‍“Meet the Teacher” offers a quick introduction to the talented writers who teach for The Porch. Today we welcome Meredith Lyons, who grew up in New Orleans, collecting two degrees from LSU before running away to Chicago to be an actor. Between plays, she got her black belt and taught martial arts and yoga. She fought in the Chicago Golden Gloves, ran the Chicago Marathon, and competed in the Savate World Championships in Paris. Although she did each of these twice, she couldn’t stay warm and relocated to Nashville. Her first novel, Ghost Tamer, is an Amazon Editor's Pick, an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Winner: Best SciFi Fantasy, an IPPY Award Winner: Best First Book, and a Silver Falchion Winner: Best Book of 2023. Her second novel, A Dagger of Lightning, was released in April 2025.‍

Tell us about a book you've recently read and enjoyed. 

All Systems Red by Martha Wells. Although I enjoy sci-fi, it’s not something I typically would have picked up and nothing in the cover or the description would have grabbed me, but a friend recommended it and it was short, so I gave it a shot. I really fell into it. Experiencing everything from the robot’s perspective, his discomfort with certain aspects of humanity, and the way bonds were formed differently was really fascinating and I genuinely cared about those characters. I’d read it again. This is why I like book clubs and recommendations occasionally. I find things I never would have picked up otherwise.

‍What’s one book or essay you return to again and again to help you think about writing or get inspired?

I often feel guilty about this, but I’m not one who devours craft books from beginning to end. I wish I could be a plotter with a murder-board and index cards full of scenes, but I’ve tried it, and I’m just not wired that way. It’s funny because I am meticulously organized in my day-to-day life. I love spreadsheets and bullet journals and color-coded calendars. But when I write, I am a chaos demon. All that being said—and I wish it wasn’t so cliche—but in a sea of craft books that I read chapters of and discarded, On Writing by Stephen King finally gave me permission to be the kind of writer I naturally was. After I read that, I stopped trying to force myself into a box and I’ve enjoyed the craft so much more since. We experience enough rejection and heartache in this business. The writing itself should be enjoyable. At least most of the time.

What is your favorite writing rule to break?

Fragments. I love writing in fragments. We speak in fragments. We move in fragments. There are times for long, lyrical, grammatically correct sentences, but there are also times for punchy fragments. 

The thing about any creative and subjective skill is that you really have to practice it regularly to grow, and in practicing it so often, it becomes difficult to view the growth yourself. When I teach others, in a weird way, I get to step back and see that I, myself, have grown and am capable of offering this help.

Music while writing: Y/N? 

It depends on what my brain is dealing with. Generally chill music with no words is my go-to, but if I’m experiencing a depression or an anxiety spike, I need music with words, something that I would usually only use for a workout. It’s like my mind needs something to chew on in the background so that I can settle down to write. At my day-job, I only have a half-hour lunch break and there’s nowhere really to go other than my desk, so I put a sign up, letting everyone know that I’m on break, and pop my headphones in. Sometimes I’ll put music in them, sometimes I just use them for noise cancellation and a visual reminder that I’m not available.

What do you love most about teaching writing?

The giving is receiving. I’ll expound. I had so many people help me when I first started writing. I cringe when I think of how clunky some of those early pages were, yet people met me where I was and helped me grow. I want to do that for others. The thing about any creative and subjective skill is that you really have to practice it regularly to grow, and in practicing it so often, it becomes difficult to view the growth yourself. When I teach others, in a weird way, I get to step back and see that I, myself, have grown and am capable of offering this help. It’s like it pushes this imposter syndrome back a bit. So, although it wasn’t my initial goal in teaching, in giving, I also receive.

For you, why does creative writing matter? 

I personally have to be creating something or my soul withers. I’ve danced through many forms of creative expression in my life: writing, acting, martial arts, painting, piano, and back to writing again. For me, it’s how I figure out what I care about. Yes, I may be writing a story about magic and unicorns, but while I’m editing it, I find out I’m actually talking about the abuse of power, friendship, and rebellion. I tend to feel things very deeply and I also have a long-ingrained habit of intellectualizing the unpleasant ones. Taking them out of my body and pulling them into my head where I can think about them safely and not feel them. I’m still working on this, but pulling them out when I’m writing has helped. I’ll even notice characters doing the same thing, it distances the work from the reader and I have to go in and make those characters feel. Still working on doing that with myself!

Tell us why you pitched your upcoming class or classes. 

‍My upcoming classes are all draft chats! When I led my first draft chat, I was really nervous. What if I had no constructive help to offer? What if I didn’t divide the time evenly? What if everyone just sat there and stared blankly at me? Of course, none of that happened. And I found I loved it! I love the joy of digging into someone’s stuck point where creatives all pull at the threads and find the meat of it together. It’s such a magical feeling when the creativity starts pinging. I’ve always said that you cannot grow your writing in a vacuum. And I think the draft chats are magical places, especially for newer writers who may not have found their critique family yet

Share something that has inspired your creativity lately, other than a book. ‍

Whenever I go through something that shifts my perspective, I tend to start writing a little character in the back of my mind. Sometimes the stories percolate there for a while before I do something with them, but the seeds have been planted. I’ve always been a very active person and I don’t do well with too many question marks. Recently I had an eye surgery that threw me for a loop. I’m apparently the one percent of people that heals in months instead of years. Just when I started wrapping my mind around that, I got Covid for the second time. It was much worse than the first time I got it, even though I’d had the booster. I slept for five days. (When I wasn’t coughing.) Both experiences had me creating the seeds of a character going through some physical and mental challenges. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it or when, but the creativity has been sparked.

‍