First Chapters Q&A with Meg Mundell

Meg Mundell is a writer and academic. 

The Trespassers (UQP, August 2019) is her second novel. Black Glass (2011) is Meg’s critically acclaimed first novel, and Things I Did for Money (2013) is her debut short story collection. Past day jobs include freelance journalist, policy analyst, nightclub DJ, ventriloquist’s assistant, and deputy editor of The Big Issue Australia. 

Meg holds a PhD in creative writing and a BA in psychology and philosophy, and her academic research focuses on place, spatial justice, and narratives of homelessness. Meg also runs the project WeAre Here, which uses creative writing to explore understandings of place with people who have experienced homelessness (www.homelesswriting.org).

Meg will be reading from The Trespassers at First Chapters on Friday 1 November.

1. Brunswick Bound has asked you to read a piece from your published work.  Tell us what we can expect from the piece you have chosen?

I’m still trying to decide which part to read: the discovery of the first body, one of the hallucination scenes, or the chase up the ship’s mast. Hopefully you’ll feel like you’re right there, experiencing what the characters are experiencing.

2. How would you describe the kind of books that you write?

Tightly written, often dark, but full of heart – stories that make you think and feel, characters who come alive, a world where familiarity is tinged with strangeness. Books you can dive into and immerse yourself in. That’s what I aim for, anyway.

3. What was the first book that you read (or had read to you) that left an impression on you?

The Lorax by Doctor Suess: a cautionary tale, told in rhyme, with wacky illustrations and clever humour. And that memorable line: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot / Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

4. Do you believe that books should answer life’s big questions?

I think novels and short stories should ask life’s big questions, or at least hint at them. But it’s not the job of fiction to answer those questions – that’s for the philosophy section.

5. Do you have any writing quirks?

I always wear earplugs, even when it’s quiet. They help create that magic bubble.

6.  What is your favourite word or phrase?

‘Hope is the thing with feathers’ (Emily Dickinson).

7. What have you found most surprising about publishing a book?

No two readers experience a book in the same way. Everyone brings their own perspective to it. Your book is always a slightly different book, depending on who’s reading it.

8. What is the question that you hope never to be asked in an author Q&A?

‘Why are you naked?’

9. What question do you hope you will be asked and why?

‘What’s so interesting about the sea?’

10. Which author that you have read do you think should be better known or more widely read?

Alexander MacLeod, a Canadian writer. His first and only book, the short story collection LightLifting, was a thing of brilliance. I’m waiting for him to publish another one.

Find out more about the First Chapters event series on the Brunswick Bound website.