Meg Mason

Meg Mason is a New Zealand-born author and journalist. Her 2020 novel Sorrow and Bliss won the British Book Awards 2022 Fiction Book of the Year. Her latest novel, published in 2026, is Sophie, Standing There.

Early life and education Meg Mason grew up in a religious sect in Foxton, New Zealand. She later moved to Palmerston North, and then to Sydney, Australia, at the age of 16.

Career Mason lived in the United Kingdom for five years, during which time she wrote for the Financial Times and The Times, before moving back to Sydney and starting a career as a freelance journalist. She has written for a number of magazines, including Vogue, Elle, and GQ.

She published her first book Say It Again in a Nice Voice in 2012 and her first novel You Be Mother in 2017. It was also shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards Fiction Book of the Year in 2021 and the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2022, and was nominated for the Ockham Award. It was given the "incredibly pejorative" label of "sad girl fiction", Film and television rights for Sorrow and Bliss were sold to New Regency.

In 2026 her new novel, Sophie, Standing There, the protagonist, who works for a literary festival becomes obsessed with a well-known writer. Mason created the "naturally cheerful" character of Sophie as a reaction to the labelling of her previous novel as sad girl fiction.