned critical acclaim for its lyrical prose, memorable heroines, and evocative depictions of overlooked moments in history. She continues to live in Nova Scotia, where she also writes plays, essays, and memoir.
McKay achieved international recognition with her debut novel, The Birth House, a historical novel inspired by the stories of Nova Scotia midwives. The novel became a Canadian bestseller, won multiple Libris Awards, and was selected for CBC's Canada Reads. She followed it with The Virgin Cure, set in nineteenth-century New York City, and The Witches of New York, a richly imagined tale of magic, friendship, and women's independence in Gilded Age Manhattan. In addition to her novels, she has published the novella Half Spent Was the Night and the memoir Daughter of Family G, which chronicles her family's history with Lynch syndrome and reflects on inherited illness, identity, and resilience.
Known for combining meticulous historical research with elements of myth and folklore, McKay writes stories that place women at the center of history while exploring themes of family, healing, fate, and belonging. Her work has earned critical acclaim for its lyrical prose, memorable heroines, and evocative depictions of overlooked moments in history. She continues to live in Nova Scotia, where she also writes plays, essays, and memoir.
Books
Before My Time 2021
In 1895, Ami McKay's great-great aunt, a dressmaker named Pauline Gross, confided to a medical professor that she expected to die young, like many in her family before her. With her help, that doctor...
New York in the spring of 1880 is a place alive with wonder and curiosity. In this captivating Gilded Age historical fantasy, residents enthusiastically engage in both scientific experimentation and...
The Virgin Cure 2012
One summer night in Lower Manhattan in 1871, twelve-year-old Moth is pulled from her bed and sold as a servant to a finely dressed woman. Knowing that her mother is so close while she is locked away...
The Birth House 2007
The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare—the first daughter in five generations of Rares. As apprentice to the outspoken Acadian midwife Miss Babineau, Dora learns to assist the women of an isolated...