About me….
I’m Meg McGarry. I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 70’s, and then went to Westlake School where I discovered my love of acting, writing and film. I was at Northwestern as a theater major for two years, and then to N.Y.U as a Cinema Studies major. I returned to L.A. and had a short stint of acting, which included being a Sunday night performer at the Groundlings and playing Wendy the kooky friend on The Young and the Restless. My first line on the soap was “Which one of the thundering herd who is always chasing you is tonight?” I then decided I’d rather to be a writer.
I sold my first screenplay “Art Boy” (loosely based on my artist friend James Mathers) to Warner Brothers at 22. After two years of development, I soon realized my vision did not stop at the page, and I began to write, direct and produce short films and plays in Los Angeles. My first short film Black Menu screened at Sundance and The Berlin Film Festival. It is available to watch on this site as well as my short Dedication. I also put on site specific plays in the 80’s “I Do What?” performed in a mock hotel room set up at Bar Marmont and “Cup of Joe” staged in a coffee house on Melrose. I self published my novel A Hundred Dead Roses which was a best seller at Book Soup.
I later became a mother to Paris and Flynn (now grown up and living in New York City), created an after school filmmaking workshop called DV kids and taught Mac skills to 420 elementary school students in Malibu. I created short content on youtube for my son, Flynn McGarry, “The Culinary Prodigy” and co-owned his pop up restaurant Eureka. I also shot footage and appear in the documentary “Chef Flynn” , a festival darling currently available on streaming platforms.
In 2020, during lockdown, I created Broken Virginia, a marionette feature film shot in my garage which recieved an Honorable Mention from the LA underground Film Festival. In 2021, I created a marionette monologue short called Guus Speaking and a therapeutic writing web series called picture/write on Instagram with prompts for reflective writing. I am also a certified hypnotherapist and Therapeutic Imagery Facilitator specializing in writing for well being. I lead a therapeutic group writing workshop in Los Angeles on Saturday mornings.