Meg Donohue: Read Like a Writer
In this interview, author Meg Donohue discusses the relationship between scent and memory with her new novel, The Memory Gardener.
Meg Donohue is the USA TODAY bestselling author of You, Me, and the Sea; Every Wild Heart; Dog Crazy; All the Summer Girls; How to Eat a Cupcake; and The Memory Gardener. Her novels have been translated into Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish. Meg has an MFA from Columbia University and a BA from Dartmouth College. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she now lives in San Francisco with her husband, three daughters, and dog. She is working on her next novel. Follow her on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.
In this interview, Meg discusses the relationship between scent and memory with her new novel, The Memory Gardener, her advice for other writers, and more.
Name: Meg Donohue
Literary agent: Elisabeth Weed
Book title: The Memory Gardener
Publisher: Gallery Books / Simon & Schuster
Release date: November 25, 2025
Genre/category: Magical Realism / Friendship
Previous titles: You, Me, and the Sea; Every Wild Heart; Dog Crazy; All the Summer Girl; How to Eat a Cupcake
Elevator pitch: A gardener with a gift for growing flowers whose scents awaken lost memories takes a job at a retirement community in Northern California, stirring new pleasures and unearthing long-buried secrets among all who venture through the gardens’ gates.
What prompted you to write this book?
I’ve always been interested in the connection between scent and memory, and I started to become interested in gardening six or seven years ago. One day, as I was puttering around our little yard in San Francisco, letting the scents of the surrounding flowers pull my mind in all sorts of directions, the idea for the book came to me: What if the scent of a flower was literally transportive, allowing you to relive a forgotten moment from your past?
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
About six years. It took me a very long time, much longer than it normally does, to write the version of this book that I really love. I rewrote the entire manuscript many times, cutting characters and pages along the way. Normally I write short early drafts and then add layers in later drafts; this book was the opposite. I started long and meandering and eventually took a carving knife to it. Through it all, the heart of the novel—the central idea—remained the same. It just took a long time and a lot of trial and error to figure out how to make that idea shine.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
One surprise is that cozy books seem to be having a moment. In the early years of working on The Memory Gardener, it didn’t seem that gentle, heartwarming reads were particularly en vogue. I’m pleasantly surprised that this book is coming out during a time when it seems people are craving uplifting reads.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I was surprised by how much I absolutely loved writing the chapters that are from a grumpy octogenarian’s point of view. Those chapters poured out of me, and they were the only ones I didn’t rewrite a million times.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I’d love for my readers to feel a sense of comfort as they close my book, a sense of having been transported away from the troubles of the world for a spell. I want them to feel as though they’ve been enveloped in a warm hug.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Read a ton—and read like a writer. Take apart the books that you admire, the books that you think would have a shared readership with your novel, and study them. Write detailed, chapter by chapter, plot summaries of those books, noting the important beats in the character and plot arcs. I find this exercise to be incredibly helpful. It creates a roadmap that you can use as you plot your own story.
