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Meg Mullins Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Meg Mullins
© Jerry Bauer

Meg Mullins

Meg Mullins Biography

Meg Mullins was born and raised in New Mexico. She attended Barnard College and earned her MFA from Columbia University. Her short stories have appeared in numerous publications including The Sonoran Review, The Baltimore Review, The Iowa Review and TriQuarterly. The story that formed the basis of her first novel, The Rug Merchant, appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2002. She lives in New Mexico with her husband and their two children. Dear Strangers is her second novel.

From the author's website

Meg Mullins's website

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Interview

Meg Mullins discusses her first novel, The Rug Merchant, the story of the unlikely romance between an Iranian immigrant and an American college student.

Would you share with readers the source of the original idea for the story of The Rug Merchant?

Originally, when I first conceived the short story, the idea was based on a couple of family anecdotes that I conflated into one story. I was six when my grandmother died suddenly. Home alone, she'd had a heart attack and collapsed on the bedroom rug. When she fell, she hit her head and the wound left a small pool of her blood on the rug. A few days later, my grandfather silently carried the rug to the curb for the trash collector and stood there, waiting, until it was picked up and taken away. That image haunted and inspired me. But as often happens in fiction, an image or an anecdote that may have sparked the idea will become almost unrecognizable in the end. Then, after finishing the short story, I had fallen in love with Ushman as a character and was compelled by my curiosity to continue writing about him as a man trying to find his way after a devastating divorce.

You have captured the essence of Ushman's character so well - both his inner and outer life. One can do research on...

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Books by this Author

Books by Meg Mullins at BookBrowse
Dear Strangers jacket The Rug Merchant jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Meg Mullins but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Anita Amirrezvani

    Anita Amirrezvani

    Anita Amirrezvani was born in Tehran, Iran, and raised in San Francisco. For ten years, she was a dance critic for newspapers in the Bay Area. She has received fellowships from the National Arts Journalism Program, the NEA's ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Rug Merchant

    Try:
    The Blood of Flowers
    by Anita Amirrezvani

  • Yasmin Crowther

    Yasmin Crowther

    Yasmin Crowther is the product of an Anglo-Iranian household (Iranian mother and British father). She says that she "feels like I am a part of both places and not fully understood by either place", and that's ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Rug Merchant

    Try:
    The Saffron Kitchen
    by Yasmin Crowther

We recommend 7 similar authors

View all 7 Read-Alikes

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