Back to the Well: A Writing Life Comes Full Circle

Megan DeMatteo, M.A.’17, moved to Asheville in her 20s, after a year of AmeriCorps service. She worked a non-profit job for a year before realizing she wanted to become a writer. Graduate study in creative writing at Lenoir-Rhyne University helped her launch a career that would take her to mainstream financial news, national magazines and, eventually, her first book in August 2026.  

Once the book came out, DeMatteo contacted Malaprop’s Bookstore in downtown Asheville hoping they might stock it, but she was too late. They already had her book on their shelves, and they’d already sold a copy.  

“Malaprop’s was the first place I ever did a graduate reading,” DeMatteo said, recalling a surprise from LR professor Laura Hope-Gill, MFA. “I had finished my degree remotely because I moved to California for a teaching job, so I didn’t get to walk with my class. When I came back to Malaprop’s for my graduate reading, Laura arrived with a cap and gown. My mom was there, and Laura did the ceremonial tassel and everything. So, finding out Malaprop’s already had my book and had already sold a copy was a full-circle moment.”  

Published Aug. 18 by Broadleaf Books, “Emotionally Sober and Unimaginably Good” draws on DeMatteo’s experience growing up around addiction and her own recovery to explore the lasting effects of family dysfunction and what it means to take responsibility for healing from them.  

The book marks a new milestone in a writing career DeMatteo has spent more than a decade building across journalism, personal finance and freelance work. Along the way, she has written for national outlets — including National Geographic, Insider and Yahoo! Media — and spent time on staff as a reporter and editor at CNBC. She traces some of the confidence and voice that shaped her career to her graduate creative writing experience at LR. 

“When you’re first starting out, you have to let your writing live and breathe, not kill it right away,” DeMatteo said. “Sometimes I still do this — I’ll write and then immediately tear what I wrote to shreds. Laura refused to allow that to happen. I don’t even know if I would have allowed anything to see the light of day if it wasn’t for Laura insisting that it had value.”

That encouragement also helped DeMatteo see her impact on an audience.

“The first time I read a piece of work, people in the room cried,” DeMatteo said. “I had no idea that would happen. When you see your work has an impact on people, you understand it as something worth pursuing.”

DeMatteo had long planned to write fiction, but first she had another book she needed to write. At McNally Jackson Books in New York in 2024, she spotted Janet Woititz’s “Adult Children of Alcoholics” facing outward in the self-help section and imagined a new book for a new generation.

“I hope that people realize that they’re not alone and that there are millions and millions of us who have lived this life,” she said. “I hope this book gives them a new lens through which they can see the adults in their life who challenged them and were experiencing addiction or hardship of some kind.”

Reconnecting with Hope-Gill during the publication process led DeMatteo back to LR, where she discovered her former M.A. program had evolved into an MFA. Returning offered time and space to explore fiction and a return to the support that gave DeMatteo her start.

“I needed my community again,” DeMatteo said. “I needed to go back to the well. After finishing the book, I had just emptied myself of everything, so I needed to go back to LR and fill up again.”