PW Talks with Meg Tilly: Breaking Silence’s Big Chill

With her second novel, Gemma, published by Syren Book Company (a press that splits the production process with its authors), Oscar-nominated actress Meg Tilly returns to the subject of child sexual abuse—and retains creative control.

PW: What happened in the years between your first book, Singing Songs, and Gemma?

MT: Singing Songs was released in 1994 by Dutton. That was a wonderful experience. It was kind of scary, too, because I sold it as something that I just plucked from the ether—that had no connection to me. But I had actually based it on memories that I had from my own childhood. It was very empowering to discover my voice, but being out there in such a personal way—even though nobody knew—was terrifying. And my children, all three are now pretty much safely to adulthood, and all intact and good people.

PW: It’s such a massive shift to say, for the first time, that your work is based on personal experience.

MT: Scary. It’s scary. The thing is, I need to stand up tall and say it. Because I hope to be able to reach other children, or people who have lived through this kind of thing. Some people might find the language or the content disturbing. And some of those people—maybe it’s best that they just don’t read it. Because it is disturbing. I wanted it to be disturbing. Because when you’re a kid, with one of these guys, it’s disturbing!

PW: The content must have affected the process of publishing the book.

MT: All the big publishers either turned it down flat or an editor really loved it but couldn’t get it past the house. A few were interested but wanted me to rewrite it in a way that didn’t feel right to me. My experience with films was that sometimes the more interesting, edgy pieces have much more chance of flying with small independent film companies, so I thought (I didn’t know, but I thought) it’s probably the same way with books. I also wanted to move on, because I’ve been writing other things, and I can’t let go of a project until it’s out of my hands. That’s where I came up with Syren.

PW: How has that worked?

MT: It’s something like halvsies: I pay for the editing, design and cover; they pay for printing and distribution. I didn’t want to start my own company. They do all the heavy lifting (the first printing is 12,000 copies), but I get to be very involved. It’s a lot more work, but it’s totally mine. I didn’t have to Pollyanna it, and—and!—you get much higher royalties.