Juliet McShannon “Rescue” (Spring, 2026)

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: Juliet McShannon on “Rescue”

Podcast: New Books Network – This Is the Place (The Common)
Host: Emily Everett
Guest: Juliet McShannon
Date: July 10, 2026
Episode Focus: Juliet McShannon discusses her short story “Rescue” (The Common, Issue 31), her craft, influences, and the themes of loss, place, and social division in her work.

---

Episode Overview

This episode features a thoughtful conversation with fiction writer Juliet McShannon about her story "Rescue," which centers around a narrator’s encounter with a lost dog in the California desert. The episode dives deep into the craft of writing fiction inspired by lived experience, the subtle depiction of trauma and survivorship, and the roles that place and social division play in McShannon’s work.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Place and Inspiration

• Location & Background:
  • McShannon calls in from the library in Rancho Mirage, part of the Coachella Valley, describing the unique intersection of desert beauty and social contrasts.
    • “On the small scale, I’m in my local library in the city of Rancho Mirage...the Coachella Valley... part of the Sonoran Desert and the Colorado Desert in Southern California.” (02:28)
• Plant Life as Metaphor:
  • The desert’s flora strongly informs both setting and metaphorical underpinnings for the story.
    • "The desert is, of course, such a metaphor. It’s a metaphor for barrenness. It’s a metaphor for survivorship." (06:14)

2. The Real-Life Spark and Crafting Fiction

• Autobiographical Roots:
  • The story’s origin stems from McShannon’s own attempt to rescue a lost dog—a quest that remained unresolved and became a metaphor for deeper searches and loss in life.
    • “The piece is based on my actual sighting of a lost dog in Palm Desert and my own attempts to… search for the dog and try and return it to its owner....I found it really difficult to give up the search.” (06:41)
• Transforming Experience into Narrative:
  • McShannon discusses how she moves from experience to fiction, intentionally blurring lines and building complexity in her characters.
    • "I’m a fiction writer, and I need to blur the lines. As a writer, that's what inspires me to write." (08:14)
• Revision Mindset:
  • She focuses on serving the reader and defining what the story is truly about.
    • "I ask myself two central questions. The first is, what changes can I make to best serve the reader? And the second one is, what am I really trying to say in the story, and is that coming through?" (09:41)

3. Narrative Decisions: Subtlety, Revelation, and Stakes

• Ambiguous Outcome:
  • The story resists neat resolutions; whether the narrator finds the dog remains open to interpretation, a structural choice meant to resonate with readers' own experiences of searching and loss.
    • "This was the only version where, spoiler alert. She doesn't find the dog. Or does she?...So I didn't deviate from that." (12:58)
• Pacing Revelation:
  • McShannon describes the challenge of how much to reveal, aiming to “play fair” without overwhelming the reader, and details her choice to have her narrator be a suicide survivor to heighten the emotional core.
    • "Revealing information...is such a balancing act. You know, I wanted to play fair with the reader, but at the same time, I didn't want to...give it all away right at the beginning." (12:58)
    • “I’ve lost near and dear to suicide...so I thought, well, let me make her a suicide survivor. And so that's where for me, that was the biggest edit and the biggest way of, you know, rethinking and an original draft.” (15:46)

4. Handling Difficult Subjects: Language and Authenticity

• Sensitivity in Writing About Suicide:
  • McShannon researched language around suicide to ensure sensitivity and steer away from stigmatizing or inaccurate phrasing.
    • "I realized that I needed the language to write about suicide, so I did research...For example, you know, the term 'committed suicide' invokes...criminality...writing that somebody 'failed at suicide' is also...not helpful at all and should be discouraged." (18:33)

5. Place, Disparity, and Social Division

• Class and Neighborhood Dichotomies:
  • The story highlights stark contrasts between manicured, affluent areas and older, working-class neighborhoods—mirroring both the reality of the Coachella Valley and echoes of McShannon’s South African upbringing.
    • "When I first moved to the desert, I was struck by the milieu of the Coachella Valley...white retirees who live in gated communities...small, older Hispanic neighborhoods...as we travel east in the valley, it's very different...agricultural communities, we have citrus farms, we have date farms, we have a few fish farms...large migrant community." (20:46)
    • "This cheek by jowl disparity reminds me, reminded me of my childhood, growing up in South Africa." (21:51)

6. Personal History: South Africa, Law, and Writing

• Growing Up During Apartheid:
  • McShannon shares how her immigrant family's history and her experience as a white South African during apartheid and the country’s transition to democracy continues to shape her writing.
    • “Growing up in a racially charged environment, definitely South Africa definitely influenced my writing. I'm the daughter of immigrant parents...I grew up as a child there...during apartheid...I was there during the transition to democracy in 1994.” (22:59)
    • “I have an insider, outsider perspective...and that is what I’m able to give to the reader when I do write stories about South Africa.” (25:32)
• Recurrent Themes:
  • Issues of race, class, social divisions, and the complexity of societal relationships frequently recur across her writing, whether in South Africa or California.
    • “My work coalesces around race, class, social standing, divisions in society...I never thought of myself as a political writer...But if we’re looking at power distribution in society...then yes, I suppose I am.” (26:42, 28:25)

7. Writing Process and What’s Next

• On Revision and Trusting Editors:
  • McShannon credits both her experience at Disquiet with Katherine Vaz and editorial collaboration (with host Emily Everett and The Common's team) in honing her work’s emotional clarity and focus.
    • "Emily, that is what you have done. So thank you very much. You were able to help me greatly...to push the heart of the story above ground." (10:42)
• Novel-in-Progress:
  • She’s working on a novel set in California’s Imperial Valley, again exploring themes of place, loneliness, and belonging; she continues to write short stories with hopes of a future collection.
    • "Well, I’m halfway through a novel that is set in the Imperial Valley, which neighbors the Coachella Valley...It’s about the desert...It's a process. But I’m also...writing short stories. I have a few South African short stories that have found homes." (28:39)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Autobiography and Fiction:
  • "The truth doesn’t always serve the reader in a story." — Juliet McShannon (08:14)
• On Craft:
  • “My default is to cull, to trim it, to get it down to its...bare essentials. But when I revise, I ask myself two central questions: what changes can I make to best serve the reader? And...what am I really trying to say?” — Juliet McShannon (09:41)
• On Writing about Suicide:
  • "Writing about suicide survivorship is different...There is a lot of judgment and...the person feels shame. So I realized I needed the language...to be safe, sensitive, but still not be too polished about it." — Juliet McShannon (18:33)
• On Running as Both Literal & Metaphorical:
  • "She’s running based on doctor's orders... but there’s also this feeling that she’s kind of running from something and then also looking for this dog. But it's also kind of clear that she's looking for something that's not the dog." — Emily Everett (17:32)
• On Writerly Doubt:
  • "You’re halfway through and you can’t really...discuss anything because there’s nothing to show until there’s something to show. It’s a process." — Juliet McShannon (28:39)
  • "What if this is all for naught? But of course it's not for naught. Writing is never for naught." — Juliet McShannon (30:08)

---

Key Timestamps

• 02:28 – Juliet sets the scene in the Coachella Valley
• 03:08 – Juliet reads the opening of "Rescue"
• 06:14 – Discussion of the role of the desert and plants as metaphor
• 06:41 – Real-life inspiration for the story
• 09:41 – On revision: “serving the reader” and finding the story’s core
• 12:58 – On leaving the dog unfound and keeping the story open-ended
• 15:46 – Major revision: making the narrator a suicide survivor
• 18:33 – Researching language for writing about suicide with sensitivity
• 20:46 – Discussing socioeconomic contrasts in Coachella Valley
• 22:59 – Juliet’s experience growing up during apartheid and its influence on her fiction
• 26:42 – Recurring themes: race, class, social divisions
• 28:39 – Current projects: working on a novel set in California; short stories set in South Africa

---

Episode Tone & Style

The conversation is earnest, reflective, and compassionate. Both host and guest approach sensitive topics—loss, trauma, mental health, and social inequality—with nuance and care, interweaving personal anecdote with broader literary themes.

---

Conclusion

This episode provides keen insight into Juliet McShannon’s writing practice and the themes she explores in her work. Listeners come away with an understanding of how fiction can be rooted in real experiences while reaching for universal resonance, the challenge and importance of capturing complex psychological states, and the many-layered role that place and social context play in storytelling.

For more:
Read Juliet McShannon’s “Rescue” in The Common (Issue 31) and find additional works linked in the show notes at thecommononline.org.

---

Transcript

[Commercial Narrator]

Chevy is called the heartbeat of America for a reason. With SUVs made to move with your rhythm, the versatile Equinox tackles your entire day. The spacious Traverse fits your crew and your whole weekend, and tracks bring style with value you can count on, all infused with tech that has your back, so your drive always hits the right chord. Chevrolet Together, let's drive Experience a membership

[American Express/State Farm Advertiser]

that backs what you're building with American Express Business Platinum. Enjoy complimentary access to the American Express Global Lounge Collection and apply to find

[Visible/Starbucks Advertiser]

out your welcome offer, which could be

[American Express/State Farm Advertiser]

as high as 300,000 Membership Rewards points.

[Visible/Starbucks Advertiser]

American Express Business Platinum there's nothing like it.

[American Express/State Farm Advertiser]

Terms apply, welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer. Learn [e-mail] Business Platinum this episode is brought to you by State Farm Listening to this podcast Instead of doom scrolling Smart move, another smart move getting help from one of State Farm's 19,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts, and savings and eligibility vary by state.

[Commercial Narrator]

Welcome to the New Books Network

[Emily Everett]

hello everyone. Welcome to this is the Place, a podcast series from the Common Magazine on the New Books Network. The Common publishes literature and art with a modern sense of place. I'm Emily Everett, managing editor of the magazine and host of the Channel. Today we'll be Talking to Juliet McShannon about her story Rescue, which appears in issue 31 of the Common. Juliet McShannon is an emerging fiction writer who was born in England, raised in South Africa, where she practiced law, and now lives in the Colorado Desert in Southern California. She is a graduate of the Warren Wilson College MFA program for Writers and was selected as a Lusso American Fellow for Disquiet International. Her writing has appeared in Five Points Literary Journal, the New England Review, the Guardian, the Independent, the Star, and elsewhere. Juliet McShannon, thanks for joining us.

[Juliet McShannon]

Oh, it's great to chat with you.

[Emily Everett]

Would you just set the scene for our conversation? Describe where you're calling from now, maybe on like a small scale and then maybe a big scale.

[Juliet McShannon]

On the small scale. I'm in my local library in the city of Rancho Mirage and with Palm Desert, the city of Palm Desert and Palm Springs, it makes up nine incorporated desert cities that are part of the Coachella Valley and the Valley is part of the Sonoran Desert and the Colorado Desert in Southern California.

[Emily Everett]

Beautiful. You know, I always hear about Coachella, but I really had no sense of where it was at all.

[Juliet McShannon]

Most people like to visit and then leave very quickly because of the heat. Yes.

[Emily Everett]

Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, I couldn't do it. I would love to start off with a reading from your story. Would you read the first few paragraphs for us?

[Juliet McShannon]

Sure. So this is from rescue. The dog is crossing a circle. Dawn light catching silver strands on a gray coat, saliva on a panting tongue, a red collar, a lost dog. For an instant we lock eyes, then I continue around and take the north exit. I'm in a hurry to get to the meetup point, my first time running with others, and I'm dreading it. But doctor's orders and all that. Besides, I promise my husband I will be late, I will be late, I will be late, I say through my tea, then pull over to look for the dog. I walk back to the circle, a sorry circle, tufts of dead grass and weeds pushing through. Where I live, just a few miles west. This would never be the case. There would be a turned soil and a feature plant, perhaps an ocotillo, its spiny branches reaching skyward, fingertips in fiery bloom. A last hurrah before the start of summer. The heat has arrived early this year. No breeze on this valley floor. You run in the blue hour, or close to it, to beat the sun rising fast over the desert mountains. It is Sunday. No traffic and no dog. I tried to calculate the distance it could have traveled, those short little lakes moving at speed. I can still see its face, a long snout and black button eyes with an expression of what, exactly? I decide to walk east. An unfamiliar neighborhood, skinny streets curling into one another like snakes. An old neighborhood, small bungalows and small front yards. A rusted car with no wheels in one driveway, a child's plastic wagon on its side in another. A paper mache pinata, iridescent in the morning light, hangs from a basketball hoop. Aloes and cacti grow haphazard behind crisscross wire fences. My neighborhood has rolling front yards and uniform side hedges of smartly trimmed bougainvillea. It is quiet except for the birds. Crows atop palm trees calling to each other. Cra cra craw. I think of calling the last dog, but how to call a dog without a name?

[Emily Everett]

Thank you for reading that. For our listeners who may not have read your story yet, I wonder if you could just describe what the piece is about, sort of in general terms.

[Juliet McShannon]

Yes. The narrator in the story crosses paths with a lost dog in Palm Desert, and the sighting sets the story in motion. And it's about her attempts to find what's lost in inverted commas and reunite the dog with its owner.

[Emily Everett]

That's great. Thank you. And she's got some sort of emotional backstory that's causing her pain that sort of, you know, eventually we find out this, like, connection between why she might be searching for the lost dog beyond just sort of the, you know, the hope of saving the dog. Yeah.

[Juliet McShannon]

Yes. There's all that going on in the background.

[Emily Everett]

I love what you read. It reminded me of something I love about your story, which is the ubiquity of these plants, sort of, you know, special plants that grow in the desert and that people might use sort of ornamentally or in their gardens and stuff. I feel like that plays a really big role in the piece as well.

[Juliet McShannon]

It certainly does. And the desert is, of course, such a metaphor. It's a metaphor for barrenness. It's a metaphor for survivorship. So it seemed natural to set it here.

[Emily Everett]

I always want to know what inspires someone to start working on a piece. I'd love to hear, you know, as much as you can, tell us about where the idea came from and also sort of how that first draft came together. You know, how all these, like, you're saying these different parts come together.

[Juliet McShannon]

Well, the piece is based on my actual sighting of a lost dog in Palm Desert and my own attempts to. To search for the dog and try and return it to its owner. And I found myself walking in this unfamiliar neighborhood, and I never found the dog. And I returned at different hours on different days, and I found it really difficult to give up the search. And in response to my sadness and disappointment and a baffling conversation with the dog owner, and eventually I began to think about this idea of lostness and our very human desire to find what is lost within and without. And the first draft came from that thinking. But I wanted to write a simple story about a lost dog with a complicated narrator who is navigating her own lostness. And in searching for the lost dog, is searching for what is lost. So that's how it came about.

[Emily Everett]

I love that when I write things that are quite autobiographical, like, they're inspired by, like, you know, an experience I had or a story that someone else told me about an experience they had more often. Sometimes it can be hard to, like, decide where to, you know, where are you gonna diverge from. From what actually happened and in service of the story, where they're like versions of this that were much closer to your experience and versions that were much

[Juliet McShannon]

farther away or not really. Not with this one. As I said, it was a response to my experience. But I'm a fiction writer, and I need to blur the lines. As a writer, that's what inspires me to write. It's where I find my joy, but also to serve the reader. The truth doesn't always serve the reader in a story. So I carry stories for a long time in my head before I write them down. So by the time they're on paper, I have a clear narrative arc, and I don't often deviate from that arc. And so I knew that I needed a more interesting narrator than myself to propel the story forward, to build that momentum, and to create. Create interest and empathy in the reader.

[Emily Everett]

Yeah, that's so interesting. I have a friend who told me people listen to the podcast have heard me say this before, but a friend told me that her. Her main characters are always just her, without therapy. Because, as you say, you need.

[Juliet McShannon]

You.

[Emily Everett]

You sometimes need a more interesting narrator. Like, what if this everyday thing happened to me, but I wasn't the person I am, and it was harder to deal with, or I had different motivations for dealing with it differently.

[Juliet McShannon]

Yeah, that's so interesting.

[Emily Everett]

And so, okay, so you carry the story in her head, and once you put it down, like, the first draft on paper is probably not terribly different than the final draft.

[Juliet McShannon]

It's. Well, the first draft is. I read my work aloud when I write. I heard that Ian McEwan does that. He writes in the morning, then he reads what he's written in the afternoon so he can hear the incongruities and. Or, for example, the. The dissonance in. In. In dialogue. And so my. My draft does change in. In that way. It's my default is to cull, to trim it, to get it down to its. To its bare essentials. But. But when I revise and. And I do revise, I ask myself two central questions. The first is, what changes can I make to best serve the reader? And the second one is, what am I really trying to say in the story? And is that coming through? And this is where a trusted pair of eyes is always welcome. And I first workshopped this an earlier draft at Disquiet. And I worked with the marvelous Catherine Vaz, and she said to me, if the story finds a home, or rather, when the story finds a home, you will work with an editor who will help you to take it to the next level. And, Emily, that is what. What you have done. So thank you very much. You were able to help me greatly help me distill what I wanted to say, what was at the core of the story and to push the heart of the story above ground. And so that is the draft that. That's what came through for me in the final. In the final draft. Well, that's.

[Emily Everett]

It's very nice to hear. That's so great that Katherine said that. She's very wise. And I also. I can't take all the credit because we also got notes that, like, I. I worked with you on the story, but I also got notes from our associate fiction editor, Megan Tucker Oranger, who had some smart, you know, sort of conversations that she wanted condensed and things like that to just sort of sharpen some things. But, yeah, it is so true. You always need this, like, second pair of eyes because especially when you're trying to be kind of subtle about big ideas, you know, you've got some big ide. And here's some things that are really, you know, some heavy issues, and you always want to handle those subtly and delicately so they're not hitting the reader over the head. But it can be so hard to know, like, what's really coming across to the reader unless you have a reader who's never seen it before. Like, we are so, so bad at doing that ourselves. I really love how this piece has, like, a real sweetness to it. It's very earnest, this narrator just trying to reunite the dog with its family. But it also, as a story, it doesn't try to fix everything or solve everything or answer every question. It. You know, I don't think that we've, you know, fixed this narrator's life at the end or anything like that. And it touches on so many themes and so many complications of everyday life. I'm really curious. I mean, it sounds like once you actually wrote it down, the draft was pretty solid. But while you were thinking about it in its early stages, did you play around with how much to reveal or

[Juliet McShannon]

how much to solve?

[Emily Everett]

Like, is there a version where she does find the dog? Or did you always plan for it not to be like that? And I just wonder, like, the choices you make, like, what were you hoping that the readers would feel? Maybe not at the end, but as they were experiencing it?

[Juliet McShannon]

This was the only version where, spoiler alert. She doesn't find the dog. Or does she? Or is it a bit of a ghost story? Or how you interpret the story and the dog and perhaps even another dog, who knows? So I didn't deviate from that. But as, you know, revealing information and how. How much to Reveal and when to reveal it is such a balancing act. You know, I wanted to play fair with the reader, but at the same time, I didn't want to overwhelm the reader and give it all away right at the beginning of the story. So from the outset, we. The reader is aware that the narrator has a precarious. Is, you know, her mental state is a bit precarious, but I don't give specifics. And because this was a journey, a journey of a narrator in search of a dog, I wanted to take the reader along on that journey, not only to discover whether she finds the dog, but to discover what it is in the narrator that drives her to find the dog. And so I'm also drawn to stories where the reader knows more than the narrator knows or recognizes about himself or herself. So that was really my thinking with this especially more in revision, you know, I began thinking, is this. What's. When do I. When do I, you know, when do I reveal what I reveal? And, and in this regard, you really helped me there to up the ante because in the beginning, in an earlier draft, in response to what the narrator is going through, I thought, well, maybe I'll make her an alcoholic. But then that didn't jar with the running. She does a lot of running. And I thought that might be a bit difficult. And also it just didn't fit well. It didn't feel like the right fit. And sometimes that subconscious didn't feel right. And so I took it away, but I didn't replace it with anything. And then it was far too subtle. And we did. We lost what was at stake for the narrator. And so I know with conversations with you that and the notes that you gave me, it was what is driving her? You know, what is at stake here? What is driving her? And unfortunately, I've. I've lost near and dear to suicide. And. And so I thought, well, let me. Let me make her a suicide survivor. And. And so that's. That's where for me, that was the biggest edit and the biggest way of, you know, rethinking and an original, an original draft. And I hope that the reader. I wanted to inspire empathy in the reader. And even though the reader might not identify with a narrator who's a suicide survivor, may even judge her, I think the reader can probably identify with loss because we've all experienced it in some form or other. And the ache of loss visible puts

[Visible/Starbucks Advertiser]

the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand with unlimited 5G wireless data in hotspot designed to keep you Connected. Powered by Verizon's 5G network and no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month. Or get the premium Visible Pro plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code hack, make the [e-mail] terms apply. See visible.com for details.

[Commercial Narrator]

This summer, soccer is here, and so are the watch parties and UberEats. Has your game day essentials covered? Everything you need to keep your crowd happy delivered straight to your door. Get wings, pizza, chips, dips, fresh ingredients and more. Keep the soccer going and all your game day essentials flowing. Order in so you can lock in for the games only on UberEats for a limited time.

[Visible/Starbucks Advertiser]

Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha Frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla stick smooth caramel maybe? Or white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.

[Emily Everett]

Yeah, just as you're speaking, I'm just thinking about all these great. I mean, you spoke about the Met, the metaphor of the desert, you know, as being this place of barrenness. And obviously we have this feeling of her. She's running based on doctor's orders, like with a group. But there's also this feeling that she's kind of running from something and then also looking for this dog. But it's also kind of clear that she's looking for something that's not the dog. Like, there's so many good metaphoric sort of themes going on here. They're really all. I think because those are all driving so strongly, it's okay for the rest of the story to be pretty subtle, you know, that you, in a story that had less of that momentum, you might need to explain more. Yeah, that's really interesting. I know from talking to you while we were editing this piece, as you said, that you did work really hard to get the character's psychology right, to make sure the depiction of her being this sort of suicide survivor, that, that feels right and feels true to the experience of people who go through that. Curious what kind of specific work or choices went into that.

[Juliet McShannon]

Yes, for me, a narrator experiencing a loss is not necessarily a narrator who feels shame or who's being judged. So that's where I, I thought writing about Survivor, you know, suicide survivorship is different in that regard. There is a lot of judgment and, and, and the person feels, feels, feel shame. So I, I realized that I needed the language to write about suicide, so I did research and, and things that we don't really think about when, when we, when we talk about suicide or write about suicide. For example, you know, the term committed suicide invokes criminality, the sense of criminality. And unsurprisingly, writing that somebody failed at suicide is also, you know, not helpful at all and should be discouraged. So it was learning that language and reading through blogs and finding a way to be safe, sensitive, but still not be too polished about it so that it didn't sound, you know, genuine or sounded too studied. Yeah, it's true.

[Emily Everett]

And, and you know, sometimes we're more careful talking about other people's afflictions or difficulties than we are talking about our own.

[Juliet McShannon]

You know, that we're.

[Emily Everett]

No, we're not as gentle or don't use just the right language when we're thinking about it for ourselves. Yeah, let's see. So we've talked about place a little bit. You know, obviously the common has this sense of place theme and we've talked about the desert. But a thing I think we haven't talked about too much, but I think which readers might have picked up on in the section you read is this dichotomy between this very dried out, sort of low income neighborhood that their narrator is walking through looking for this lost dog versus where she lives, which is a manicured, maybe gated sort of neighborhood. I wonder if you could talk about setting up that dichotomy in the story. And I don't know, I'm curious personally what you were hoping to achieve there or illustrate or is it just, you know, an interesting complication for the narrator to be, you know, in this position and thinking about these things.

[Juliet McShannon]

When I first moved to the desert, I was struck by the milieu of the Coachella Valley. You know, you have predominantly white retirees who live in gated communities with golf courses and tennis courts and swimming pools and. And then there are also these small, older Hispanic neighborhoods that are nestled in those areas. And as you know, the narrator in the story finds herself looking for the lost dog on foot through one of these neighborhoods. Then as we travel east in the valley, it's very different. We have agricultural communities, we have citrus farms, we have date farms, we have a few fish farms. And so we have a large migrant community. We're about a two and a half hour drive to the Mexican border. So we have a large immigrant community, we have a large migrant community. And it's a very, very different, different demographic. And in some ways this cheek by jowl disparity reminds me, reminded me of my childhood growing up in South Africa. And so it. It was a natural thing, or natural. I had a natural curiosity and it seemed natural to write about it because it's something that really interests me living here.

[Emily Everett]

That's so interesting. Yeah, I did want to talk about that. I hadn't thought about that, how it would. Well, I suppose those of us in the US like to think we don't have these, like, sort of segregated neighborhoods, but of course. Of course we do. And it sounds like that that desert area is really a very clear lens that shows that. That's very interesting. When I have been in California, I have really seen those dichotomies, especially driving through, like, the. More agriculture areas and stuff.

[Juliet McShannon]

Yeah.

[Emily Everett]

Let's talk a little bit more about your experience growing up in South Africa. You grew up there during apartheid and then you came up as a lawyer, I think during sort of the transition time. And I'm fascinated to hear about that. But also I'm really curious how that's influenced your writing.

[Juliet McShannon]

Well, growing up in a racially charged environment, definitely South Africa definitely influenced my writing. I'm the daughter of immigrant parents. I have a Portuguese mother and a Scots Irish father who emigrated from England during the Thatcher years for a better life and to put food on the table. And my father had an opportunity, opportunity to work there. And so I grew up as a child there. And as I said, it was during apartheid. So we experienced. We were obviously white people living there, but there was, you know, just quite a violent society, racially charged, violent. We grew up during. I grew up during censorship and sanctions and. And really political upheaval. And I was there during the transition to democracy in 1994. And in the lead up to 1994, I was a university student. I went to what was considered a liberal university. And South Africa was still segregated at that time. And it was at university I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the writings of resistance writers and for the first time to read black authors who were exiled or their work was banned. So I was introduced to Ezekiel Mafale and Blake Madassani's Blaney on History, which is still one of my favorite books. And it was a real eye opener for me. And then I became a law student and studied law. And it was during this time that I voted in the first democratic election. And. And it really influenced, you know, I have. You can imagine I have a bank. Bank of stories. There was also the Truth and Reconciliation committees and hearings that. The hearings that followed. So I was really involved in a time where the law itself, of the Country. The draconian legal system was changing at such a pace because they were talking about a bill of rights, they were talking about a new constitution. Constitution. And there were political and legal minds and backgrounds making these decisions. So it was a very, very interesting time to grow up. But of course I write about South Africa through the lens of a white person looking back, a white woman looking back over my shoulder with a new perspective from having lived away, having moved away in later years, and you know, with a. With the perspective that that gives you. And so I have an insider, outsider perspective. And that is what I'm able to give to the reader when I do write stories about South Africa. And again, I see, I see similarities in the milieu's where I am now. So. So that is what drives me as a writer.

[Emily Everett]

Yeah, that's really interesting. So you have written stories set in South Africa and I just haven't been lucky enough to read them yet. Okay, great. I will look them up and we will link them in the show notes if listeners want to read them. Maybe this is sort of, maybe that was the answer to this question. But I always want to ask people, I'm really curious about if you think there are topics or themes that always come up in your writing when you sit down to write? A thing often happens to me, which is, I think that sometimes we sit down with conscious ideas of what we want to write about and then these subconscious ideas that we can't seem to get away from kind of come through anyways. Do you have these things that keep coming up in your work?

[Juliet McShannon]

Yes, my work coalesces around race, class, social standing, divisions in society. Whether I'm writing about South Africa, Palm Desert, it's, you know, growing up there, South Africa is not just a place for me, it's a part of me. And so it, it, I. I grew up there during my formative years, so that will always feature in my writing and. But what I love about being a fiction writer is that I will sit down. I don't write as a vehicle just to express those ideas. I need a story, I need a heart, I need, I need an experience, no matter what that is, because I think the reader would see through that. And so it's important to me. I should be able to write about anything. But all those themes just come in and they sometimes surprise me. They surprise me in the characters that I write about. And that's really what I love about fiction writing, is that it allows my imagination to be set free. But of course I'm influenced by my own life experience. And, and so hopefully that comes through. I never thought of myself as a political writer. Somebody quite recently said, you're a political writer. And I had to really think about that because I don't write about party politics and I, you know, I don't often get into the weeds. But, but yes, I. If we're looking at power distribution in society and we're looking at, you know, what drives our societal relationships and fears, then yes, I suppose, I suppose I am.

[Emily Everett]

Yeah. Unfortunately, I think all of us might end up being political writers just, you know, by dint of when you're, when you're writing and what's going on. Yeah. But, yeah, that's really interesting.

[Juliet McShannon]

I love that.

[Emily Everett]

So always the last question we ask everyone is what you're working on now and what's next.

[Juliet McShannon]

Next? Well, I'm halfway through a novel that is set in the Imperial Valley, which neighbors the Katella Valley, and it's set on a fish bar. And so again, it's about the desert. And so I'm excited by that. It's quite a lonely place to be. You. Well, I'm not going to speak for you, but as a writer, you know, you're halfway through and you think you can't really. People say, what do you wr writing about? And you can't really discuss anything because there's nothing to show until there's something to show. And so, and so it's, it's, it's a process. But I'm also, I take breaks from it and I write short stories. And as I've mentioned before, I have a few South African short stories that have found homes. And so I'm hoping one day for a collection to make its way into the world.

[Emily Everett]

That would be amazing. Yeah.

[Juliet McShannon]

Yes.

[Emily Everett]

Writing a novel is quite lonely. And you said halfway.

[Juliet McShannon]

I'm halfway.

[Emily Everett]

Yeah. That is the. I always have a little crisis of faith around halfway, which is, I think, not related to the project at all. But like, you know, that's the point of no return. Like, you've put a lot of work and effort into it now. You're really invested, but there is so much work still to go and lots that can go wrong and it can just be a little bit of a nerve wracking space. And then as I get a little closer to the end, I start feeling the momentum again.

[Juliet McShannon]

Yeah, I'm hoping for that momentum phase and, and of course my fear, the trajectory seems to just go up and up because you, because of that investment, you know, you start with your what ifs, your doubts. What if this is all for naught? But of course it's not for naught. Writing is never for naught.

[Emily Everett]

So no, it really isn't. I I'm a very results oriented person. So I'm always like I always say, like I wouldn't write if I didn't think anyone was going to read it. Like I'm not a person who writes just for me or anything like that. But even the things that I have never published have taught me things I needed to know to write other things or I've been able to use them in parts of other things. You know, like it is never for naught. Well, this has been so great. Juliet McShannon, thank you for joining us. So fun talking to you and discussing the story which I love so much.

[Juliet McShannon]

Thank you Emily. So been a pleasure listeners.

[Emily Everett]

You can read Juliet's story and subscribe to the latest issue atthecommononline.org.

[American Express/State Farm Advertiser]

Starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into Sign up for your $1 per month [e-mail] specialoffer.