About The Author

Niamh McAnally is an Irish-born bestselling author, keynote & corporate speaker, former TV director, and youngest daughter of the late BAFTA award-winning actor, Ray McAnally, and actor, Ronnie Masterson. Niamh has traveled all over the world and lived and worked as a volunteer in many island nations in the Caribbean and the South Pacific. She is a regular guest speaker on Celebrity Cruises in their Beyond The Podium Enrichment Series.

In 2016 she helped a solo sailor crew his boat from Florida to the Bahamas. It was only supposed to last a month. Niamh soon realized she had not only found the life she loved but also the love of her life. She and Captain Gary have sailed as far north as Maine in the USA and to Bonaire off the northern coast of South America. With toes in the sand in Antigua, Captain and Crew became Husband and Wife! Many of her stories are inspired by her travels on land and at sea.

Flares Up: A Story Bigger Than The Atlantic was conceived in Antigua when she witnessed Paul Hopkins and Phil Pugh cross the finish line after rowing 3,000 miles across the Atlantic. The book was shortlisted in the 2023 Sunday Times Vikki Orvice Award and won the 2025 Independent Press Award.

Her memoir Following Sunshine: A Voyage Around the Mind, Around the World, Around the Heart won the 2024 American Writing Award, Litary Titan Gold Award.

In 2020 she founded an international writers group and edited a collection of their short stories Stories of Place: zinc.level.blindfold which was launced in six countries on 3 continents in April 2025.

Her short story Haul Out is featured in the anthology A Page from My Life, and she has been published in The Journal, Caribbean Compass, Sail, The Irish Times Abroad, Writing.ie and Subsea magazines.