Meagan Cass
twitter: @cassmeagan
Meagan Cass is a bisexual writer who grew up in the suburbs of New York City. Her first collection, ActivAmerica, won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in fiction, and her chapbook, Range of Motion, was published by Magic Helicopter Press. Her stories often involve girl and women athletes, ghosts, unhealthy fitness plans, whiskey, and the ways in which sport can liberate, harm, express, and reveal our inner lives.
Based in St. Louis, Meagan teaches creative writing and indie publishing at the University of Illinois Springfield. She curates the Shelterbelt reading series at UIS, and serves as a board member and assistant editor for Sundress Publications. She and Amy Sayre Baptista co-edit Craft Chaps, a series of creative writing craft chapbooks which aim to make visible aesthetic approaches beyond the cis white male perspective.
Sandra Cisneros, Stuart Dybek, and Edwidge Danticat are three of her longtime favorite writers for how they engage with memory, non-linear story structures, and place. These days, she’s reading Christina Rivera Garza and Amina Cain, both with gorgeous books out from Dorothy, Lisa Locascio’s lush, unsettling, first novel Open Me, Tiana Clark’s Equilibrium, Cassie Donish’s Beautyberry, and Guadalupe Nettle’s After the Winter. As a huge fan of horror, in both film and literature, she also can’t wait to dig into Kea Wilson’s We Eat Our Own.
In her free time, Meagan kicks around with her women and non-binary pick-up soccer group, wanders the free museums, thrift stories, and concert venues of St. Louis (Jenny Lewis—please add us to your spring tour?), makes gumbo, mac and chese, and other big pot foods, and hosts writing days and readings at her house. She feels lucky to nourish a kind, critical artistic community in her home city.
website: meagancass.wordpress.com
Selected Publications