Dr Marieke Bigg is an author of fiction and nonfiction.

Marieke exposes the social questions at the heart of science, medicine and mental health. Her books, This Won’t Hurt, No Such Thing as Normal, Waiting for Ted, and A Scarab Where the Heart Should Be are available now. 

From Ada Lovelace to Florence Nightingale, Rosalind Franklin to Tu Youyou – discover the women who changed science forever

Imagine a scientist. White lab coat and goggles… check! A passing resemblance to Albert Einstein… yes, that too. So, most likely it’s a man. However, from radiation to climate change, pulsars to the Earth’s core – women have always stood at the forefront of scientific discovery.

Learn how Ada Lovelace’s tumultuous upbringing created the first computer programmer. Join Marie Curie as she discovers two elements and earns two Nobel prizes, all before the age of forty-five. Learn how Katherine Johnson launched the first American into space – defiant in the face of institutional racism.

A timely addition to the growing global conversation around the future of science – and who gets to shape it – A History of Science in 21 Women is a paradigm-shifting exploration of the scientists who history tried, and failed, to brush under the carpet, and why their stories still matter today.

Pre-order at Oneworld Publications.

No Such Thing As Normal exposes the false promises of psychiatry and the crumbling foundations on which it was built

We are now diagnosed and treated for mental disorders more than ever, despite increasing evidence that environmental factors play a far greater role than biological ones. Laying out the steps for a mental health system that helps rather than harms, Marieke Bigg asks: how can we heal when faced with an industry that banks on keeping us sick?

Published by Profile Books.

This Won’t Hurt is the debut nonfiction by Dr Marieke Bigg. Exploring all the ways in which medicine is not gender neutral, Bigg argues that the science and practice of medicine has failed women. Putting women at the heart of medicine, on the other hand, will benefit us all.

Published by Hodder & Stoughton.

Waiting for Ted is the debut novel of by Marieke Bigg. Fervently feminist, this book of literary fiction charts the destruction of a relationship at the hands of an expensive chaise longue.

Published by Dead Ink Books.


The beetle doesn’t need recognition, she is happy to be left to work. Her gratification comes from the doing. But she would prefer not to be vilified.

Jacky ‘The Beetle’ McKenzie is, if you ask her, the most sensible and rational person in the world. Unfortunately, her ordinary and the rest of the world’s ordinary don’t mix. To the rest of the world, she is belligerent, weird, obsessive, angry and volatile.

Always, in the background, husband Mark and girlfriend Clarissa have one eye on each other, both asking the same question – which of them will abandon her, and which will be left to pick up the pieces?

A Scarab Where the Heart Should Be invites us into the mind of an architect on her quest to streamline her life, along with her buildings. This is a case study on what happens when obstinate obsession comes up against an unyielding society.

Published by Dead Ink Books. 

  • “A brilliant book... There is so much to unlearn, there is so much that also follows in terms of how medicine could support - rather than fail - half the world's population."

    Dr Helen Pankhurst CBE

  • “A hugely informative and quietly furious call to arms.”

    Irish Times

  • “She is balanced in her evidence analysis, forensic in her research.”

    The Telegraph

  • “A ground-breaking new book.”

    Evening Standard

  • 'Psychiatry has been a lifeline for many, providing essential tools and interventions, but it is not the whole story. By highlighting alternative approaches and perspectives, this book challenges us to think more broadly about the complexities of mental health and about how we can truly support people at their most vulnerable moments with a more holistic understanding of wellbeing and distress'

    Sarah Hughes, CEO of Mind

  • 'From the feral femininity of hysterical women to the eugenic thinking and stereotyping that shapes Schizophrenia into a 'Black disease', Bigg peels away Psychiatry's veneer. An absolutely fascinating book'

    Dr Rianna Walcott, co-editor of THE COLOUR OF MADNESS

  • 'Adroitly skewers psychiatry's tendency to pathologise behaviours considered "abnormal". A stimulating and timely primer on the social model of mental health'

    Daniel Tammet, author of NINE MINDS

  • 'A much needed contribution'

    Nick Dearden, author of PHARMANOMICS

  • 'Bigg challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions about mental health, and shows how a radically new approach to "normality" is needed'

    Emma Szewczak, author of THE STITCH UP

  • 'A confronting and thought-provoking insight into the shortcomings of psychiatric medicine, balanced with a hopeful and patient-centred vision for reform'

    Sarah Graham, author of REBEL BODIES

  • 'A rallying cry for an approach to mental health that is informed by the circumstances, experiences, and diversity of those of us who struggle. I have never read a clearer case for the importance of social and systemic approaches to psychiatric distress'

    Emma Byrne, author of SWEARING IS GOOD FOR YOU

  • 'A shocking and powerful critique, this is essential reading for everyone interested in mental health, how the mind works, and how psychiatry could become a force for social change!

    Dr Helen King, author of IMMACULATE FORMS

  • 'A timely, incisive, and rigorous critique of modern psychiatry - Bigg shows how so-called treatments for mental health disorders are anything but'

    Dr Andrzej Harris, Associate Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Cambridge

  • 'Amazingly well done and an insightful read - a must have if you want to look past what is defined as "normal"'

    Dr Nighat Arif, author of THE KNOWLEDGE

Events & Contact

Marieke is available to speak on panels, podcasts, and events to shed light on the social dimensions of science, mental health and medicine.

Previous engagements have included Ireland AM, BBC Radio Scotland and various podcasts. She has appeared in The Irish Times, Evening Standard and similar publications.

Marieke also collaborates with renowned scientists, artists and academics on projects that imagine the future of reproductive science.

For book queries, contact Rachel Goldblatt at Curtis Brown.

Want to collaborate with Marieke? Find out more here.

  • WOW Athens

    4-7 April Athens

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  • Conway Hall

    1 June 3-4:30 pm London

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  • Cheltenham Festival

    8 June 7:30-8:30PM
    Parabola Arts Centre, Cheltenham

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  • Bradford Literature Festival

    23 June - 2 July
    Bradford

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  • Being Human Festival

    9 - 18 November
    London


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  • Wantage Literary Festival

    21 October The Beacon, Wantage

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  • Patient Safety Conference

    5 September Royal Society Medicine, London

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  • The Alternative Book Fair

    16 March, 2024 4pm

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  • UN Commission on the Status of Women

    18 Mach 2.30-4.30 pm. Online

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  • Marieke Bigg x Caroline Crampton

    24 April 6-8pm

    Dead Ink Bookshop, Liverpool

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  • Burley Fisher: A Scarab Where the Heart Should Be

    11 September 2024, 6.30-9pm. Burley Fisher Books, Dalston

    Click Here