Meet Megan Doney

Please tell us about your current line of work and how you got started in it. Please include any awards or upcoming projects.

I am an English professor at a community college in Virginia. This will be my 25th year of teaching! My first book, Unarmed: An American Educator's Memoir, is coming out in October 2024. It won the Washington Writers Publishing House (WWPH) nonfiction prize. The book is a memoir in essays about surviving a school shooting at the college where I teach, in 2013. Afterwards, I searched and searched for a book by an educator who had also survived a school shooting; shockingly, there weren't any. So I embarked on this journey. The book interrogates illusions of safety in our public and private lives. For other writers who might be looking for opportunities, WWPH's book contests are open to writers in DC, Maryland, and Virginia!

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Do you have any mentors or sources of inspiration?

My students and former professors all have left their marks on me. Writers I admire include Peter Matthiessen, Michael Ondaatje, Alexandra Fuller, Dylan Thomas, and Toni Morrison.

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What parts of your work do you enjoy most? Why?

Teaching has turned out to be a perfect career for someone who loves learning. I get to redesign my course content as often as I want, and am always challenging myself to learn alongside and from my students.

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What are your favorite things to do when you have free time?

I love to practice yoga, swim, read voraciously, play with my animals, paddleboard, and travel.

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Are there any dream projects you'd like to pursue?

I would really like my next writing project to be more lighthearted than Unarmed. Something with cryptids, or a correspondence between Emily Dickinson and Emily Bronte (and their gigantic dogs!).

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How can we learn more about you?

https://www.megandoney.com/ is my website, and I am on BlueSky @meganlee.bsky.social