Words: Carla Louise Gailey

I’ve been following Meg Carrie for the longest time. I’ve always been so inspired by her and how she tackles life with so much passion and zeal. For Christmas last year, I was gifted with a beautiful pack of her latest creation, Cards for Conversation – the pack of cards that are an absolute necessity at any dinner table.

C: Meg, I’ve been following you for the longest time and I truly think that you’re just one of the most fascinating and incredibly inspiring people. What keeps you busy from 9-5 and 5-9? I’m curious to know about all the things that make you happy, things that make you sad and of course, the things that set your soul on fire.

M: Ooh, I’m a bit of a mystery in the 9-5. I have my fingers in many a pie, (and have operated this way for years), but the bulk of my time is spent in the content editing space, working on digital campaigns and bringing brands to life online. As for the 5-9, I am a foodie through and through. You’ll find me in my kitchen most weekends rolling out some fresh pasta dough, awaiting a knock on the door from friends who are arriving for an impromptu dinner. Outside of my love for the kitchen, I love music-curating playlists is a legitimate love language for me. I love the ocean – there’s something about saltwater that heals a part of my soul that nothing else can. I love F1 Sundays-along with every other girl who watched Drive to Survive during lockdown. I love deep, intentional conversations – my table isn’t only created for the clinking of glasses and the sharing of bowls, it’s there for the stories and vulnerability that inevitably spill out after a round of Cards for Conversation. And that takes us to the balance of my time which is spent packaging and sending out orders for my above-mentioned passion project (Cards for Conversation) which has been the biggest, most unexpected thing to enter my life since F1 Sundays.

C: I want to know all about the inspiration behind your passion project Cards for Conversation. How and why did you start it?

M: This card game has been 3 years in the making and it came off the back of an intense season of grief and loneliness. My brother was hit and subsequently killed by a drunk driver at the end of 2016, and it was the events thereafter that prompted me to start the journey of creating Cards for Conversation. In the depths of grief, I was drowning in a sea of “How are you?”, “How’s work going?”, “How’s the family?”, and I was desperately in need of some healing conversations, ones that pushed passed the small talk and dove deep into the heart of things. I knew I wasn’t the only one stuck in the chit-chat trenches, and so I set out to create something that could change that.

C: What is the true purpose of Cards for Conversation? What do you want people to gain from engaging in conversations?

M: The heart of Cards for Conversation is to change the world one meaningful conversation at a time. Did you know that the same part of your brain that lights up when you’re having a meaningful conversation is the same part of your brain that lights up when your body is healing a wound? In other words: meaningful conversations have the power to heal. And right now our world needs healing more than ever – 3 years after the pandemic, we’re still recovering from the isolation and loneliness and picking up the pieces of a broken society. I’d really love Cards for Conversation to form part of there building, healing and restoration of our world.

C: How did you create these beautiful packs?

M: This little box started out as a scribble on a piece of paper and slowly (like 7 months slowly) turned into a real-life product. I spent months researching, copywriting, choosing the perfect Pantone colours, finding the right supplier, and designing and re-designing until we got to the final version. Every box and every thank you card has been hand wrapped and handwritten by yours truly. But I must make mention of my incredible friends at Digital Butter who brought my website to life. They spent hours dreaming with me to create a beautiful online world. They have been my biggest cheerleaders throughout this journey and I would be nowhere without them. If you’re looking for people to not only design but dream with you, these are your people!

C: Do you have any expansion plans for Cards for Conversation?

M: I can confirm that there are plans to expand, however, these plans are tightly wound behind a #MegsSecretProject vault. All will be revealed in due course.

C: What has the response been like to CFC? Do you have any stories that you’d like to share with me?

M: I have been blown away by the response to Cards for Conversation, truly, I could never have seen it coming. Our first batch sold out in 8 days over December, and then our second batch sold out in 8 days before payday in January -that for me was the clincher. This wasn’t a fluke, and these weren’t sympathy purchases. People were buying it because it meant something to them. There have been so many stories of families and marriages and friendships that have been deeply impacted by this little box. I had one woman who bought 15 boxes after one round of Cards for Conversation with her husband – they’d been married for over 30 years and she was learning things about him that she never knew before – now she’s giving them away as gifts to all her friends. And that is the beauty of the knock-on effect of this small box with big questions – you can’t help but want other people to experience the same depth of meaningful conversation.