McCauley, Sue (1941 –), fiction writer, scriptwriter and journalist, was born in Dannevirke, grew up on a farm in rural southern Hawke's Bay and was a boarder at Nelson GC.
She worked as a copywriter and journalist in Napier, Wellington, New Plymouth and Christchurch, beginning her writing career with radio and TV plays and short stories in the 1970s.
Her first novel Other Halves (1982) won both the Wattie Book of the Year Award and the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction. An autobiographically based account of a relationship between a separated Pakeha mother and a much younger Maori man, it explored ethnic, gender, age and class differences. It has been frequently reprinted, selling more than 20,000 copies, and was made into a feature film.
Her second novel, Then Again (1986), is set on an offshore subtropical island and deals with the increasingly intertwined lives of several residents.
Bad Music (1990) focuses on the relationships between an ageing rock musician, a young woman half his age and the girl’s mother.
A Fancy Man (1996) also involves an apparent mismatch between an older man and a much younger woman.
McCauley’s novels are characterised by a mix of humour, realism and compassion, with strong sympathy for the underdog. She has also written many scripts for film, television and radio and has published numerous short stories. She has worked as a teacher of scriptwriting and fiction and as a judge of story competitions.
She edited (with Richard McLachlan) Erotic Writing (1992), and wrote the text of Escape from Bosnia: Aza’s Story (1996), the narrative being worked up from recorded interviews.
She was writer-in-residence at the universities of Auckland (1986) and Canterbury (1993). After living in various parts of the North Island 1970s–80s she moved with her husband to Christchurch in 1990.