Megan A. Schikora worked in mental health & taught writing for many years, all the while squeezing her own writing into the margins of her time. In 2019, she committed to focusing on her creative projects.

 

Her short stories and personal essays have appeared in numerous publications, most recently Exacting Clam, Midway Journal, Change Seven, Hidden Peak Press, and F(r)iction, whose 2022 Short Story Contest she won with her story “Sticks and Stones.” Her debut novel A Woman in Pink was a Writing Award Short List choice for the Page Turner Awards and is forthcoming with Regal House Publishing in 2026. She currently lives in Michigan with her daughter.

Shorter Works

"Father Dad"

"The Wedding Photo," longlisted for Folly 2023 International Short Story Competition

"Two Writers"

"July"

"Sticks and Stones," winner of F(r)iction 2022 Short Story Contest

"Smile, Pretty Girl"

"A Romance in Detroit"

"An Unlikely Trio in the Animal Kingdom," placed third in prose in New South 2020 Annual Writing Contest

"A Chicago Story," nominated for the 2019 Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses 

"Initiation"

"What Broke In the Move," nominated for Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net 2014

"Exit Route"

"The Paris Problem"

"Down, Down She Goes," published by The Crooked Steeple

"It's Good to Meet New People," published by The Crooked Steeple

Coming 2026

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Coming 2026 〰️

Releasing February 2026

A Woman in Pink

A forthcoming novel from
Regal House Publishing

★★★★

Page Turner Awards Short List

Overview

A Woman in Pink follows an unnamed female protagonist and Dutch, a man she meets in her twenties and immediately loves. He tells her he has cast off the substance-fueled recklessness that almost derailed his life. She tells him she has recovered from the eating disorder that once engulfed her. However, the darkest parts of their histories resurface in their relationship, shaping it for fifteen years.               

She wants more for herself than the turmoil of addiction. She also wants to believe that Dutch is her Johnny Cash, that she is his June Carter, and that theirs is a great love story. In the end, their pasts and their choices collide, forcing her to question everything she thought she knew.

Advance Reviews

  • "I inhaled this book. Schikora’s writing is so sharp and honest, part of you wants to shake her nameless narrator by the shoulders as you would a dear friend. But another, bigger part is sucked fully into her story, which Schikora renders with uncommon empathy and scalpel-sharp details. A WOMAN IN PINK manages to be both dazzling and relatable, without a single false note. Anyone who has ever made unwise choices in love, which is to say everybody, should read it immediately."

    Miriam Gershow, author of Closer and Survival Tips: Stories

  • "In the middle of Schikora’s haunting novel, the unnamed main character looks at herself in the mirror and sees a fragmented, kaleidoscopic image staring back at her in pain. This could well be the singular image that permeates A WOMAN IN PINK: the image of the Disease of the Lost Self. Each of Schikora’s gut-wrenchingly real characters is suffering from fragmentation and dissociation at various levels. They have become something they no longer recognize, and so, must face the reality of re-establishing a relationship with who they really are. Some begin that universal struggle; others fail to do so. Elegant and concise, this novel is rendered with great ease and confidence and hard-earned insight. A truly graceful and masterful book, it will stay with readers long after the final page is turned."

    Jim Naremore, author of The Arts of Legerdemain as Taught by Ghosts and American Still Life

  • "So very true, this story. A WOMAN IN PINK is a sharp and sophisticated novel of love and addiction and a certain kind of privilege that devours everything in its path. It’s also about friendship and family, the secrets we withhold from those who want what’s best for us, and how the ties that bind can keep us afloat, though just as easily, leave us to drown. Schikora’s writing is strong and elegant, a salve itself as we weather the blows of a lover who is as vulnerable as he is venomous. "

    Laura Scalzo, author of American Arcadia

  • "A WOMAN IN PINK had me from page one–a complex, thrilling tale of obsessive love spanning decades, of the role of privilege, the cost of addiction, and how past traumas inform the choices we make, whether we are aware of our predilections or not. What happens when we are so caught up in our own fabrication that we don’t realize we are only a footnote in the other person’s story? An electrifying debut by a writer to watch."

    Kelly Fordon, author of Garden for the Blind and I Have the Answer

  • "The characters in Schikora's A WOMAN IN PINK are built with deep emotion and enlivened with blisteringly good dialogue. This is a story of the human heart, every aspect of its complicated motivations and needs, searching to find its way, and Schikora knows how to tell that story with the deft touch of a literary craftsman."

    David W. Berner, author of the Fugere Prize winning novella American Moon

  • "Much like the sparks that fly from the first moments they meet, A WOMAN IN PINK plunges the reader into a compelling relationship between two characters in recovery that blurs the boundaries between love and dependency. Set against the backdrop of the opioid crisis and the privileges of wealth, Schikora’s compelling prose vividly unspools the complicated threads of a long-term co-dependent relationship and its consequences. The protagonist’s hard-won sense of self in the wake of an eating disorder is challenged when she has to confront both her lover’s addiction and the truth behind his role in a tragic accident. As she navigates where redemption ends and enabling begins, the protagonist must reconcile her feminism with the duty of care women are expected to give to family and community, all while battling her own imposter syndrome. A WOMAN IN PINK is a smart, suspenseful and wrenching story about learning to let go of the person who was the best worst thing ever to happen."

    Laura Hulthen Thomas, author of The Meaning of Fear

  • "Anyone who’s ever been truly in love knows that it’s like riding a jet through breathtaking and turbulent skies. But being in love with an addict–well, that’s when the jet has lost an engine and the other one is in flames. No other book that I have read has ever described this experience with anything like the vivid emotional accuracy achieved by Schikora in her novel, A WOMAN IN PINK. She fully inhabits her character’s head and so does the reader, who feels acutely–through Schikora’s clear, fluid, always believable words–the euphoria of deep connection and caring that gets punctured randomly, over and over, by the shock of letdown, of lies and excuses, of inexplicable anger, and of the fear and pain and self-doubt that become the only constants in a relationship shaped by alcohol and drugs. The immersive flight on which this remarkable book takes a reader through the birth of joy and the dissolution of trust and hope proves intoxicating, in both meanings of the word."

    Carolyn Jack, author of The Changing of Keys

  • "Sometimes bitter, sometimes raw, always revealing and vulnerable, A WOMAN IN PINK–told first-person by a main character whose name we never know–exposes how we normalize addictive behavior, how we enable those around us, and ultimately, how we give in and give up to forces that plague us. A beautifully written story about the constant cycle of loss and rediscovery."

    David Haznaw, author of I Told You I Was Dehydrated

  • "Schikora never condescends to her readers, but deftly and subtly encourages them to grasp the vivid truths she exposes. In her raw, yet nuanced description of an addiction—there is more than one kind of addiction, readers will discover—and of the characters who fall into its meshes, readers will be able to understand on a deeper level what is involved in the death-spiral that has impacted so many of our lives. Readers should be prepared to buckle up for an emotional, authentic read that will linger with them long after they close the book."

    Margo Sorenson, author of Secrets in Translation 

  • "Addiction is chaos. Instead of focusing on the addict, this incredible story shows the emotional pull and complexity of loving someone in trouble. It will pull you in, making you realize the games addicts play while you remain empathetic to the choices family and loved ones face."

    Marlene F. Byrne, author of Do Not Discard

  • "As readers become witness to the destructive and complex path of those afflicted by addiction—and those who love them—it becomes clear that the central characters are forever locked in an addict tango. Schikora’s insightful, resonant, and tragic tale “of wrath and love” reminds us that when we love, we never give up, even if, or when, behavior signals not only our love’s ruin, but our own."

    Deirdre Fagan, author of Find a Place for Me and Phantom Limbs

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