Meg spent a year in London in 1977-78, studying sculpture at St Martins College of Art and became a regular visitor to 12 Tolmers Square. She returned to the US to complete her studies at Harvard  then embarked on a career  as a copywriter in New York. Many Tolmers friends came to visit her in Greenwich Village and Gramercy Park in the years that followed.

In 1989 Meg returned to London. The day after she arrived, she met her future husband, Paul Hamlyn, at Tolmers friend Sacha Craddock’s birthday party.

In 2004, Meg published her first novel, How I Live Now, which sold more than a million copies worldwide and was made into a feature film starring Saoirse Ronan. She is now the author of nine novels, four picture books and the McTavish series for younger readers. She has won or been shortlisted for 24 international book prizes, is a member of the Royal Society of Literature and an honorary Fellow of Homerton College, Cambridge University. She was awarded the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2016. Her most recent novel is The Great Godden. Meg lives in London with her husband, the artist Paul Hamlyn, and still hangs out with many of her Tolmers pals from 1977.