Marguerite Sheffer: These Stories Are an Intimate Map of What Scares Me
In this interview, author Marguerite Sheffer discusses the tumultuous time in her personal life that led to her debut short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees.
Marguerite Sheffer teaches courses in design thinking and speculative fiction at Tulane University, and is a founding member of Third Lantern Lit, a local writing collective, and the Nautilus and Wildcat Writing Groups. Sheffer lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. Follow her on X (Twitter) and Instagram.
In this interview, Marguerite discusses the tumultuous time in her personal life that led to her debut short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees, her advice for other writers, and more.
Name: Marguerite Sheffer
Book title: The Man in the Banana Trees
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Release date: November 5, 2024
Genre/category: Short Fiction Collection
Elevator pitch: Marguerite Sheffer’s Iowa Short Fiction Award-winning debut short story collection dips into science fiction and fantasy to defamiliarize everyday horrors and confront them with heart and sly humor. In the words of contest judge Jamil Jan Kochai “The Man in the Banana Trees kicks ass. Every story is a surprise.”
What prompted you to write this book?
The stories in The Man in the Banana Trees were sparked in a tumultuous time for me. I had left teaching high school English and started a low-residency MFA Program (at marvelous Randolph College), which was still virtual due to the pandemic shutdown. At our first virtual residency, Melissa Febos was a visiting author. She told us something to the effect of “Make a list of the things you are scared to write. Then go write those stories.”
I took that advice to heart. I started writing “Tiger on My Roof,'' a story about a white teacher dealing with grief over the violent death of one of his Black students, while an augmented reality tiger stalks him. It's the final story in the collection, and both the first one I started writing and the one that took the longest to finish.
Writing toward fears is definitely a theme of the unlinked stories in this collection. There are stories about mutant lobsters and astronomers, and stories set on other planets, spanning many genres and structures and settings, but these stories are also an intimate map of what scares me, and what obsesses me and gives me hope, too.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
It took a little less than four years from starting the first story in January 2021 to my publication date in November 2024. I submitted the collection to the Iowa Short Fiction Award in September 2023 and found out that it had won in January 2024.
The big transformation in my thinking was seeing these disparate stories as a collection at all. When I initially wrote them, I was not considering them together as part of a larger project. It was the contest, and my admiration for the work of 2024’s Judge, Jamil Jan Kochai, that made me sit down and compile these stories into something like an album, putting them in an order that (I hope) helps them speak to each other.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
There were two big surprises in the publishing process. The first was how speedy the University of Iowa Press is: Less than a year after learning I’d won, the book will be in people’s hands! The second was how amazing the cover process was. The U of Iowa Press team was fantastic to work with, and they were open to collaborating with photographer Jamie Chung, who created an original piece of art inspired by the stories. His concept was “futuristic dutch still life,” and I’m so thrilled with how it came out!
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Really, it was all a surprise. Every story started as an experiment. I did not have a big vision in mind and was not writing toward a collection. Instead, I was trying to learn to write as I was composing these stories: trying out flash pieces, trying to learn how to write effective endings, trying out different genres. When a story idea feels beyond what I can write—if I don’t feel quite smart enough to do it justice—that’s the impetus for me to sit down and trudge through the 20-30 drafts of tinkering. I was shocked when my 5:00am writing sessions before starting my day-job added up into a full collection.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope it will be provocative and surprising. If I’ve done my job, readers will be thinking about our obligations to uplift each other, rather than institutions and traditions. And most of all, I aspire to leave readers with a sense of wonder.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Stay playful! See what happens when you write in different forms, genres, or modes than you normally do. Whatever it takes to lower the stakes—try that!
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
