Meg Mason is known for her perceptive explorations of mental health, relationships and the complexities of being human. | Photo Credit: Anne Peeters
What does it mean to ‘love’ an author? Sophie, who manages celebrities backstage at literary festivals, finds herself wondering what it might be like to meet, know and touch Lilac Dunne, a celebrated writer. As Lilac’s voice, drawn from past interviews and podcasts, begins to fill the void in Sophie’s life, her fascination soon turns into an obsession, serving up the central tension in Meg Mason’s new novel, Sophie, Standing There (Bloomsbury).
Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction for her 2022 novel, Sorrow and Bliss, Mason is known for her sharp wit, wry humour and perceptive explorations of mental health, relationships and the complexities of being human. In this email interview, the Sydney-based author discusses the themes in her latest book and recalls a holiday with fellow novelist Ann Patchett that helped inspire ideas for their respective novels. Edited excerpts:
You name real-life authors such as George Saunders and Ann Patchett in your novel. Did you ever worry it would attract untoward comments?
The authors I mention in the novel, I chose them because they’ve meant something to me, personally, as a reader and a writer. So, this was my thank-you note. Of course, I was always going to ask their permission first. And, amazingly, they all said yes!
In indeliberate ways, your novel is also about the interpretations readers make of stories unbeknownst to the author.
Yes, absolutely. An author feels such possession over a novel when it is still just a manuscript on their laptop, but as soon as it’s published and out in the world, it belongs to the reader. How a reader interprets it is personal, and entirely based on their own experiences, which is one of the magical things about fiction.
Like Sophie in the novel, have you also dedicated your undivided attention to a particular author?
I’ve gone on so many literary deep-dives in my life, starting at university, when I read all of Evelyn Waugh in a couple of months. Most recently, I went through a long Margaret Drabble period; before that, I did all of Carol Shields, and this year, I re-read all of Austen.
I think it’s a wonderful way to study an author and how their talent unfolded and skill developed over the course of a career (and you get to pretend you’re an expert in their oeuvre).
“Coincidence is an acceptable way to get characters into a situation...” Was there any writerly coincidence while working on this novel?
Not during the novel but... Ann Patchett is a very close friend of mine and we went on vacation together, driving around New Zealand in 2024. It was just for a week, but she had the idea of Whistler and I had the idea for Sophie, Standing There on the very same trip, a couple of days apart, and both of us went straight home and got to work. Our books came out this year in the space of two months.
I’m reminded of what the late Indian poet Eunice de Souza said about meeting your favourite authors: ‘best to meet in poems’. Your thoughts?
People always say never meet your heroes, but I couldn’t agree less. If you’re ever given the chance to meet an author you love, seize it, because you’ll either find they’re even more charming and brilliant than you imagined, or they’ll liberate you from your fandom by turning out to be a perfectly normal, everyday person.
When it comes to fame, a very brief period of being fame-adjacent has given me such incredible respect for people who live in the public eye — the ones who can cope with attention and the ones who can’t. It’s so unnatural to be the subject of strangers’ adoration, and within a crowd of fans, one can feel so incredibly lonely. And then there is all the criticism and the fear that, one day, fame will pass. Truly, I think anyone who can navigate all that ought to be admired.
The interviewer is a non-binary queer writer, essayist, and culture critic.
Published - October 23, 2026 05:25 pm IST