A Conversation with Slice Winner Meg Mullins
Can you share a little bit about your inspiration for this book? Were there certain stories that led to the development of other stories, or did they each arise separately, only to be woven together later?
This book is a sort of return for me. I had been struggling to write my fourth novel for several years. After many drafts and many moments of despair, I realized it just wasn’t working. That was really difficult. I’d become so attached to it as potential income, as potential clout, as potential product. Letting go was very humbling. After I put the whole thing aside, there was one character who remained. She kept appearing in my life—on a random corner, in line at the pharmacy, at the dog park. In case that sounds like crazy writer talk, what I mean is that I would see different young women who reminded me so much of this character in my mind, and so I decided to just hang out with her on the page. I forgot about the constraints of the novel and just let her be. That story became the title story, “We Are All Having Fun Here.” Once I’d embarked on that story, the freedom of letting go of the novel, the feeling of no longer chasing a finished product was really exhilarating. I returned to my early writing days when a novel was nowhere in my mind. I returned to girlhood, to writing as an exploration, not a destination.
So many of the stories feel very personal, if only because they really kept me company in some dark times and rekindled my connection to writing as refuge.
1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg.
S&S/Simon Element, 2025.
What did your process look like while writing this collection? Can you describe some important moments, places, or people that shaped the book as a whole?
Honestly, the process was delightful. And, as I said, in some ways it truly saved me from the absolute crisis I’d had when my novel failed. I felt a little bit naughty, a little bit like a rebel who was getting away with something. Writing stories about women who are unafraid of their own heartbreak and their own humanity made me feel braver to face my own. I was pretty certain that none of the stories would see the light of day, and that, honestly, was both devastating and thrilling. I stopped editing myself, stopped worrying about the outcome. I took great inspiration from Jami Attenberg’s 1,000 Words of Summer for discipline and forward momentum and from George Saunders’s Story Club for his reverence of the form.
As always, there was lots of revision which can sometimes feel more like balancing a math equation than the hot bursts of creativity, but it’s very gratifying to see a story become slightly more refined, slightly better over time.
Your collection is full of vivid, grounded characters. Can you speak to your experience with the development of characters, and how you go about infusing them with life and agency within the page?
Thank you. I nearly always begin a story with a character. Often, it’s something from real life. The story “Bird,” for example, was born after reading a New York Times article about the wedding of one the UK’s richest men. The article said that the groom was a descendant of Sir Thomas Grosvenor who acquired the land that established their fortune back in 1677 as part of the dowry of his 12-year-old wife. I put down the article and thought, well, who the hell was this girl? And what happened to her? So I invented those answers.
Vera from “A Fair Trade” appeared one day while I was taking the dog to the park. She was just striding down the sidewalk in a bathrobe with a beach towel slung over her shoulder. I couldn’t help but wonder where she was going and so I went home and made it up.
Your work in this collection often engages with the taboo. What drew you to these subjects, and how do you go about tackling them in a way that is both sensitive and honest?
This question makes me giggle and maybe blush. I would never think of my work as engaging with the taboo, but I take it as a compliment. I’m deeply in pursuit of honesty in my writing. I’m certainly not seeking out subjects that I think are risky or edgy, but honesty sometimes leads me there. I pay attention to the things that scare me, that give me a little jolt when I think about putting them into words, and those are often the places where I force myself to go. Not because I want to shock, but because I know that when we turn away from the uncomfortable things, we lose a chance at finding authenticity.
What other books or authors do you see this work to be in conversation with?
That’s a great question. There are so many authors’ works that were deeply nourishing to me during the writing of these stories, including Grace Paley, Samanta Schweblin, Miranda July, Jenny Offill, George Saunders, Manuel Muñoz, William Trevor, and countless others.
Fork Apple Press prioritizes work that engages with themes and symbols of desire, consumption, spirituality, gender, environment, cultivation, and wildness. What are some of the symbols you bring to the table in this collection? What drew you to those motifs or images?
Hmm. I think I prefer to let others interpret any symbols for themselves. In my experience, themes or symbols are often a surprise that I can only see after the fact. And, sometimes, readers will see things I don’t—as they should. I hesitate to presume what anything means to a reader. But I will say that I recognize that the body is featured pretty heavily in all of the stories: old, young, healthy, sick, innocent, guilty. How does it feel to be in a body? What are the mysteries of physicality and how do they intersect with emotions? How and when do we tame our bodies? How and when do we let them be wild?
What advice do you have for other writers of short stories?
My advice is simple but difficult: Keep going. Approach the work with a sense of lightness, but also with reverence. Work hard to be as specific and truthful as possible.
If there’s one line you hope lingers with readers long after they’ve set the collection down, what is it? Is there a particular line or section that has stuck with you after writing?
Oh, geez! That’s like asking if I have a favorite child. I’m so grateful if anything I’ve written resonates with somebody else. If others have a favorite line or story, I’d love to hear it!
Purchase Meg’s collection at the Fork Apple Press Bookstore, or wherever books are sold!
Meg Mullins is a writer from New Mexico and an author of three novels. Her work has been translated into eleven languages and optioned for film. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous journals and has been included in The Best American Short Stories.
