10 Questions for Marguerite Sheffer
- By Franchesca Viaud
Russ Brings all the wrong books to my hospital room, which is tucked into a corner of the birthing center. How was he to know I’d already finished that novel? Back at our house, all my books flounder in inscrutable piles. I hadn’t arranged them to be legible to anyone else. Of course, no one predicts a car accident; we didn’t expect to be T-boned on the way home from Costco, trunk full of perishables.
—from "Wire Nanosecond" Volume 65, Issue 3 (Fall 2024)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
Ever?! One of the very first pieces I wrote, in 5th grade, was a historical fiction story about a girl in, I think, vaguely the 1500s. She was a peasant who worked in a winery and I remember I made her walk through broken glass at one point in the tale, though I can’t remember why! What I do remember is that my teacher was impressed and wanted me to read the story out loud to the class. I was too terrified and I refused. So he read it to the class anyway, and I hid in the bathroom. It was one of those portable classrooms where the bathroom is attached, right to the classroom itself. So what I remember most is that I hid in the bathroom, but then crouched on the floor with my ear against the walls, listening to the story read back to me, feeling proud and terrified.
What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
I feel I am constantly “stealing like an artist” from writers whose work I love. The first names that come to mind are Tillie Olsen—I’ve consciously copied her to try to move closer to that level of gut punch—Sofia Samatar, Kij Johnson, Brenda Peynado, and Ken Liu. Ted Chiang helps me see that more is possible in short fiction and essays, but I hesitate to say my work is anything like his! But it is an inspiration.
What other professions have you worked in?
The two biggies are waitress and teacher. I taught high school English for ten years, in Oakland, primarily, and for a little in New Orleans. I’ve also held a handful of other roles in education: coach, researcher, etc.
Right now I teach college courses and run workshops on design thinking and speculative fiction as tools for social change.
What inspired you to write this piece?
I primarily write fiction, so writing essays is far outside my comfort zone. It is not something I do very often, or try to do. I only write essays when I absolutely need to write about something to make sense of it, to get through it, and that is true for “Wire Nanosecond.”
This essay is about a hard thing I went through: getting in a car accident at 29 weeks pregnant, after a series of miscarriages, and spending the night in the hospital under observation. It’s about the thoughts I was having during that time: both the fears, and the thoughts that grounded me. When my husband, Russ, showed me an article about Grace Hopper’s famous ‘wire nanoseconds’ to try to distract me from the worst of my fears, I was instantly interested, and I pulled the notebook right out. I knew I had to write about it.
Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?
I love this question, because at first I did not think I had an answer, and then the more I thought of it, one came up!
In Oakland, CA, there is a place called the “Chapel of the Chimes.” It is a columbarium designed by Julia Morgan, and it is a labyrinth of these little rooms, spilling into each other, each ornately decorated, and full of surprises. One room might have a fountain, the next a surprising sculpture, the next an illuminated manuscript. When you’re inside, it feels like it might go on forever, like something out of Borges’ imagination. It’s very easy to lose track of what floor you’re on, what time it is, and what direction you came from while you are in the chapel. But there’s always a glimpse of something that draws you further in.
I’d love for my own work to evoke that kind of transportation out of the everyday world, and that kind of wonder. How amazing that the Chapel is a place to grieve and think about history and honor those who came before.
Is there any specific music that aids you through the writing or editing process?
I create playlists obsessively for writing: specific playlists for projects, characters, stories, and scenes. Then I will listen to them on repeat, freaking out my family. Florence and the Machine’s songs have made many a playlist.
When I’m writing fiction and really need to get into an action scene or an epic gesture, movie soundtracks can be really helpful. Some recent favorites are the soundtrack to NOPE by Michael Abels and Interstellar by Hans Zimmer. A lot of the songs from the soundtrack to Dark (the TV show) come up a lot in my writing rotation, for the same reason.
Do you have any rituals or traditions that you do in order to write?
Truly whatever works for me at the moment. I use the “Most Dangerous Writing App” a lot when I have only ten or fifteen minutes to write at a time, which is often. I write a lot of lists of ideas, aiming for “25 things” in order to stretch my mind to consider ideas beyond my initial, “safer,” ones. A lot of my writing practices are ways I’ve found to help me stay in tune with my projects when I don’t have much daily time to really work deeply on them. I do try to write daily-ish, but I count even ten minutes as a win. No matter what, I make an effort to connect with my writing group, the Wildcats, so we are accountable to each other.
I have to write or else I get cranky, even on days when I don’t have my favorite notebooks (hardcover! college ruled! page numbers! eye ease!) or my favorite pens (Pilot P-500s).
Who typically gets the first read of your work?
I have an incredible writing group, the Wildcat Writing Group, with writers Corinne Cordasco-Pak and Tierney Oberhammer. We have a slack where we chat constantly; and we share work on a regular basis. They are such perceptive readers, but also approach a piece as co-writers, in a way, which is so helpful to me. We’ve developed shared strategies and a shorthand of talking about stories that has taught me so much. And knowing they will see my work keeps it fun when projects are taking me a long time, which they often do!
If you could work in another art form what would it be?
I’d love to try being a production designer for a science fiction movie, or immersive theater experiences like what Meow Wolf or Punchdrunk (the production company behind Sleep No More) does. I love set design, costume design, set dressing. I have no reason to think I’d be good at this: I just love and admire that kind of work so much: creating another detailed world that makes people feel like they have stepped through a portal.
What are you working on currently?
I am deep in revisions of a novel, currently titled EGRET. It’s about a female journalist, Theodora, whose heyday was the early 1900s in New Orleans. She begins to cover the story of the “plume wars” between egret hunters and early conservationists. At that time, egret feathers were worth as much as gold and egrets were being hunted to extinction. While covering this story, she discovers a dark secret. I’m pushing through draft six right now, working on adding suspense and romantic tension, which is quite a fun challenge.
MARGUERITE (MAGGIE) SHEFFER is a writer who lives in New Orleans. Her debut short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees won the 2024 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was published by the University of Iowa Press. Her stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Epiphany, The Offing, Smokelong Quarterly, The Cincinnati Review, The Adroit Journal, and The Pinch, among other magazines.
