MEET MEGHANA
WHAT A DREAMER DREAMS ABOUT
Meghana Mysore is excited about the release of her debut short story collection, Let All Our Ghosts Depart.
Meghana Mysore’s stories, essays, and poems have appeared in The Yale Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Audacity and more. She is the winner of the Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction and has been a Steinbeck Fellow and a scholar at McCormack Writing Center and Bread Loaf. She holds an MFA from Hollins University and a BA in English from Yale. Meghana has taught as visiting faculty at Amherst College and Bucknell University, and is an incoming assistant professor of English and creative writing at Randolph College in central Virginia.
Name: Meghana Mysore. Meghana, means “cloud” or “rising from the clouds” in Sanskrit; my parents tell me it means “queen of the clouds,” which might be a little embellishment from them. It really fits me as a person, since I’ve often been described as being a dreamer with my head in the clouds, and I grew up in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, which has a whimsical, misty and gray vibe. My parents liked the sound and the meaning of the name, and they ended up picking something that represents me in many ways.
Currently: Excited about the release of my debut short story collection, Let All Our Ghosts Depart, which centres South Asian, primarily South Indian American, women and girls as they grapple with belonging and are haunted by inter-generational inheritances. It’s the culmination of several years of writing and dreaming with my head in the clouds. It moves between realism and surrealism, using absurdism and dark humour to explore the many shades of grief and what it means to nurture the quiet power within oneself.
My life in 50 words (or less!): Coffee, coffee, coffee, walking with my family and our dog, calling friends and family around the world, jotting down ideas in my notebook, in my Notes app, writing comments on my amazing students’ stories and poems and essays, preparing class plans, playing outside, playing inside, finding rhythms inside of what hurts personally and globally, finding music in the ordinary, turning towards it, breathing, craning my neck, like a plant, towards the light.
The writer in me took flight when: I gave a speech for an elementary school project about Amelia Earhart, her career, and mysterious disappearance in 1937. I loved crafting this speech, exploring her life and legacy, and found myself enamoured with language itself, and what it could do. I remember feeling fascinated by the capacities of language – including the ellipses and other punctuation marks – to create pause and reflection. I also remember receiving very important encouragement from my teacher after giving this speech, when she told me that I had a gift for writing.
The romantic in me wishes: I could live in the same place with all the people I love – my closest friends, my family, my future partner, my dog, and that we could all coexist in harmony.
My favourite line in poetry: My favourite lines aren’t from a poem, but are about poetry itself as a necessity, by Audre Lorde: “For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.”
Favourite colours: Blue – cornflower blue, turquoise – and green – earthy olive, sage, moss.
Favourite designers: My ajji and mother. They’ve both knitted incredible sweaters for me that have kept me warm, and my grandmother has wire-woven various baskets where I keep my books and journals.
Favourite movie: I don’t know if I have a single favourite movie, but a couple favourites at the moment: Get Out directed by Jordan Peele, Little Miss Sunshine directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Three Idiots directed by Rajkumar Hirani and Past Lives directed by Celine Song
Favourite books/authors: This list could go on and on. Here are some of the books that have deeply influenced me as a writer and thinker:
ZZ Packer, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere; Susan Choi, Trust Exercise, My Education; Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth; Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red; Cesar Aira, Ghosts; Caryl Phillips, The Lost Child; Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater; Yiyun Li, Where Reasons End.
Favourite TV shows: Recent favourites: I May Destroy You (directed and written by Michaela Coel; I also really like Chewing Gum by her); Beef, Season 1. Classic/all time favourites: The Good Place, Parks and Recreation, Schitt’s Creek.
Favourite ice cream flavour: It’s changed over the years – it used to be mint chocolate chip, but I think it’s cookies and cream or cake batter now.
Favourite cuisine: I love South Indian food, particularly idlis and dosas. Favourites are moong dosa and tomato chutney.
Favourite restaurant: I’ve lived in so many cities and towns that it’s hard to pick just one in one place! In Roanoke, Virginia, where I completed my MFA in Creative Writing at Hollins University, I loved Taaza Indian Cuisine. In New Haven, Connecticut, where I went to college, I loved Tandoor and Lalibela. In Portland, Oregon, where I grew up – which is a wonderful food city – I adore ¿Por Qué No?, and for coffee, Fairlane Coffee and JoLa.
Let All Our Ghosts Depart by Meghana Mysore is published by West Virginia University Press, $25.95.
Favourite activities: Snacking, hiking, playing badminton with my dad, going to restaurants with my sister and friends, going for walks and getting coffee with my family.
I hang out: Lying in the grass, swimming in the water wherever I find it, dancing and twirling on kitchen floors.
I’m freaked out by: I think I have trypophobia, or the fear of lots of little circles and holes tightly packed together. The sight gives me a creepy-crawly feeling across my skin!
I need: Mari (my dog), woods to wander in, stories to immerse myself in, art to help me feel and experience.
My role models: It’s hard to name just a few, but I would say the women in my family for their strength, my dad for his humour and honesty, my grandparents for their perseverance and love, my mentors and teachers who showed me a way forward, the service staff in coffee shops, restaurants, and in facilities and operations at schools and workplaces, and the activists and others advocating for human rights.
Tips to save the planet: I try to do the below things, and I don’t do them perfectly, but they make a big difference: Eat a plant based diet. Recycle. Use public transportation or walk. Vote for policymakers who prioritize the environment.
In a perfect world: There would be global peace, no hunger, no genocides, and every kid who wanted to could go to school and read and write. We would hear these kids’ stories. We would listen. There would be humanity and connection and an abundance of love instead of fear.
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