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Meggie Morris saw a lot of the world at a young age; born in Hong Kong and moving around before settling down in Newcastle, NSW. After a childhood spent exploring the outdoors and pursuing musical ventures, she has followed a path that has blended her passions. Meggie’s time at College fuelled her drive for the creative and performing arts, helping her navigate the world as it is today.

Meggie is enjoying success in the creative arts as a producer for ABC Radio, film producer, songwriter, musician, and journalist. Her collaborations with notable figures, paired with reflections on her own journey, demonstrates her belief that the most remarkable stories are often discovered in the most unexpected places.

Tell us a little bit about yourself, where are you originally from and where did you grow up?

I ‘grew up’ a little bit all over the place. I was born in Hong Kong and lived in Taiwan before my family moved back to Australia, eventually settling in God’s country aka Newcastle. Newcastle is where I finished school and is the place I would describe as my ‘hometown’ out of everywhere we lived. I had a very outdoorsy and musical childhood – I spent most of my time going on cadet camps, hiking trips, “band camps”, choir tours.

What made you choose �鶹ԭ�� College; what appealed to you the most?

I’m a bit of a last-minute decision maker, and to be honest I had not heard of residential colleges before I needed to find somewhere to live in Sydney. But once I looked into colleges, I liked the idea of moving into an existing community of young people who valued hard work as well as being well-rounded. Coming from a co-ed school, I liked that Andrew’s had men and women, and the music scholarship program at Drew’s was also an important factor for me.

What were you involved in at College, and do you have a favourite memory you’d like to share?

I’m quite introverted, so I wasn’t the life of the party at JCR events… but I was almost comically involved in the music life at College. Choir, jam nights, eisteddfods, concerts in the Chapel, every Palladian performance possible! At one point I spent hours learning harmonica so I could be a part of a Palladian ensemble performance. My favourite memories are the moments in between – hanging out in the corridor or jamming in the chapel with musical friends like Melissa-Kelly Franklin (Fr 2006), Richard Mockler (Fr 2010) and Neil Saunders (Fr 2008) (all of whom I’m still great friends with today).

How do you feel your time at �鶹ԭ�� influenced life after College?

I think my time at College was my first grown-up experience of learning how to navigate being with people who have very different values, opinions, and experiences, with tact and kindness. That’s a skill I still carry with me, and it’s as important in my personal life as it is in my professional life. But life on campus is also a bit of a bubble, and that was an important realisation post-College.

You initially studied music at the University of Sydney before moving into journalism, and you have never stopped performing. What is be your proudest musical achievement?

I think my proudest achievement is simply biting the bullet a couple of years ago, recording an EP of my own songs and putting it out there. I think for a lot of songwriters, recording songs means you’re making them permanent, and it feels like putting your personal journal on display, but it turned out to not be ‘cringey’ at all. Since then I’ve written and recorded music for films made by my good friend Melissa-Kelly Franklin. and I’m just about to put out another record as Bower, a folk trio with two other girlfriends from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

What made you want to enter the journalism industry?

After finishing at University of Sydney, I was working as a musician in Sydney and I also had about five other jobs (in classic muso fashion). One of those jobs was writing for a music magazine. It’s probably a very uncool thing to say, but I realised I just loved telling stories. It didn’t actually matter if it was in song, on film, in a magazine or on a radio program, I just wanted to explore. It helped that my mum is a journalist and understood what I was trying to articulate. She encouraged me to apply for a few postgraduate programs, specialising in audio storytelling. I was accepted as a scholarship holder into a wonderful program in Chicago, and here we are.

In the lead-up to your current role as a Producer at the ABC, you’ve had extensive experience, including reporting in Germany, Ireland and the US. How did these roles shape your time in the industry and help you get to where you are now?

Of course there are idiosyncrasies in any culture or country, so learning how to work in very different environments with very different people has helped me a lot. But the biggest impact has been learning that there are stories everywhere, you just need to find them. I think that lesson slapped me in the face the hardest when I was working in Pakistan. I was meant to be doing a story on the police and justice system but it kept falling over. We went to an underground comedy club one night to decompress, and spontaneously came across the most incredible story that involved guerrilla stand-up comedians, a drive-by shooting and Ronan Keating.

Is there a ‘typical day’ for you? If so, what does it look like?

I produce a radio program/podcast called ‘Conversations’ full-time these days. It is one of the OG podcasts in Australia, and turns 20 this year! But the whole premise of the show is very simple – a conversation with someone who’s led an incredible life or has a fascinating area of expertise. One day I’m learning about the creepy fish in the Hadal Zone of the deep ocean, and the next someone is confiding in me about horrific childhood abuse. So no day is the same, however I am surprised every day by the remarkableness of humans, the lives they lead and the worlds they explore. And while all the stories I produce are different, they’re all driven by curiosity – for the seemingly mundane, for the internal world and for the otherworldly. It’s a privilege that I’m obviously quite psyched about.

You have produced some big names like Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski! What is it like to work with these people and produce programs on national radio?

Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski are phenomenal interviewers because they’re genuinely interested in the world and the people around them, and they’ve learnt how to really listen. It’s a joy to work alongside them, crafting these conversations and narratives, and then watching them in action in the studio. Plus they’re both just lovely, hilarious people outside of their work. We are a very small team, despite the size of the show, and while we all take what we do very seriously, we also have a lot of fun both on and off air.

What would be your biggest accomplishment after leaving �鶹ԭ��?

Becoming a producer of Conversations was a dream in the back of my head since I was a teenager. So to actually believe I had the chops to do it, and then go for the job and get it, felt like (and still feels like) a massive achievement. Taking the skills I learnt in the radio studio outside onto a film set more recently has been a big accomplishment as well.

What advice would you give to current students wanting to explore a career in journalism?

Stay curious. It sounds cliché, but it’s the core of any storytelling. If you can keep your childlike curiosity well into adulthood, you’re miles ahead already. Being curious involves preparation and research by the way! Take yourself out of the story and listen. And this means being prepared to let go of some privileges that other people take for granted – like advocacy and activism. The lines here are becoming increasingly blurred, and while I don’t think humans can be totally objective, journalists need to acknowledge their own biases in order to stop inserting themselves and their opinions into their stories. I see this happening more and more – it’s frustrating and is one of the major drivers of the public’s distrust in journalism. For the past few years, I’ve been working on more in-depth storytelling with Conversations, but the daily news grind hasn’t stopped, so if that’s what you want to do, seriously think about how okay you are with becoming a vehicle for story and fact, rather than the driver.

What do you do outside of work? Do you have a favourite hobby? How do you unwind and switch off?

My partner and I love going camping and hiking, so we get out of Sydney every other weekend. I still carve out time every day to play music or write songs, and I read a lot.

Looking ahead – you have recently finished producing a film to be released in April, what was it like to branch out of voice and radio? Are you excited to see your work come to life?

My partner, Joey George, is a filmmaker and artist in residence at the Powerhouse. Last year, he asked me to produce a film he wrote and directed, called Summit. It’s a beautiful-looking black and white silent film, shot deep in the Blue Mountains, exploring family, power and God. The whole process was enlightening, stressful, and exciting – from helping shape the narrative in the screenplay, to scouting churches in the middle of nowhere, to being in the chaos of a film set, and now to seeing the whole project come to life in the edit and with sound design. I’m very proud of Joey for the story he imagined to life, and of the crew for working through some tough conditions. I can’t wait to see it on the big screen in a couple of months – it’s been a big lesson in patience for me, as I’m used to producing a daily program, and a film definitely does not happen in a day.

Have you got anything exciting planned for the year ahead?

Around the same time as Summit is let loose in the world, my band Bower has an EP coming out. We’re launching on 5 April – we’ve got the tracks mastered, the artwork sorted and we’re just about to send everything off to get pressed on vinyl, which is exciting so keep your ears peeled!