Episode 264 with Maggie Sheffer, Author of the Award-Winning Collection, The Man in the Banana Trees, and Master of the Weird, The Offbeat, The Clever, The Poignant, and The Resonant

Notes and Links to Maggie Sheffer’s Work   

   Marguerite (Maggie) Sheffer is a writer who lives in New Orleans. She is a Professor of Practice at Tulane University, where she teaches courses in design thinking and speculative fiction as tools for social change. Formerly, she taught English at the East Oakland School of the Arts, Castlemont High School, Life Academy, and GW Carver High School.

   Her debut short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees, was selected by judge Jamil Jan Kochai for the Iowa Short Fiction Award, was published in Fall 2024. 

   Maggie is a founding member of Third Lantern Lit, a local writing collective, and the Nautilus and Wildcat Writing Groups. She received her MFA from Randolph College. She was a 2023 Veasna So Scholar in Fiction at The Adroit Journal, and was selected as a top-twenty-five finalist for Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers.  Her story “Tiger on My Roof” was a finalist for the 2024 Chautauqua Janus Prize, which awards emerging writers’ short fiction with “daring formal and aesthetic innovations that upset and reorder readers’ imaginations.”

   Her position on semicolons (for) is noted in an Australian grammar textbook (pg. 16).

Buy The Man in the Banana Trees

Maggie's Website

From LitHub: "Marguerite Sheffer on Crafting a Collection of Century-Spanning Speculative Fiction"

"Marguerite Sheffer: These Stories Are an Intimate Map of What Scares Me" from Writer’s Digest

At about 2:05, Maggie shares a fun story about being published with George Bernard Shaw

At about 3:35, Maggie talks about her early reading life

At about 4:40, The two reflect on the evolving reputation of Star Wars and Star Wars fans

At about 6:05, Maggie shares how wine bottles led to writing an early and pivotal short story 

At about 7:10, Maggie describes a gap in “actively writing” while teaching and interacting differently with writing

At about 8:10, Maggie lists texts and writers that helped her “reorder [her] brain”

At about 10:15, Pete and Maggie stan Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here ironing”  

At about 12:05, Pete recounts a story about how he happened upon the great story by Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery”

At about 12:50, Maggie responds to Pete asking about what drew and draws her to science and speculative fiction

At about 13:50, Maggie highlights past guest Jamil Jan Kochai, Ken Liu, E. Lily Yu, Sofia Samatar, Clare Beams, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, the book The Safekeep, and others as contemporary writers who thrill and inspire

At about 15:05, Pete asks Maggie how teaching has inspired her writing

At about 16:45, Maggie cites Octavia Butler’s and Sandra Cisneros’ work and The Things They Carried and other texts that were favorites of her students 

At about 18:10, The two discuss the epigraph and seeds for the short story collection 

At about 19:50, The two discuss the collection’s first story and connection to Tillie Olsen’s idea of being “imprisoned in his own difference” and students being “othered”

At about 24:00, Maggie reflects on an important truth of fiction

At about 24:40, Maggie discusses famous unicorn tapestries that inspire a story of hers

At about 26:00, Pete compliments Maggie’s “delightfully weird” stories and “soft endings” and she responds to his questions about allegory/plot and “cool stories”

At about 27:40, Maggie talks about realizing the throughlines in her collections

At about 29:10, Maggie responds to Pete’s questions about writing in Covid times

At about 29:40, Pete cites examples of misogyny in the collection and asks about Joycleyn Bell and Maggie expands upon the story “The Observer’s Cage”-its genesis and connections to Jocelyn Bell Burnell

At about 32:20, Pete notes the use of animals as stand-ins for humanity and Maggie expands on deas of resistance as seen in the collection

At about 33:20, The two discuss ideas of redress and reclaiming the past through stories in the collection, especially “The Observer’s Cage”

At about 36:00, the two discuss a story with ghosts and ideas of “unfinished business” and capturing past natural greatness

At about 38:00, Maggie talks about sadly learning that an idea that she thought was original was not, as the two discuss a few stories about commercialism, dystopia, and climate change

At about 41:40, the two discuss middens, and themes of reclaiming what has been lost 

At about 43:50, Pete notes an interesting story that deals with memory and AI, and Maggie talks about writing from a interesting-placed narrator 

At about 45:40, Pete draws connections between a title character, Miriam Ackerman, and Truman Capote’s wonderful “A Christmas Memory”, while Maggie discusses the relationship between the title character and the narrator 

At about 48:30, The two discuss violence and parental lack of control, especially in “Tiger on the Roof” and its memorable ending and creative plot 

At about 51:45, Pete highlights the poignant and resonant closing line for the above story and connects the ending to Alice Elliott Dark’s classic, “In the Gloaming”

At about 53:20, The two discuss the collection’s title story and Maggie discuses inspiration from Carmen Maria Machado

At about 54:20, The two discuss the way the above story is “gutting” in its portrayal of the “banality of loss”

At about 57:30, Maggie reminds that the book is not just a “downer!”

At about 58:10, Maggie reads from “En Plein Aire”

At about 1:01:50, Maggie gives information on places to buy her book and social media and contact information

At about 1:02:40, Maggie shares information on some exciting new projects 

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