Meghan Kenny was raised in Connecticut and New Hampshire. She received her BA in English and creative writing from Kenyon College, and her MFA in fiction from Boise State University.

She was the 2008-2009 Tickner Fellow at the Gilman School, a Bernard O'Keefe Scholar at Bread Loaf, a Peter Taylor Fellow at The Kenyon Review Writers' Workshop, a Tennessee Williams Scholar at Sewanee Writers' Conference, an Emerging Writer at Franklin & Marshall's Emerging Writers Festival, and has held residencies at UCROSS, Vermont Studio Center, and La Muse in France. She has lived in France, Japan, and Peru, and has taught writing and literature to grades 4-12 for Writers in the Schools Program in Idaho, and at Writers at Harriman, Gerstell Academy, Gilman School, Boise State University, Towson University, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Johns Hopkins University's MA in Writing Program, and Franklin & Marshall College. She currently teaches at Lancaster Country Day School in Pennsylvania and for Gotham Writers' Workshop online.

Her stories have appeared in literary journals including The Gettysburg Review, Cincinnati Review, Hobart, and The Kenyon Review. She was awarded the 2005 Iowa Review Award for her story, "The Driest Season", which was a Pushcart Prize Special Mention. She has published a short story collection, Love Is No Small Thing (LSU Press, 2017) and a novel, The Driest Season (W.W. Norton, 2018), which was an honorable mention for the 2019 PEN/Hemingway Award for a Debut Novel.