Hi, I'm Meg.
I write Twentieth Century Gothic Tales with Folklore woven in at the roots. From the Titanic to the Satanic Panic, there is a reason it is called the bloodiest century in human history. My writing explores the eerie and unexplained of those eras, while remaining grounded in the real.
My favourite formula for a compelling story is: historical flashpoint + cryptid/myth = unveil the truths and anxieties behind the stories we tell.
From Selkie Wives exposing the erosion of colonialism and Intimate Partner Violence, or Sea Monsters highlighting the dangerous approach to mental health, my stories aim to ask why we needed that monster or myth and what it was telling us about ourselves in that moment.
Active Projects
Attrition
Status: Querying
ATTRITION is the Selkie-wife myth retold by the Selkie herself, her captor, and her ally.
Set in 1925, during the aftermath of the War of Independence, within the Western Irish Gaeltacht, it examines how culture influences folklore and the truths woven into fairytales.
Two companion novels have been drafted for ATTRITION following the Connolly family into 1944 and 1953.
Lottie
Status: Revisions
LOTTIE follows a young nurse and aspiring surgeon attending school in London in 1963 as she tries her very best to be good.
Charlotte has channeled her darker impulses in altruistic pursuits through nursing, and is now attending King's College, where her resolve to be good is challenged by the men she meets.
LOTTIE is the first book in a four part series that spans the 1960's. The first three are drafted and the fourth is in progress.
We Make Monsters
Status: Drafting
WE MAKE MONSTERS is set in 1955 in Sooke, BC (where I currently live!) where newlywed Margaret has found herself transplanted after her husband Eddie was recruited to the first branch of the RCMP established in the tiny town.
After she takes a blurry photo of what she believes to be the Cadborosaurus, Margaret must contend with a media frenzy and Eddie's skepticism.
WE MAKE MONSTERS is a standalone project.
Upcoming Publications
The Léannan (short fiction)
Aisling is a poet who finally has an advance...and a looming deadline. As she spirals into procrastination and writer's block, she finds herself in an alleyway behind a bar, across from the most beautiful woman she has ever seen.
Éadoin follows her home and ignites a compulsion within Aisling to write, until her fingers bleed.
Bog Body (short fiction)
Inspired by the Tollund Man by Séamus Heaney, and Bog Bodies by Rabbitology.
Lucy finds peace in a bog near her home. Though the environment is calming, it is the man she has found beneath the depths that draws her back. When he asks her to stay and rot with him, Lucy refuses, and finds herself in a fight to remain surfaced.