Archive · 29 Aug 2026
Meg Mason Explores Readers, Fame, Loneliness, and Writing Reality
Meg Mason is a writer who made a new book about a reader named Sophie.
Sophie feels very lonely and becomes fascinated by a famous author named Lilac Dunne.
She hopes that meeting Lilac will lead to a close friendship.
Mason got the idea after working at a writers festival and noticing the people who work quietly behind the stage.
She wanted to show how readers can feel close to authors even when they do not really know them.
Mason says fame can feel good but can also make life more complicated.
She stopped using Instagram because it made her emotions less steady while she was writing.
She believes writers need to protect their time and attention.
She also says stories can come from real feelings without being completely true accounts of real events.
Meg Mason says Sophie, Standing There grew from observing readers, authors, and literary festivals after Sorrow and Bliss became successful.
The novel follows Sophie, a lonely freelance sound technician who develops an intense parasocial attachment to the famous author Lilac Dunne.
Mason found the story’s starting point at the 2024 Auckland Writers Festival, where she interviewed Ann Patchett.
Mason quit Instagram after abandoning a failed manuscript, saying social media drained the emotional energy she needed for writing.
She says fiction can be rooted in truth while still being only one of many possible ways to tell a story.
- Who
- Author Meg Mason, along with the fictional characters Sophie and Lilac Dunne; Mason also discusses Ann Patchett and other authors who appear in the novel.
- What
- Mason discusses Sophie, Standing There, a novel about loneliness, literary festivals, readers, fame, and parasocial attachment to authors.
- When
- The story’s initial inspiration came at the Auckland Writers Festival in 2024; Mason says she left Instagram in 2018.
- Where
- The inspiration came from the Auckland Writers Festival in New Zealand; Mason was born in New Zealand and now lives in Sydney, Australia.
- Why
- Mason wanted to explore what happens when readers meet authors they admire and how writing, fame, and social media affect an author’s emotional life.
- Author
- Meg Mason
- New novel
- Sophie, Standing There
- Earlier bestseller
- Sorrow and Bliss, shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize
- Festival inspiration
- The 2024 Auckland Writers Festival, where Mason interviewed Ann Patchett
- Social media
- Mason left Instagram in 2018 after deciding it distracted from her writing
- Main character
- Sophie, a freelance sound technician for literary festivals
- Central relationship
- Sophie develops an intense, unbalanced attachment to author Lilac Dunne