Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Meghan Fitzmartin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Meghan, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I’ve been very vocal about the fact that, when I went to college, I studied to be a youth pastor. A unique path, especially as a woman, but I knew that what I wanted to do more than anything else in the world was to tell people they were loved. Specifically the younger generations. I wanted to reach out and give them safe spaces, places that helped them wrestle with who they were and who they wanted to be, while also allowing them to be fully loved without judgement. I couldn’t imagine teaching, I hated school. Besides, my faith is incredibly important to me. I felt a calling to tell people they were loved.

Turns out, it wasn’t for ministry. Or, how we view ministry.

The longer I was at my university, the more I grew frustrated with the people around me. They weren’t modeling the love that I wanted to share, that I believe God shares. I was more interested in the stories. And, as the time grew closer and closer to graduation, I realized my dream wasn’t what I expected. I reexamined my dream to provide a safe place of love and acceptance, while still exploring challenges. And I realized the lesson that Jesus knew throughout his entire ministry. The ministry isn’t always what we expect it to look like. Sometimes the ministry is story. I have always loved story. I have always been loved by story. I moved to LA and have been telling stories of love, of acceptance, of challenge ever since.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up in the town that Disney built. I like to call myself the emo kid in the ‘happiest place on earth’. The oldest of five children in a very conservatively religious family, I found myself in superhero stories. I immersed myself in comics and Bible stories, and eventually went to college to get a degree in church ministries. I served in a variety of youth ministries and was a camp counselor for at-risk youth and neurodiverse children, working with the autism spectrum, ADD, OCD, and bipolar disorder. My goal was to be a youth pastor, to tell people they are loved. And the longer I was in school, I realized the best way to tell people they are loved was through the way I knew I was loved – through stories.

I moved to LA in 2011, and after rising the ranks to become a staff writer on SUPERNATURAL, I went on to create the popular narrative podcast RED RHINO, a superhero story about a teenager who gets superpowers that are really silly. I also wrote episodes for LEGO MONKIE KID and SUPERNATURAL ACADEMY. I have also written animated movies for Warner Brothers, such as RWBY + JSA Part 1 and Part 2. In audio drama podcasts, I’ve worked in the BRIGHT SESSIONS universe, winning an Audioverse award for my writing on THE AM ARCHIVES. I also wrote on the second season of the critically acclaimed PASSENGER LIST, receiving the BBC Podcasting Award in 2022.

In comics, I came onto the scene with a three-part story in BATMAN: URBAN LEGENDS, where Tim Drake came out as bisexual. Since then, I have written DARK CRISIS: YOUNG JUSTICE and TIM DRAKE: ROBIN. I’ve even dabbled in video games, writing the CAPTAIN AMERICA: TURKEY TROT story for the MARVEL MOVE app.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I’ve been telling stories since I was a child. I remember going to the library with my mom and reading Nancy Drew books. I couldn’t get enough. I became filled with stories, so many that they started spilling out onto the page, playing with my Barbies, or in school. I didn’t think I would pursue it as a job, though. That’s foolish, isn’t it?

It was a click in my brain, once I decided to allow myself to acknowledge that I wanted to write. I was drawn to LA, to books, to people. I threw myself into studying writing. I lived in LA and worked as a nanny during the day, then at night I was reading scripts, writing scripts, doing whatever I could to fill my brain with story. I was always open and hungry, which led to getting my first industry job as a runner for a theatrical marketing office. It’s one of my favorite jobs, I remember it so fondly and my boss continues to be one of my biggest supporters. I stayed there for two years, writing on my off hours. But I knew I wasn’t able to stay there, because I wasn’t able to write. So I left, without a job lined up. I nannied again, until I got a job as a production assistant for Warner Bros TV Budgeting department. Still not the job I wanted, but I learned the studio, made friends, and kept writing, writing, writing. I entered contests and film festivals. I even won a couple, impressing my bosses. Which was incredibly useful when I got the job at Supernatural – I got the job on Thursday and it started on Monday.

At Supernatural, I was still an assistant. But I was surrounded by some of the smartest writers to this day. I learned from them, I read all the scripts, and I kept writing. I had our Writer’s Assistant read my script, did his notes, gave it to our story editor, did his notes, etc. Moving my script up the chain until I showed it to our showrunners. I was terrified to give them the script, especially because it was a lot more mature than what I normally expressed. But it worked! I got to write my first episode.

From there, I did my best to leverage my writing into various projects, writing for animation, audio drama, and comics. I finally became full time freelance writer in 2020… and then the pandemic happened. All in all, I find that my hard work payed off. I continued to chat with people, made friends… and wrote.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I don’t blame people in non-creative fields to not understand my job. I tried numerous times to explain it to my family, and even I got confused! But the thing I find people in non-creative fields sometimes don’t understand is the need for daydreaming. When I was in middle school and high school, I spent most of the time coming up with stories, stories I still steal from today! I make look like I’m ignoring people or slacking off, but the time to just imagine and play pretend in my head is crucial for my work, and gets harder and harder the older I get. It’s something I wish a society valued more, the idea that daydreaming is a skill worth valuing, instead of training children out of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://meghanfitzmartin.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/megfitz89
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghan-fitzmartin/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/megfitz89

Image Credits
Jonny Marlow