Get to Know Our Friend Meg Waite Clayton

A Deeper Dive With Our Most Recent Guest

A Conversation with Meg Waite Clayton

A writing tip, book recommendation, and other great insights from Meg that were not covered in our on-air interview, which you can WATCH or LISTEN to now!

For any aspiring writers out there, would you please share a short bit of writing advice?
Ok, this will make me look a little nutty, but at some point in time as I was struggling over my first novel, I began writing 10 times a day in my journal: “I will get my novel published.” It took me ten years to get that thing written and published, and it sold so poorly that my original publisher didn’t do a paperback. It took me another five years for my second, which became a New York Times bestseller and changed my life. Now I am publishing #9. I still have those journals. It was my way of convincing myself to believe in myself, and be brave. So my advice: If you don’t try to achieve your dream, by definition, you fail. So go ahead and try your damndest.

What is the last book you raved about and what did you love about it?
The last book was Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, about a fictional crew on the International Space Station. I am fascinated by all things space, from the first lunar landing when I was very young, which I relived in The Wednesday Sisters. I have an app that tells me when the space station will be visible overhead, and Mac and I go out to see it when we can, and I say each time we see it exactly what Gemma says when she first sees it in Typewriter Beach. I loved imagining living up there with her characters, and I learned so much. But that’s my most recent read. Two other books I read this spring, Kristin Harmel’s The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau and Patti Callahan Henry’s The Story She Left Behind — both fantastic reads. And I got to read them before they came out, which is one of the perks of being an author I never expected, and absolutely love.

What can you tell us about your work-in-progress?