Meghan Macdonald’s love of classics was sparked by two things: a dusty old National Geographic about Hannibal crossing the Alps, and Ridley Scott’s historical epic Gladiator (2000). Her passion for the subject grew during her time at Arts & Science, where she majored in history and classical civilization.
Since graduating, Macdonald has kept in touch with the Department of Classics, always staying current with the past. She attends alumni events and lectures the department runs on subjects such as ancient Mediterranean history.
“I was always fascinated by ancient history because of the lack of primary sources,” says Macdonald, who earned her honours bachelor of arts in 2005 as a member of Trinity College. “That sounds counterintuitive, but how you work with an absence of evidence to come up with ideas about culture can have a powerful impact.”
Macdonald is now publisher of Dundurn Press Ltd., one of the oldest independent publishing houses in Canada. The role is the next step in a career that began in 2008 as an assistant to a literary agent in England.
“Every now and again, somebody submits a manuscript that starts with a quote by Aristotle or Caesar,” Macdonald says, “and I get to use my classics knowledge to do a bit of fact checking."
After returning to Canada from England in 2009, Macdonald landed a role as a literary agent with Transatlantic Literary Agency, which she credits with valuable mentorship that taught her the basics: how to position a book, how to talk about it, how to write pitch letters and more.
After a five-year stint in investment finance, Macdonald returned to publishing to manage the operations for Canada’s Guest of Honour presence at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2020 and 2021, and then joined Dundurn Press to handle the organization’s grants and contracts in 2022. Last year, she was promoted to the role of publisher, heading a team of 18 in her first executive position.
“The nice thing about leading a company is I can get a sense of the ebb and flow of everybody's work to know what's working and what isn't,” Macdonald says.
It’s a challenging role, but Macdonald leans often on her Arts & Science degree.
“It's the critical thinking,” Macdonald says. “As much as it's easy to have imposter syndrome, there’s that sense of knowing I can do this because of the classes I took and the professors insisting on a level of excellence that just really set me up forever.”
She points to Michael Dewar, a professor in the Department of Classics, as well as professors emeritus Richard Toporoski and Timothy Barnes as having supported her professional success. She recollects their classes in detail and explains how they pushed her to flex different muscles in her brain.
“The humanities are absolutely invaluable to society, yourself, everything,” she says. “Your ability to think transcends everything and the humanities teach you how to think with rigor and fortitude and clarity.”
As a publisher, Macdonald reads a lot of submissions and book projects for work, but she finds time in the evenings to pick up, for example, a 400-page book on the concept of Roman Africa versus North Africa during the Roman period, or something equally esoteric.
“I absolutely love my job and wouldn’t trade it for just anything, but if U of T ever offered me a tenure track position in classics, I would take it because I have always loved the subject matter beyond all reason,” Macdonald says.