Non-Fiction

Paula McGuire is an adventurer, motivational speaker, author and life coach – but above all, she’s a trier. After 30 years of surviving with chronic social anxiety and depression, Paula started to really live with it in 2012, using adventure as her means to recovery. She has since been a wing-walker, an athlete, a pilot, and even a trainee astronaut, and spends what spare time she has encouraging others to turn barriers into climbing frames.

A double TEDx speaker, with appeal throughout both the adventure and mental health communities Paula has presented on Radio Scotland, her own show, The Adventure Show, aired on local station, CamGlen, has contributed to podcasts, including Standard Issue, Tough Girl, and Adventure Sports Podcast. Paula’s Big Adventures column ran in The National newspaper for 18 months, and on Herald Scotland. She delivers keynote and motivational speeches at events, with clients including National Trust for Scotland, Bauer Media, and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards.

Her first book Must Try Harder: Adventures in Anxiety is published by Trigger Publishers. Paula’s next book, Adventures for Bored Adults was published with Ebury in August 2021.