Meagan Church: Understanding the Craft of Storytelling Is Necessary
After receiving a degree in English with a focus on creative writing from Indiana University, Meagan Church built a career as a storyteller and freelance writer for brands, blogs, and organizations. Her fiction focuses on overlooked and oppressed women’s voices from the past.
A Midwesterner by birth, she now lives in North Carolina with her high school sweetheart, three children, and a plethora of pets. To learn more about her writing, visit MeaganChurch.com, or follow her on Twitter, Threads, Facebook, and Instagram.
Meagan Church
Photo by Bethany Callaway
In this post, Meagan discusses the rabbit hole of research that became her new historical fiction novel, The Girls We Sent Away, her hope for readers, and more!
Name: Meagan Church
Literary agent: Rachel Cone-Gorham
Book title: The Girls We Sent Away
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Release date: March 5, 2023
Genre/category: Historical Fiction
Previous titles: The Last Carolina Girl
Elevator pitch: It’s the mid-1960s and Lorraine Delford has it all—an upstanding family, a perfect boyfriend, an idyllic home complete with a white picket fence, and the ambition to become an astronaut—until she finds herself pregnant out of wedlock and is sent away to a maternity home to hide her secret shame. Set during the intersection of the Baby Scoop Era and Space Race, The Girls We Sent Away explores autonomy, belonging, and a quest for agency when the illusions of life-as-you-know-it fall away.
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What prompted you to write this book?
When I first heard the phrase Baby Scoop Era, I immediately fell down a rabbit hole of research. I read stories of women who were sent away to maternity homes. As the mother of three, I know how frightening pregnancy and birth can be, and that’s with a supportive husband and family by my side. And that’s the thing—so many of these women were left to deal with the consequences of the pregnancy in ways the fathers did not have to. Then these women were told to get back to life as if nothing ever happened which of course is an impossible task.
Couple that with the fact that our nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in 2019. My youngest has been space obsessed since she was three years old, so I was quite aware of the anniversary. When I realized that the Space Race intersected with the Baby Scoop Era, I couldn’t help but wonder, as men were blasting into space, how many women lay tucked away inside a maternity home, alone, afraid, and ashamed?
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
The idea formed in early 2019. I had the first draft done when I signed my two-book deal with Sourcebooks in 2021, and it will hit bookshelves on March 5, 2024. So that’s five years from the inception of the idea to publication.
The overall idea has not changed throughout the writing and revising, but of course some details, characters, and events did change over multiple drafts. Perhaps the biggest (or most challenging) revision was the ending. While the essence of the ending in the final draft is similar to the first, I worked hard to strike the right tone for the most satisfactory ending for both the character and the reader.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
The continual learning process in publishing is patience. In a world of instant access and answers, publishing does not move at that pace. As I said, I started on this novel in 2019 and five years later, it will finally be released. Every step of the publishing process takes time, for a variety of reasons. I’m grateful to be working with an amazing team who is constantly hard at work. When I start getting restless, I have to remind myself to be patient.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I was surprised by how real the main character would become. In the early drafts, Lorraine was somewhat of an amalgamation of the stories I came across in my research. But with each round of revisions, she became more of her own person, which is why I had to work to find the appropriate ending. Many women who lived this experience dealt with long-term shame, higher rate of alcoholism, divorce, job loss, and more. The first ending was rather bleak, in keeping true to those lived experiences. But as Lorraine gained her own voice, the ending needed to reflect her journey.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
When we take off the proverbial rose-colored glasses and look closely at our history, sometimes what we find shakes us. And it should. I write historical fiction to explore the unknown stories of women before us, giving voice to those whose lives have been irrevocably altered by the consequences of past events and practices. As a society, we have too often erred on the side of conditional love and acceptance. My hope is that this story, and others like it, can start a conversation and deepen our empathy, so we can see our past more clearly and do better in the future.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Study the craft. If part of your goal in writing is to sell books, then understanding the craft of storytelling is necessary. As I have worked with new writers as a story coach and developmental editor, it’s easy to see that many people have stories to tell, but the key is to tell that story in a way that will cut through the noise of our everyday lives to engage the reader. So, read a lot. Read inside and outside your genre, best sellers and mid-listers. And study story structure. Writing a compelling book is more than being able to write beautiful sentences or create a character. It is a craft that requires attention, understanding, and a lot of perseverance.
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