In a world that often moves too fast to notice the small, beautiful moments, bestselling author and producer Dete Meserve invites readers to pause and see their lives through a new lens. In her latest novel, The Memory Collectors, Meserve blends emotional depth with a touch of mystery. It's a story that makes you wonder if the most powerful thing you can do to help others is just pay attention.
Meserve is most known for her work in the film and television world, having produced hit films over the past two decades and more recently children's television including Apple TV+'s Not a Box and PBS' Weather Hunters. Her eye for storytelling knows no bounds asThe Memory Collectors serves as Meserve's fifth fiction novel and follows her other releases including the Kate Bradley Mystery series: Good Sam (2014), Perfectly Good Crime (2016), The Good Stranger (2020), the standalone book The Space Between (2018), and the book of essays Random Acts of Kindness (2019).
Culturess sat down with Meserve to explore the inspiration behind the book, the themes that thread through her work, and how storytelling can change the way we see our own lives. Through this thoughtful and candid, coversation, offers a glimpse into the heart of a story that stays with you long after the final page.
What sparked that idea of being a multi-hyphenate across the production side of film and TV and then entering into the author space, even from your first novel?
Dete Meserve: Oh, sure! I see all of them as just different ways to tell a story. What we're really trying to do in each medium is use it to its fullest potential. For example, in a novel, one of the tools I have is the ability to bring you directly into a character's head such as what they feel, what they see, how they perceive the world. But when you're working in television, you can't do that in the same way. Instead, you have other tools: lighting, music, the actors' body language to convey emotions. For me, they're simply different forms of storytelling, and I absolutely love being able to work across all of them. Because at the heart of it, it's always about the story.
With one of your novels being adapted for Netflix. I'm sure there's a lot of conversations happening with this one. Al Roker gave his thoughts as well. What was the conceit of the idea of writing this novel with this particular character ensemble?
DM: That's a really great question. Tiara, what was happening with me at the time was that I was actually writing a completely different novel. I was very excited about it and fully immersed in the process. Then I had this profound dream. In the dream, I was talking to my sister, just like in the opening of the book, and I turned to her and noticed she looked different. Happier. Maybe even younger. I asked her, "How old are you again?" and this is all verbatim from the dream. She looked at me like, "You should know how old I am," and then she told me her age. In that moment, I realized: 'Oh, I've come to the past. I'm time traveling.' Which is such a strange concept for a dream, right?
I heard someone say, "Mommy." I turned around, and there was my son, who's in his twenties now, but in the dream, he was four. I could see every detail so clearly. The pink stain on his cheeks from the sun. What he was wearing: scuffed Converse shoes, blue shorts, a white T-shirt. And he was holding a Transformer, the plastic action figure, just like he used to when he was that age. He looked up at me and said, "Can you help me transform him?"
That was the dream. It was so powerful—it stayed with me. I wrote it down, and it made me wonder: Why do I keep coming back to this? Why does it stir such strong emotion in me? I realized there was something meaningful there. Then, the question came to me: What if we really did have the ability to spend time in our past?
That idea launched me on a whole new adventure. The traditional take on time travel is that if you go back, you inevitably change the future just by being there. We've all seen Back to the Future, read Stephen King's time travel storis. I thought, 'What if that’s not how it works?' I’m a bit of a science geek, as you may have gathered from my bio, so I started researching theories of time travel. That’s when I came across some current concepts—particularly around quantum mechanics and something called “closed time loops.” These theories suggest that if you travel to the past, you wouldn’t change the future. In fact, you can’t change it. And I thought, 'Wow. If that’s true—if the future stays the same—then what’s the point of going back?' The answer hit me: 'The point isn’t to change anything. It’s to relive. To reconnect. To re-experience.'
Then the idea was: If you did that, if you went back, you wouldn’t return the same. You wouldn’t change the future; you would change your future, which is something entirely different. Going back into the past and seeing your life as it was, and the people around you, you might notice things you hadn’t seen before. You might gather new information you didn’t pay attention to at the time—or, because you now have the perspective of the present, you might look for different things altogether. I thought, 'That’s what I’m supposed to write about.' So, I stopped working on that other novel and began thinking about the memory collectors in this new world.
When you were writing were you thinking about how you can make this accessible to people who maybe think that this story could be overwhelming?
DM: Exactly. You're right inside my head, Tiara. The first thought was this character, Elizabeth, who opens the book, and almost word for word, parts of that were my dream. I made her character lose something. In this case it was her son. That was very profoundly difficult for me to write about because I haven't lost my son, but I know plenty of people did. My own mother lost one of her, my sister, when I was relatively young. It was, for me revisiting a painful subject. I started to think about her story, and I was like, 'What is it that makes us human?' 'What are the things?' There are so many. My second story that really started to come out was a person who has lost the use of part of their body. A lot of us see ourselves through what our body can do, and we need that. A lot of people I know either have injuries or having surgeries or they're sick. We really know how essential it is as humans to have a body. That became the story of Logan. You have to explore a different love than parental love.
Romantic love is central. Andy’s story began to resonate with me as someone who experiences this deep, requited love with another person… and then she disappears. So often in life, we’re left wondering: 'Did they ghost us? What really happened?' That uncertainty felt so real to me, and I thought, That’s the story I want to tell.
When it came to the fourth character, I was trying to figure out what would feel distinct—something that didn’t echo the others. And I landed on this idea: all of us live just a hair’s breadth away from making a mistake we could regret forever. In Brook’s case, it’s not something extreme or melodramatic—like 'Oops, I accidentally killed someone with a knife.' It’s something painfully ordinary. She’s driving down the highway, looks away for a split second… and hits two people. I’ve read so many real-life stories about that exact thing happening.
How do you live after that? Even if you serve time in jail, how do you move forward as a person? How do you carry that weight and still exist in the world? Those are the kinds of stories that really spoke to me. They’re all tied to what you’re talking about—that emotional connection we all understand on some level. We've all almost had an accident. We've all fallen in love, or hopefully we will, or liked someone and wondered if they like us back. I felt like these were a rich collection of characters all wanting things that we all would want.
Do you see this book as a way to speak to more emotionally intelligent readers?
DM: I don't like to just say I'm a romance writer or a mystery writer. For some people, that feels really comfortable, but I like to have a little bit of a mystery, and there's a thriller element in it, and a little bit of sci-fi. I don't want to scare anyone off who thinks, Oh, my gosh, people are going to have alternate timelines or the other stuff that sometimes even for me, it's like, Wait, now what happened? Is it an alternate universe. I wanted to blend all of these different genres because I think when it comes to story, that readers are not sitting there going, I only like one thing. We're just like people who like to go to eat for dinner, right? We don't just like our mashed potatoes. Those are good, but sometimes we want that in a complete meal. You want that emotional intensity and the things that you were just talking about but also with a little bit of these other genres. And I think it makes the world feel more comprehensive because it's not just one thing.
You did a collaboration for Random Acts of Kindness. With that series of essays, there's a social good aspect to it. What do you think really brings people to say, I want to enjoy and tap into this world the way that The Memory Collectors is going to do?
DM: That is exactly what I was doing with Random Acts of Kindness. That was story after story after story. 1,500 words. Its premise, at the center, was two things: One, to show you that goodness could be in big city or small city, rural, 100-year-old person, nine-year-old boy. Anybody can do it, and anyone can have a profound difference. It was just proof, right? Each of those true stories This is just proof of that, if you want to say thesis. The other was that we all know the recipient of goodness is changed. I really wanted to amplify and shine light on how the giver is changed. Story after story, what we kept asking people was, How were you changed after you did this kindness? It's overwhelming. These people would say over and over again, you get back more than you give when you do something like that. In a story like The Memory Collectors or even Good Sam, my very first novel. The trick of the author also known as the tool of the author is to have an idea that they want to bake into the reader's mind.
The story presents an idea, but it allows the characters and the reader to come to their own realization. If you asked me what that idea is in The Memory Collectors, I’d say it’s woven throughout the pages. Each character, like a piece of music, expresses it in their own way. At its core, the story invites you to reflect on your life now, recognizing that one day, today will be a memory. How can you make the most of this moment? What possibilities does the present hold, and how might shifting your perspective transform your life?
Each character looks back on their life from the future and realizes that they rushed through this thinking there'd be more, or I never noticed that moment for what it was. That’s what I hoped to illuminate with The Memory Collectors. There's the idea that you can live like a memory collector, consciously gathering moments that will matter to your future self. What is important to you now? What will be important later? Pay attention. That’s the power of story. It can quietly slip into your thoughts and emotions, offering you a mirror and a map, and maybe even inspiring you to live more fully, right here and now.
Since I have the writer right here, what is a memory that you wish that you could go back? I have to ask!
DM: You have to. You have to. Believe me, throughout this, I was over and over again thinking about what would I want to go back to and trying to separate myself as the author from the characters. The obvious one would be, for me, it's a little bit of a hack. I want to go back to an hour where all the people I've lost now are still alive. My parents have unfortunately passed. My grandparents as well have some aunts and uncles and some friends. Oh, my wedding, they were all there. I don't want to go to the wedding part, but for the reception part, I would listen more. I would be less stressed about whether or not my hair looked good or my dress looked good or whether the food was good. Oh, wow, my mom is here. Let me listen to her. Let me really soak her in and let me love her in a way that I know I loved her then, but I was so distracted with other things. That's an easy answer, but I really want to share with you where my head is today because I was thinking about this.
At first, I thought, 'Okay, that’s easy, just go back to a wonderful moment.' Then I realized: I’m a mom of three, and while my kids are mostly grown now, one still in college, I kept thinking about a particularly chaotic moment from years ago. I had all three kids with me at the grocery store. My oldest was in middle school and absolutely did not want to be there. He was grumbling, cranky, and clearly miserable. My middle child, who was about eight, was darting around the aisles, knocking things off shelves like a little whirlwind and loudly complaining that his brother was looking at him. Then, there was the baby, who was just one year old, screaming because she wanted a balloon, and I wouldn’t give it to her. I remember that moment so vividly. I remember thinking, 'I’m the worst parent. I can’t do this. I’m never going to make it through'. I was so exhausted.
If I could go back now, with the perspective I have today, I’d look around and think: 'Wow, look how little they all are. Listen to their tiny voices. Look at how, even in all the chaos, it was actually so simple for me, as their mom, to help them through it.'
With how technologically advanced our world is, you almost can't stop. The fact that your book is opening up that conversation is great to see.
DM: I really appreciate that. Definitely, taken pause and appreciate the wonder that's around you is a big central part of this, but also that every moment is filled with possibility. And that in the moment, now, sometimes I try to think this, what will my future self miss? Let me really soak that in. Just even this moment with you. In five years, it'll be like, 'Oh, I met Tiara when.' This is a special moment to try to give it its importance and its prominence. It makes you, I think, a better person. It makes you better able to look at your life with a sense of gratitude and a way forward because you know what's important.
I think we all carry a lot of wishes. In a way, time travel taps into that. It’s a way to explore what we truly want. Even just imagining those moments can be really beneficial for our mental, emotional, and even physical health. Thinking about why you'd want to go back to kindergarten, or revisit certain moments in your past, can actually help you understand more about yourself and who you are today. That kind of reflection is valuable. There used to be this notion that being sentimental was a weakness, but now research shows that a little nostalgia, looking back with meaning, can actually be good for us. So, the time is right for a story like this.
You can purchase The Memory Collectors anywhere books are sold!