Meet Meghan Bell, member of the Room collective. Meghan has been with Room since November 2011 and is our advertising coordinator and Co-Managing Editor (among other things!).
Meet Meghan Bell, member of the Room collective. Meghan has been with Room since November 2011 and is our advertising coordinator and Co-Managing Editor (among other things!).
ROOM: What are you reading right now?
MB: Well, to be honest—mostly just submissions for Room’s Geeks issue (37.3), which I’m editing. I’m also sporadically reading stories and poems from Amber Dawn’s How Poetry Saved My Life and Karen Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. I’m hoping to read Zadie Smith’s On Beauty once I have the time to really get into it—it’s been waiting on my bedside bookshelf for far too long.
ROOM: Is there one book that you find yourself frequently recommending to other people?
MB: Two books: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Seriously, go read them. Or reread them.
ROOM: Who is your favourite author?
MB: “Favourite” is always a question I have trouble with. I’ve read every book Miriam Toews has ever written (some twice), so she’s probably my favourite author as an adult. However, I have never loved any book as much as I loved the Animorphs series as a child. So perhaps a more honest answer would be Katherine Applegate. If you count comics, then Berkeley Breathed and Bill Watterson. Oh, I don’t know.
ROOM: What books have you read that inspired you the most? Is there one that has changed your life and outlook?
MB: Animorphs. I discovered them when I was about eight, and they launched a lifelong love of reading. I was an anxious, awkward, nerdy kid who didn’t have a lot of friends in elementary school; these were the books that made that bearable … mostly because I pretended that all the other kids had their brains occupied by aliens! My tastes have matured a lot since then, obviously, but as I said above, I have never loved another book more. (The History of Love is a very close second.)
Originally published in Room 37.2 Expanding the Voice.
