Meg Elison

Meg Elison is an author and essayist. She writes science fiction and horror, as well as feminist essays and cultural criticism. She has been published in McSweeney’s, Slate, Fangoria, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, and many other places.

Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award. Her novelette, The Pill won the 2021 Locus Award. She is a Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon Awards finalist. She has been an Otherwise Award honoree twice. Her YA debut, Find Layla, was named one of Vanity Fair's Best 15 Books of 2020.

Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley. She lives in the Berkshires.

Her new novel is Foundling Fathers.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The phrase "founding fathers" is so ingrained in our culture that a play on it seemed inevitable. I love the word "foundling" meaning orphan, meaning a child found on a doorstep or in a basket of woven rushes. Combining the familiar, powerful idea of the founders with a term that indicates some kids on their own was irresistible. It shapes expectations of the book by telling you right off that these characters aren't the legendary men you're expecting; they're vulnerable. And it's a set of words you think you know, but it makes you do a double take.

What's in a name?

I love giving a character a name that carries specific meaning that's so obvious that it's right under your nose and you might still miss it. Not must leeway on the names of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Ben Franklin, so I thought hard about what to name their mother. First off: what do you name a virginal, utterly ideal mother besides Mary? To the boys, she's Mary Libertas: the straightforward word for and goddess of liberty in Latin. The folks who gave her this name are exactly that: obvious, obsessed with the classics, and uninventive. On her government ID, however, she's Mary Himmel. Himmel is the German word for heaven, and it also raises the specter of a Jewish identity for her. Since I'm writing about a group of people who both revere and revile Jewish identity, this was the perfect level of ambiguity. How do people obsessed with genes count the inheritance of IVF babies born of a Jewish surrogate? The answer stinks to high heaven.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

My teenage self would first of all be thrilled that I'm a novelist at all. But this wasn't what I wanted to write at that age. I imagined myself a horror author for a long time. However, my teenage self also loved The Boys from Brazil and Jurassic Park, so if I placed it in context I know she'd be pleased to know we're writing science fiction.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginning usually come to me easy, and I'm always gratified to see the world through the hole in the paper, as Stephen King put it. If I don't have a beginning, I don't begin. Endings are spectacularly hard. They don't feel good until they're right, and the path to what's right for a story (if you've done it right) is narrow. I sweat endings harder than any other part of the book, and I am much more likely to change the ending than the beginning. Sometimes I'll rewrite a beginning after I've finished, but only because the tone or register has changed. The opening image is the same, every time.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

This book saw me writing a lot of people who I don't like, so I had to find ways to relate to them. I can admire someone's tenacity and the courage of their convctions while also understanding that their convictions are dogshit. It's also really fun to write satire about hypocrites who ignore all evidence to keep trying to create a world that will never work the way they want it to. That connects to my sense of humor, which is powered on an ongoing basis by the absurdity of this age and my misfortune to experience it.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music is hugely influential on my work, and I make a playlist for each of my books. I also love visiting museums to get out of my own head and look at things in a different way. When I was working on Foundling Fathers, I was inundated with memes and works of art featuring the founders, because everyone knew I was working on something thematic. When I'm on my own, I like artists who manipulate the senses in an overt way, like James Turrell. It makes me really consider my perspective as the active player in the game. It's a great exercise for an author.

Visit Meg Elison's website.

--Marshal Zeringue