Meg Stout writes historical fiction based on the lives of real people, uniting scientific curiosity with storytelling in her books.

Meg became fascinated by true tales after learning her parents had to leave the state to get married. (Marriage between whites and asians was considered “Void and Prohibited” at the time.)

Meg’s first attempt to tell her stories in fictional form occurred in 2006 for National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo). To her surprise, Meg found fiction took more rigor than mere documentary, since fiction requires she make sense out of the facts of people’s lives. Many of her subjects spring from revered tradition, from Saint Margaret of Scotland to early Mormon pioneers, cases where information is missing from the “extant” records… Meg calls what she writes “midrash,” a Hebrew term for interpretive stories woven around holy legends.

Meg is a 2007 graduate of Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. In 2008 she studied novel-writing with Dave Wolverton in St. George, Utah. Meg lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and daughters.