Meghan Carver is a writer of faith-filled suspense, an unabashed bibliophile, a homeschooling mother of six, and a lawyer. Meghan Carver has four books published with Love Inspired Suspense and two indie cozy mysteries. She has also co-authored a nonfiction missionary story. Her debut novel with Love Inspired Suspense was a Publisher’s Weekly bestseller and earned a Romantic Times 4-star review.
Meghan Carver lives in Indiana where she avoids the summer humidity as much as possible by reading in the air conditioning, keeps a stash of dark chocolate, volunteers with the statewide homeschool organization and the drama team at her church, and prays for snow. One of her favorite activities is reading The Chronicles of Narnia aloud to her children, and she looks for a secret wintry wood whenever she enters her closet. Just for kicks, she is a student of Taekwondo under her Black Belt daughter. You can connect with her on Facebook and Instagram or sign up for her author newsletter to keep up-to-date on the latest news.
Meghan Carver read constantly as a child, watching out the window for the bookmobile to arrive in her neighborhood and then climbing a nearby tree to hide and read in a favorite spot. In the third grade, after turning in a list of books she had read over summer break, her new teacher returned the paper with a smiley face and the comment, “Don’t you ever go outside?” Of course she did . . . to her spot in the tree where she could read.
Oddities abound in any life, and Meghan grew up where everyone knew her dad – the only paraplegic lawyer in the town of 40,000 who was also known for his athleticism, particularly college wheelchair basketball. She was “Harry’s daughter.” Her mom, an amiable extrovert who worked as a nurse and volunteered for nearly everything, also knew everyone. And her only sibling, a brother, excelled at math and science (hello, future engineer). Finally, it seemed that they were the only adopted children in town, another oddity. Where did that leave Meghan? Where was her place in the community?
That realization struck her during an essay contest in the sixth grade – she was a writer. Sitting next to the window and listening to the hissing radiator in the school cafeteria, her focus the scratching of the pencil across the lined paper, she realized she enjoyed the creative endeavor of putting words into stories. She also soaked up the encouragement and favorable remarks she received from her teacher, and that love of writing blossomed throughout school. Nearly every spare moment that wasn’t spent on schoolwork or her paper route was spent writing poems and stories and sending them off to publications.
As she headed off to college, Meghan knew she ultimately wanted a job where she could read full-time. (Who doesn’t want that?? Right?) With this end in mind, she majored in English Literature and was published every year in the college magazine. She also served as editor of the college newspaper for a semester but quickly realized that she preferred fiction to reality.
But what does an English Lit major do for a job after graduation? She was finally forced to admit that the goal of reading full-time and being paid for it wasn’t realistic. Meghan couldn’t figure it out, so she detoured into law school, following in her father’s footsteps. It was a thoroughly enjoyable education and a real brain-stretcher, but not long after graduation, she and her husband (married six years by then) began a family. As much as she enjoyed the law, she knew she would only have one chance to delight in, nurture, and love the precious blessings the Lord was giving her.
Baby after baby arrived as her writing sat dormant. When Meghan’s dad passed away, her mom turned to her to write the obituary. That exercise of honoring her father’s life through telling his story resurrected her innate need to write.
Even though she was pregnant with her sixth child, she knew she had been away from writing far too long. It was time for more mentally stimulating activity than changing diapers and reading picture books until she had the entire Dr. Seuss’s ABC book memorized. Even more so, just like in her childhood, she needed her own identity, one other than that-crazy-homeschooling-lady-with-the-six-children.
Sometimes typing with one hand while holding a baby, Meghan began writing again. She started with several picture books for her children (unpublished) and then transitioned into blogging with a return to writing short stories and submitting them to publications. Soon, she had published many Sunday school stories and magazine articles, including a quiz in Focus on the Family’s Clubhouse Magazine. Finally, she tackled her original goal of writing novels, including one in which her wheelchair-bound father is healed of his paraplegia. (That one was for therapeutic purposes and shall, most likely, remain unpublished.) It didn’t take long, though, before these efforts resulted in her first book contract with three more to follow.
Life now moves along at breakneck speed for Meghan, with several books published and many more on the way. She and her husband have been married for thirty years, and their six children range from grade school to graduate school, all still at home with them, filling their house with love and laughter along with many moments of chaos. She’s down to teaching only an eighth grader and a high school sophomore now, but homeschooling has been a journey that has grown her faith and taught her many truths of life. She wouldn’t change a single part of it . . . except maybe The Great Fried Chicken Debacle of 2014.
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