KATE: Our Mixed-Up-Files readers would love the inside scoop on your latest novel-in-verse, The Girl in the Walls. Can you tell us a bit about where the idea for this story came from?
MEG: I tend to start my stories in a feeling. This one started when I saw something very upsetting happen to someone I cared about. I tried to write about it directly, but when that didn’t work and felt a little too real, I knew I needed to try another angle (like Emily Dickinson, to tell it slant). I started asking what if questions, like: what if V could time travel? What if she met a ghost? The ghost helped bring this magic wonderland world of the walls, giving me distance. It also gave me an outlet for me to process all my feelings, giving an option for what I could be like if I held onto them forever and didn’t try to work through them. That warning made me really want to work through my feelings all the more and find healing on the other end.
KATE: I love that you write books which make me cry (I’m looking at you too, Good Different). And by this, I don’t mean you write emotional books, I mean you write books with big emotions. How easy is it for you to tap into a young character’s emotions while creating universal connections to your readers?
MEG: Thank you so much, Kate! That’s the part I feel like is my strength. As an autistic person, I feel things so big, and so channeling those feelings into my characters is easy. I just write what I’m feeling now, and what I felt at that age (often they’re very similar things, just maybe wearing different outfits). When I ask things like: what am I struggling with now? What did I struggle with then?, I try to be as specific as possible, and ironically, the more specific we are, the more universal we get because we’re tapping into the human experience.
KATE: In discussing some of those emotions just a bit further, I think many readers will be able to relate to Valeria, a girl who has been hurt by the actions and comments of others. Afterall, who hasn’t wished someone else a taste of their own medicine? How did you decide this would be her driving force?
MEG: I write what I’m feeling and struggling with in the moment. I knew I needed to write this book when, like V, I was hurt and angry at someone else. I knew I needed to try to see them with more empathy. But to get there, I knew I needed to be honest with where I was in my feelings and let that fuel the story.
KATE: You have two characters giving Valeria art guidance – one who says to draw art as you see it. Another who says to draw art as you feel it. When you write, which advice registers closest for you?
MEG: I think there’s truth to both, for V and for my writing. We need to be informed by what we feel, but also what is true. Sometimes these intersect, but sometimes feelings are unreliable narrators, so we need to open our eyes to get perspective and ask, what is true?
KATE: There’s a great parallel in your novel between ghosting someone and being a ghost oneself. Talk to us about how you wove in the concept of being seen.
MEG: I think as the story progresses, V realizes she’s been holding in feelings, but so has the house—to embody how the family has been holding in hurt from generational trauma and ableism. When we’re ghosted, it hurts, and if we don’t acknowledge those feelings, if we don’t move forward, we can become ghosts in a sense, trapped in a cul de sac of looping feelings. We can also give that as an inheritance to the next generation. And if we don’t acknowledge those feelings, they build and fester and get worse. They wound, and can create really malignant patterns for the generations to come. In a few ways, this becomes a literal threat V has to deal with, because as things escalate, they can become real obstacles. I wanted V to break those generational patterns and pave forward another option.
KATE: We often hear about family curses. How important was it for you to make this story generational?
MEG: That was the main thing I wanted to explore here: generations. What do we inherit from our families? The people who dig at us the most, is it in part because we see ourselves in them? What legacy do we want to leave forward? How can we take the good and oppose the evil in the legacies we inherit?
KATE: It’s often fun to read about the baddies of a book, and your baddie is certainly up there on that list! How fun was it for you to write this antagonist?
MEG: Not fun! 😉 But very healing. Sometimes you have to write very real things, that aren’t necessarily fun, because they hit a little too close to home. But it’s really important. It was fun, in a sense, exploring the complexities of the antagonist: the yes, but what if…?
KATE: You and Valeria share many things in common, I’m sure, one in particular is being neurodivergent. Can you tell MUF readers about neurodivergence and how this connection to Valeria helped you in your story development?
MEG: I’m neurodivergent and I don’t know what it’s like to not be ND. I used to try to write neurotypical leads to satisfy a previous agent, but I learned I’m a bad actor, and don’t know what it’s like to be neurotypical! So I write what I know, and my best writing is what I know. For V, I particularly wanted to channel my insecurities as a neurodivergent person in a neurotypical world, how I have so much joy in who I was created to be until something happens and someone makes me doubt myself.
Especially because in Good Different, Selah grows to love her autism, I wanted to show the other end, because it’s not always that simple. Usually there’s a mix of joy and internalized ableism. I don’t want people to stop at Selah’s story and think we’ve “fixed ableism.” It’s still there, all the more obvious by RFK Jr’s recent disturbing comments. There is joy, but there’s also a lot of hurt, and for kids struggling with that, I wanted them to see themselves in V’s story, and see it doesn’t have to end there.
KATE: Can you describe your writing process and, can you give us an example of something you cut, changed, or reworked from draft to publication?
MEG: Goodness, so much changed. The basic bones of the emotional arc have always been there, but there were pranks that had to get cut, lots of conversations between the ghost and V, a lot of internal poems..I was really challenged by my editor to focus, to escalate, and keep things active, since I can get so lost in my head sometimes.
KATE: Thank you for taking the time to share the inside scoop on The Girl in the Walls. Is there something beyond Valeria’s world you can hint at? Perhaps a new project in the works?
MEG: I’m so excited to have a Good Different companion novel in the works currently called PERFECT ENOUGH, and a YA with two autistic leads (that I’ve been working on for over ten years now, so it’s such a joy to know it’s coming out into the world)! Being undiagnosed for most of my life, I’m really enjoying exploring what it means to be autistic and how to be a healthy autistic person in a neurotypical, often ableist world. So we’ll see where that leads me as I play with future ideas!
KATE: Where can readers best find you if they want to reach out?
MEG: megedenbooks.com! I love hearing from readers!
Lightning Round
And….no MUF interview is complete without a lightning round, so…
Favorite place to write? – patio, or Chick-fil-a
Dark chocolate or milk chocolate? – dark chocolate all the way
Superpower? – flying! or timetravel.
Rollerblades or bike? – bike!
Dream job when you were a kid? – being an artist or a manga-ka
House pet? – cat
Favorite piece of advice for writers? – persist!
As a former fourth grade teacher and founder of StarrMatica, a STEM publishing company, Emily Starr has developed award-winning K-5 science curriculum and professional learning materials for 20 years. She is a member of the Iowa State Science Leadership Team, a peer reviewer for the National Science Teaching Association’s journal Science and Children, and a frequent presenter at state and national education conferences. Her debut middle grade nonfiction book will be released in 2025 from the Iowa Ag Literacy Foundation.
