Episode Details

What can fiction reveal about the world that facts alone sometimes can’t?

In this episode of Thought Atlas, I sit down with Megan Lynch, an award-winning novelist from the United States whose work explores identity, power, place, technology, and belonging.

Megan grew up between West Virginia and Kentucky and says she has always been a writer and a reader. She began seriously pursuing novel writing around the age of 28 or 29 and eventually completed her first novel.

Her latest book, Hymn for the Forsaken, is an American Gothic psychological thriller. Through its story, Megan explores questions about progress, economic pressure, community, land, and what happens when powerful outside forces enter a place they don’t truly understand.

We explore:

• Why novels can sometimes help us understand difficult social realities from a different perspective• How fiction can give us enough distance to examine frightening or overwhelming subjects• Why Megan believes we should ask “progress for whom?”• The tension between progress, destruction, preservation, and the people who ultimately pay the price• How the mountains in Hymn for the Forsaken represent hope, stability, and something that outlasts human power• Why stories can help us imagine what we might do in someone else’s situation• Megan’s concerns about AI-generated writing and what she believes human creativity offers• Her experience of being named in the Anthropic lawsuit and her claim that one of her books was used to train an AI system• Why she believes developing your own thoughts, literary tastes, morality, and worldview is part of what makes us human• Whether AI can have morally sound and productive uses• Why she thinks those uses should be considered without financial incentives dominating the discussion• Her experience with breast cancer and how that experience changed her perspective on time and purpose• How a period of uncertainty about whether the cancer had spread to her skeleton changed the way she looked at her children, students, husband, and family• Why she came away from that experience determined to love harder and live more fully• How the experience eventually led her to change significant parts of her life and focus on writing full time• Why Megan believes literature has a responsibility beyond entertainment• Her view of storytelling as a way of passing wisdom between generations• Why readers can form genuine connections with people they’ve never met through shared fictional worlds• And her advice to aspiring writers who worry that their voice isn’t original enough

Megan’s message to new writers is simple:

“Your voice is original.”

Keep living. Keep reading. Have experiences. Be brave in small situations. Then sit down and start writing.

Because, as Megan puts it:

“Good writing comes from good living.”

Connect with Megan

🌐 Website: https://www.authormeganlynch.com/

📱 Threads & Instagram: Megan Lynch Books

📖 Hymn for the Forsaken

Megan says the book can be purchased through Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Amazon, and anywhere you like to buy books.

🌍 Thought AtlasMapping ideas, exploring everything.

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