Emily Maguire

Emily Maguire (born 1976) is an Australian novelist and journalist.

Early life and education Maguire was born in Canberra in 1976. She grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney in a church-going family, but she now describes herself as agnostic. Maguire married in her early twenties to Jeff Maguire, whom she had known since the age of 14, over the initial objections of her family.

She has an MA in literature.

She became a professional writer in her mid twenties after working for the NRMA and Telstra. In 2007, the Women's Electoral Lobby awarded her the Edna Ryan Award (Media Category) for her writing about women's issues.

Her 2008 non-fiction book, Princesses and Pornstars: Sex, Power, Identity, is an examination of how the treatment of young women as fragile and in need of protection can be just as objectifying and damaging to them as pornography and raunch culture. A revised young adult version called Your Skirt's Too Short: Sex, Power, Choice was released in 2010.

In May 2013, Maguire was named as one of The Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelists.

In 2016 her book An Isolated Incident was published by Picador, Pan MacMillan Press. It was highly commended in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2017; and was shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize, the 2017 Ned Kelly Awards, the ABIA 2017 Shortlist and the 2017 Miles Franklin literary award.

Maguire was awarded the 2018 Charles Perkins Centre Writer in Residence Fellowship, receiving a $100,000 grant.

Her novel Rapture won the Queensland Literary Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction and longlisted for the Stella Prize in 2025. It was also longlisted for the Adult category of the ARA Historical Novel Prize and won the inaugural Reader's Choice Award in 2025. In 2026 it won the People's Choice Award and was shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction at the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.