Still An Avalon Summer Girl: Author Meg Donohue Rides Wave of Popularity Back Into Town

In 2013, Meg Donohue published her second novel, “All the Summer Girls,” to national acclaim and intense local interest. Set in Avalon, the book was a best-seller that captivated readers with a tale of friendship, mystery and romance amid the borough’s familiar restaurants, hangouts, beaches and bays.

For Donohue, who grew up in Philadelphia and spent her summers in Avalon, “All the Summer Girls” was both a tribute and a revelation.

“I got such wonderful feedback. It made the whole experience of writing the book more than I ever expected,” she says. “The response from people on the island or who have spent summers in Avalon made me feel so warmly received by the community. It’s such a shared experience for so many people to have this thing of going down the shore in the summer. Readers of all ages reached out to me – mostly via email. One person told me about an old romance with someone at the shore and that my book inspired them to reach out to that person.”

Since the success of “All the Summer Girls,” Donohue has continued to pen heartfelt stories. She published “Dog Crazy” in 2015, and most recently “Every Wild Heart,” which was named to the American Library Association’s 2017 Top 10 Women’s Fiction List. Currently working on her fifth novel, Donohue will delight local fans with a reading and book-signing event at the Avalon Free Public Library at 7pm Aug. 9. She will discuss her books, her inspirations, and answer questions from the audience. “My favorite part is Q&A, so I leave time for that,” she says. “I’m an open book. No pun intended.”

The appearance is a happy homecoming for Donohue, who resides with her husband and three children in San Francisco but still spends a month every summer at her parents’ house in Avalon. “My readings at the Avalon Library are always my favorites of all the ones I do,” she says. “I always look forward to them because it just feels like I’m supported in Avalon in a really wonderful way.”

The support Donohue feels is genuine.

“We were so glad that Meg Donohue could join us again this summer in Avalon,” says Erin Brown, director of the Avalon Free Public Library. “Our patrons have been loving her new book, ‘Every Wild Heart.’ It’s a perfect summer read, with a mix of mystery, romance and humor.”

With “Every Wild Heart,” Donohue continues to fulfill her lifelong ambition to be a successful novelist.

“Really from as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer. I really never lost that desire,” she says. “It never left me.”

After completing high school at Penn Charter, Donohue earned her bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth University. She then spent several years working on the agent side of publishing in New York City, which was illuminating in several ways.

“I loved it,” she says. “It definitely solidified that it was a world I wanted to be a part of and, though it was fascinating to do for a few years, I knew that I wanted to be on the writing end of that world.”

With that goal in mind, she went back to school and earned a master’s degree in creative writing from Columbia University. And she has been writing ever since, publishing a new book every one to two years and acquiring an ever-growing and loyal fan base. Her books have been best-sellers, won awards and been translated into many languages, including Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.

“It’s been a lot of fun to see my novels translated into different languages,” she says. “I love seeing the range of covers that the art departments of my foreign publishers create. Even the translations of the titles are so interesting. For example, the Dutch edition of “Dog Crazy” is called ‘Uitgelaten,’ which I’m told is a Dutch expression that means both ‘walking the dog’ and ‘being happy.’ I love that expression and it’s so perfect for that book.”

Along with her success, Donohue says she has acquired hard-earned wisdom into the ups and downs of the writer’s life: “It requires a lot of dedication and stamina. There’s a long process in the writing period, I think for most writers, where it feels like the writing isn’t coming together, where you kind of feel like you’re floundering. But you still have to sit down every day and keep floundering until eventually it starts to come together. But there’s no way it comes together until you put in those many, many hours of blind writing.”

While she knows that “there’s no magic that happens once you’ve done this a few times.” She’s gained confidence in the process along the way. “The only thing that gets easier is knowing you’ve done it before,” she says. “So, I have more faith now during those times when I feel a little lost in the writing process. I’ve felt it 100 other times and know that I can make it through. Then it starts to feel really good.”

Though her writing process might be similar, Donohue explores vastly different environments in each of her novels, delving into worlds as disparate as cupcake bakeries in her first novel, “How to Eat a Cupcake,” to canine grief counseling in “Dog Crazy.” Yet, the common thread in all of her novels is an exploration of relationships.

In her most recent book, “Every Wild Heart,” she examines the deeply fascinating mother-daughter bond through the lives of a single mother and her emotionally complex daughter. Drawing on some of her own experiences and interests for the book, Donohue says, “It’s about a mother and a daughter and I’m a mother of three daughters. I really wanted to write about that experience. But she’s a single mother with one daughter, and I’m married with three, and we lead very different lives and the things that happen in the book don’t happen to me.”

Acknowledging the intricacies of the mother-daughter dynamic, her outlook in “Every Wild Heart” is a positive one. “I wanted to write about the trials and tribulations that can come from that relationship. But also to focus on the more powerful and uplifting parts of that story,” she explains. “It seems like there are a lot of stories out there about how difficult and fraught mother-and-daughter relationships can be and I don’t disagree with that. But that’s not the story I wanted to tell.”

Donohue also allows the character of Gail, who is both a mother and a successful radio host, to struggle with challenges that Donohue finds in her own professional life, albeit through a different lens.

“I have no experience as a radio host whatsoever,” she says. “But Gail is at this crossroads in her life, where she’s wrestling with some themes that I wrestle with in my own creative work, which is the idea of always wanting to challenge myself while still being grateful and supportive of the readers I’ve gathered along the way. For me, I often wrestle with satisfying what I think my readers want to read and also pushing myself to do more. I give that dilemma to Gail to work through in a totally different field.”

And while her characters experience predicaments and adventures in unique fields and various locales, Donohue is more than happy with the life she’s living.

“I really just feel overwhelmed with gratitude for it because it is extremely challenging, but I love the challenge of it,” she says. “I never lose sight of the fact that I’m so lucky to be able to do both of these things that I love, which is to spend a lot of time with my family and write books.”