About me….
I’m Meg McGarry. I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 70’s, and then went to Westlake School for girls where I discovered my love of acting, writing and film. I left for Northwestern to be a theater major for two years, and then on to N.Y.U as a Cinema Studies major. I then 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 it tonight?” I then decided, I’d rather be a writer.
I sold my first screenplay “Art Boy” about the rise of a young artist who forgets who he is when he moves to New York. (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. ) and my second short Jimmy and Red was also at the Berlin Film Festival. In the late eighties, I also put on site specific plays “I Do What?” performed in a mock hotel room set up at Bar Marmont and “Cup of Joe” staged in a coffee house and had a weekly nightclub called the Zodiac, a nod to Bell Book and Candle. I also self published my novel A Hundred Dead Roses which was a best seller at Book Soup.
My most proud accomplishment is being a mother to Paris and Flynn (now grown up and living in New York City). During that time, I created an after school filmmaking workshop called DV kids and taught Mac skills to 420 elementary school students in Malibu. I also created short content on youtube for my son, Flynn McGarry, “The Culinary Prodigy” and co-owned his pop up restaurant Eureka. I 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 received 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 specializing in therapeutic writing.