Meredith Steinbach is the author of novels Beata Rustica: The Tale of the Would-Be Saint, 2013, The Charmed Life of Flowers: Field Notes from Provence, 2012, The Birth of the World as We Know It; or, Teiresias(paperback, 2012), Zara, Here Lies The Water, one play, a screenplay, and numerous short stories including the collection Reliable Light. Several novels and another short fiction collection are forthcoming. Prizes and honors have included Winner of the 2013 Paris Book Festival/International General Fiction Category for The Charmed Life of Flowers; Honorable Mention, 2012 New England Book Festival/ General Fiction Category for The Charmed Life of Flowers; Thomas J. Watson Institute Travel Grant for research in France and Greece; the Bunting Fellowship of Radcliffe College at Harvard University; O. Henry Award for the Short Story; 100 Distinguished Stories, Best American Short Stories; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship; Pushcart Prize for the Short Story, Rhode Island State Artist's Grants, among others.

Her teaching career began while a Teaching-Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, followed by faculty positions at Antioch College, Northwestern University, the University of Washington. She has been a member of the Faculty of Brown University since 1983; she retired and as Professor of Literary Arts in the Brown University Literary Arts Department in 2018.