Farms to Fiction

Adjunct Professor Megan Baxter’s love for writing started at an early age. She was a very creative kid who loved writing and, during a period of time when she was what she refers to as “a Victorian child” due to illness, her father read to her a lot. These were typically very large books — she read the Lord of the Rings series at age 5 since she didn’t have television — and delving into the creative world of books was her entertainment. It’s no surprise that she teaches writing and has become a published author.

At Colby-Sawyer, Megan teaches creative writing classes. She has always loved teaching and mentoring students, and she somehow always ends up in one of the two roles. She enjoys working with students and it helps her to re-examine her craft. As a writer herself, she has been given a variety of advice, which she often relays to her students. One piece of advice that she received from a teacher was, “Always be more obvious than you think you need to be.” One from another writer was, “Focus on things that obsess you,” which created a shift in her writing. The direction that she often gives her students — “People who are the famous writers are the ones who didn’t quit” — is one that she received from a teacher.

Before coming to the college, Megan held a lot of other very different jobs. She has worked at bakeries, been a cross-fit coach, taught at the competitive high school level, worked as an admissions recruiter for high school of the arts, ran urban non-profit farms and managed a farm for 10 years. The last one is the subject of her latest published work, Farm Girl. Six years ago, she moved from Vermont and wished to get back into writing, so she set aside time and money for it. Ironically, she started to write about a farm after she had just left one. It started out as a short essay and eventually became a book over the course of a master’s program.

The process of writing Farm Girl was very nostalgic for Megan. Out of various works she’s done, she’s proudest of a fun essay called “On Revision” that was published in Hotel America. She is also proud of rewriting a novel, since with her first draft she hurried to write it because she wanted to read it. A style of writing that she has yet to tackle is screenwriting. The form is so particular compared to nonfiction and poetry, which she tends to write, and is a very collaborative process, with the finished work being interpreted in various ways by different people.

The most challenging aspect of writing to Megan is the business side. The self-promotion is tiring, consisting of promoting and pitching her work and attempting to get it out there. Although Farm Girl came out early last year Megan is already in the midst of new projects. She is already several books ahead, has manuscripts of essays potentially being released this year and a novel ready to send to agents. Over winter break, she headed off to Rome to do research for a novel, in addition to the lots of research she had already done for it through visiting libraries, purchasing books and learning about ancient history. Rome is home to many artifacts of her interest, and she planned to get hands on experience with the subject matter. The trip was originally three weeks long and had been shortened into a condensed version due to the current pandemic. With her nonfiction work, Megan hopes to offer solidarity to readers, wants people to enjoy the experience of reading and wants to share the experience of engaging with language.