Bernadette McBride is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, academic, and creative practitioner who won Liverpool’s “Biggest Impact” award in 2019. Her multidisciplinary arts practice spans across fiction, filmmaking, and socially-engaged storytelling. Her notable works include the short-story collection Birds Are Liars, published by New York City press Spuyten Duyvil in 2025, and Sea Monster, a short story she adapted into a film, which has screened at over ten international film festivals and won several awards.

Bernadette also teaches prose and scriptwriting across higher education and holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Liverpool, funded by the John Lennon Scholarship.