speaker-0: Hello and welcome to Writing Forward, a conversation show featuring some of the best and brightest voices from across Wisconsin. I'm Jeff Aloysia, I'm a former editor at the New York Times, a Milwaukee suburbs native, and now I'm a freelance writer based in Madison. Each week I sit down with writers from and connected to my home state for candid, sometimes messy conversations about craft, identity, and what it means to build a writing life rooted at home and away from the traditional center of the literary world. From fiction to nonfiction, poetry to journalism, we dig into what keeps Wisconsin writers moving forward, one word at a time. My guest today is Maggie Ginsburg. Maggie is a writer based in Lake Mills, Wisconsin. Her debut novel, Still True, published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2022, follows a woman whose quiet, carefully constructed life is upended when the son she gave up decades earlier shows up at her door. The book won the Wisconsin Library Association's Award for Fiction, and was the finalist for the Chicago Writers Association's 2023 Book of the Year. Alongside her fiction, Maggie is an award-winning journalist. She's published hundreds of articles on everything from undocumented Mexican immigrants in Madison to trans rights to unforgettable profiles like that of a pilot who flies rescue animals across the country in tiny passenger planes. She's also the former managing editor of Madison Magazine, where she's been contributing since 2006. Becky Ginsburg, welcome to Writing Forward.

speaker-1: Thank you for having me. That bio went deep there. I'm impressed. But I'm so excited to be here. And I love the descriptor of, ⁓ would you say, sometimes messy conversations you'll be having here. That is my beat. That could be on my business card, candid, sometimes messy. So I feel right at home. Thank you for having me.

speaker-0: I'm so happy you're here. ⁓ To start, think it's probably important to establish how we came to know each other. ⁓ we haven't talked a lot about this, but in late 2020, ⁓ an editor position opened at Madison Magazine. And sort of unbeknownst to both of us, we both applied for that job. ⁓ And they chose you.

speaker-1: before we knew each other. ⁓

speaker-0: I remember thinking in sort of ⁓ the way that we are trying to interrogate in this podcast, I had just moved back to Wisconsin. had this idea that like, I was like, who is this yokel that they've chosen from Wisconsin? ⁓ So this, six years later, is sort of the culmination of my long simmering revenge plot to humiliate you on this podcast.

speaker-1: gosh, I love it. It's all coming clear now. ⁓ I'm so glad that we met back then. What I remember about that time is that I had been freelancing for Madison Magazine primarily in lots of places. ⁓ And then the pandemic happened and some other things happened in my life. And I very much needed to get a job and jobs didn't open up very often there. So it it felt like fate when a position opened up because I already knew everyone and was already doing a lot of that sort of work. And then I remember ⁓ hearing that there was this New York Times guy that should have possibly been ⁓ the hire. And so I was also a little worried about that. But it turned out to be really great because I got to work directly with you. And you were just delivering such unbelievable work and just making me look really good. as your editor, so worked out well.

speaker-0: Not at all. You know, of course I'm joking. think like truly it was to my great benefit that you became my editor. And of course I instantly fell in love with you platonically. we became close friends thereafter. I'm deeply grateful. There's so much I want to ask you about. But first, we begin every episode of this show by asking our guests to share a brief passage from someone else's writing.

speaker-1: Absolutely.

speaker-0: be it a novel, poem, essay or article that for them evokes Wisconsin in some memorable way. Can you tell us what you chose and please read it for us?

speaker-1: Sure, so this really threw me. know that there are, I just, get overwhelmed by choice and there's so many, there's such good writing out there about Wisconsin. But I kept thinking about how when I first read Driftless by David Rhodes, ⁓ which is full of gorgeous passages, I kept thinking about how it, ⁓ there was this opening chapter and I hadn't read it in a long time. It's almost like a prologue that describes what the Driftless. region is. ⁓ And I knew about the Driftless. I grew up at the edge of the Driftless. ⁓ But I had never really understood it until I read Driftless. And he has this opening chapter that just describes it in really plain, beautiful language, just like the rest of his writing. So I went looking for that. And I thought, ⁓ that's maybe a paragraph. But no, it's like... It's multiple pages, three pages I think, so I can't ⁓ read it to you, I point to it. ⁓ And I encourage everyone else to look for it. And it's really beautiful. sort of describes, you know, in southwestern Wisconsin, there's an area roughly 160 miles long and 70 miles wide with unique features. Its rugged terrain differs from the rest of the state. And it goes on to describe exactly how it was formed, but then it ends. in describing this fictional town where the whole book takes place, and it's called Words. ⁓ And it just, it sort of starts up at this sort of high level, and then it zooms down, down, down into ⁓ something that is fictional but feels so real. And the last line is, eight miles north of the intersection, the unincorporated village of Words has no traffic signs at all. County Trunk Q is the only way into the tiny town, which sits at the dead end of a steep valley. Few people go there. State maps no longer include words. And though Q is often pictured, the curving black line simply ends like a snipped off black thread in a spot of empty white space. Even in Grange, most people don't know where words is. And then the story begins. And I just love that. And then, sorry, I have to give you two since you made this so hard. Runner up here is I'm holding Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety, which is a beautiful book. I love this book. But the reason that I was thinking about it is because there is this moment, and maybe it wouldn't matter that much to other people, but it's early in chapter two and it's describing this trek he's making, I believe from Iowa to Wisconsin, and it names places that I know and that never happened for me in books, right? ⁓ And so this starts, we coiled along the bluff. And up onto the top, the rain fell steadily on the narrow, right-angled road, on white farmhouses and red barns whose roofs announced Dr. Pierce's golden medical discovery, on browning September cornfields and pigs knee-deep in muddy pens. It fell steadily as we passed through Platteville, Mineral Point, Dodgeville, and was still falling when somewhere beyond Dodgeville, the wiper blade disintegrated and bare metal began to scrape in a crazy arc across the windshield. Rather than delay us by stopping to get it fixed, I drove from Mount Horeb to Madison with my head out the window, my hair soaked, and water running down inside my shirt collar. And Mount Horeb is my hometown. seeing my place in fiction, ⁓ in this beautiful book, this big author, talking about my little place, really meant something to me and means something to me still.

speaker-0: Yeah, that's so powerful, I think, to be able to recognize that and fiction. And of course, you're sort of giving people that experience now, even if they don't recognize that it named, they'll sort of recognize the place of Lake Mills where you live now. ⁓ I should say Crossing to Safety is full of beautiful descriptions of... Wisconsin specifically if listeners have any connection to Madison in this area. ⁓ It's a pretty special story and will I think hit home for a lot of people. I do want to talk about the David Rohn's passage because ⁓ the town of words is such a like beautiful ⁓ fictional name for a place. ⁓ I think that probably someone savvy out there could create a pretty cool map of just like fictional literary towns in Wisconsin and of course you Created a fictional name for your town and still true. Can you tell me what that was?

speaker-1: I did, it's called Anthem. I'm surprised that it doesn't exist. It's an amalgam of all of the small towns that I have lived in my entire life. I've only ever lived in small towns, except for in college in Madison, ⁓ in Minnesota and Wisconsin. And ⁓ Anthem just sounded like a Wisconsin town to me. My kids ⁓ grew up in a rural area and played... ⁓ basketball and so we were always driving an hour to every single game and it was always Arena and Albany and Avoka and Just all of these a names. So I thought anthem Sounded right. It sounded vaguely patriotic But what's interesting is I purposely chose a fictional town because I wanted to take liberties not just Geographically, but also in writing about people and places in small towns. You don't want people to see themselves necessarily. But I had a vague idea of where it was. And in the end, I kind of had to pinpoint it on a map a little bit, even though it's not entirely accurate, because of what the editors needed. ⁓ And what I found out later is that it's about 10 minutes from where Fictional Words is located. that made a lot of sense to me. ⁓ David Rhodes, his writing has always meant a lot to me. And I felt like his characters would have known my characters and so that was kind of an unexpected but happy Coincidence yeah, I don't know

speaker-0: So, Still True would not be considered auto-fiction. However, it has, I think, a lot of autobiographical elements of it. The protagonist is a woman of a certain age who is living in Wisconsin. She lives apart from her spouse, which is something that was true to you, that has since ceased to be true. Clearly, this is a story that was close to your heart. What was the question or questions that you were chasing when you wrote this novel?

speaker-1: It's interesting because this is still true as the first fiction I'd ever written after all these years of nonfiction. And I really thought, okay, good, now I'm going to make everything up. And so I wasn't intending to pull from my life at all unless I thought it was something I could leverage. Like you mentioned, living apart from my husband, I'm in a second marriage and for the first 10 years we did not... lived together. lived in separate houses an hour apart and we had very different reasons from what I explore in the novel. It was far more pragmatic. It was what was right for our family. We each had kids. It didn't make sense to uproot everybody. But we certainly had a lot of conversations with people who didn't understand why you get married if you're not going to live together. And so we had really explored that and I knew that it was interesting to people. I knew the sorts of things people said to us that maybe they didn't realize were offensive or at least thin, like surely what it means to be married ⁓ goes beyond the opportunity to share an address. And we don't usually ask ⁓ married people why they're getting married. But everybody asked us why we were getting married, knowing we weren't going to live together. so things like that I had on my mind. But I really thought I was setting out to write this fictional story, so still true. ⁓ There's sort of an ensemble cast and kind of two female protagonists. So one is the one you mentioned. ⁓ Lib has been married to her husband for 28 years, but they have never lived together. They live two miles apart in fictional anthem. ⁓ And then there's also a younger woman who is a former journalist, unhappily married, has a 10-year-old son, insecure in her parenting, insecure in her marriage. and drinking too much. And the story is sort of how their lives intersect. And I personally quit drinking in 2010, and we can talk about that more later, so 16 years ago. And so I actually was not going to write a character who's a young woman journalist who is drinking too much because I was living in my small hometown when I wrote the book. And I didn't want to write about me. And so even though I had these two characters that... ended up having ⁓ many things actually pulled from my real life. That was never the intention. And I think when you ask about sort of setting out to what the questions were that I was thinking about, I was thinking a lot about Lib and Jack, the couple that don't live together. ⁓ And I was thinking about what would come between them if it's not the usual things, because I knew in many ways it was easier. to not live with the person who knows me best and can call me out on my things. And when things get hard, you just retreat to your separate spaces, and then you wait till you're your best selves again and come back together. And so you're not really forced to sort of work through some things on a regular basis that other people are when they live together. And so I was curious about how that works for the long haul. And I was also really curious what the cost was. ⁓ because they aren't just living apart. Lib is ⁓ harboring a secret, and there's some discussion in the book as to whether that makes her a liar. But she's really just ⁓ self-protective and fiercely independent and private. And I really wanted to know what that cost was to her and to everyone around her, if they were really as close as she thought, if Lib could really have true independence and true intimacy. within the same marriage. And I think that was interesting to me. ⁓ Maybe I was playing the tape forward a little. Are they really as close as she thinks they are?

speaker-0: Yeah, I think this is something that readers sometimes don't understand is like how much you are sort of working through questions in your own life and in your writing. ⁓ Where did you come down on that in terms of the independence question? How has, I'm curious, so you've since ⁓ moved in with your husband Andy. How has that ⁓ changed your writing life?

speaker-1: two and a half years ago. So where did I come down on it? I'm very grateful for the time that we had apart and the sort of independent lives that we did build. It was a really interesting way for me to see what it's like to be independent within a relationship ⁓ and what things are good about that and what things are not. ⁓ In terms of where I came down with it in the book, really is... I tried not to draw conclusions. I really did focus on more questions than answers. And I hope it kind of created this spectrum of, ⁓ you know, human behavior and like why we do the things we do, why we withhold the information we withhold, why we're ⁓ self-destructive sometimes when we're just trying to be... self-protective and I'm just really interested from even before this book just in the kind of work that we do, that we've done all these years in magazine journalism. I'm just really curious about human behavior that doesn't necessarily fit neatly into boxes and just how we are all doing the best we can and how ⁓ much we really rely on how we are in relation to each other to really... build lives and identities. Moving in has been wonderful actually. has greatly simplified our lives ⁓ and greatly improved my writing life. But there are a lot of factors there too. Like my kids went off to college and ⁓ we still have his two at home, but they're almost off to college ⁓ and we just have them half time. And so it's really just a different. phase, stage in my life, I guess, that has made things more open for creativity and space to write. Plus, I actually got a physical space to write that is sort of a dream. so, it took 50 years, but I have a room of one's own that I'm just so grateful for, and it's just so fabulous. And that's where I just sit and make up my stories.

speaker-0: For those listening, Maggie has a sort of aviary in her home, which is one of the most beautiful writing rooms I think I've seen. You had mentioned that within the book, you left some questions unresolved. And it makes me think that maybe this is one way to define sort of the distinction between literary and commercial fiction, which are not... labels that I often find particularly useful, but perhaps, you know, readers of commercial fiction, there's an expectation that all things will be resolved or that ⁓ loose ends will be tied up. Whereas in literary fiction, I think you can leave some of these questions unresolved or even introduce new questions.

speaker-1: I think that's right. My understanding of ⁓ genre, which is very much, you know, only of use to the marketers, because most stories do just straddle so many genres, I do think it is about reader expectation. And so, for example, if you're writing a romance, apparently what makes it a romance versus general fiction is... Literally, it has to have a happily ever after, what they call the H-E-A. So that's a reader expectation thing. And so in that sense, think literary, and there are terms they use now like upmarket, book club, all of these different ways that to me sound like the same thing. I want to read books and write books that ⁓ make me... ask what would I do in that situation, that give me something to talk about with my friends or in my book club, I guess, book club fiction. ⁓ I just, don't want people to tell me how to think or how to feel. ⁓ I just, I want to be challenged to think about things or feel things in a way I hadn't before. And I want to feel less alone. I think that, you know, that passage from Wallace Stegner's book, That gets at what that does for me whenever, ever since I was a kid, if I just see a spark of something on the page that makes me feel, ⁓ yeah, I was here, I'm here. Maybe I'm not in New York or California or Rome or something, but I'm here and I was here and the people that I know and love were here. We existed and we tried and I love when I feel that on the page and everybody deserves that and that's why there should be so many books of all different kinds, right? And why everyone should be able to write their. stories about their experiences so that someone else like them can feel less alone.

speaker-0: I think that's beautiful. I also have never heard H-E-A before. I love it. It's like corporatizing the most romantic notion that feels very true maybe to the book publishing industry. I do want to ask you about the path to publication for this book because I feel like it could be studied by young writers. you know, tell me if I got this right. You wrote a draft of Still True in like three months. Yes. You got an agent very quickly.

speaker-1: a week later.

speaker-0: And then it took five years for the book to be published. And you ultimately sold the book yourself after parting ways with that agent. lot of writers, I think, struggle with the tension between ambition and contentment. How do you think about ambition now compared to when you first started writing?

speaker-1: Just a little question there, huh? Boy, so ambition, I think, has to come out of a very genuine place of wanting to live a creative life. I think that ambition has to be the thing that drives you to continue to do this work when you have absolutely no control over the outcomes and to continue to sit down and... put these puzzles together and make these words even if no one is ever going to read them. Of course, I don't want to pretend that I'm not savvy. It would be disingenuous to say that I'm not thinking about the outcomes and publishing ⁓ when I'm writing. But that can't be the thing that's driving it, where the ambition is coming from. It just can't, or you will go bananas. The business of publishing is ⁓ nonsensical, ⁓ completely unpredictable. It is built on luck and timing and connections and privilege and all kinds of things that come into play in various ways that you have absolutely no control over. yeah, mean, book takes, besides all the time it takes to write, it takes about two years to produce, like to put out into the world. And so look at our news cycle. mean so much changes in two days, let alone two years, and you have no way of predicting the world that your story will be born into. And so that ambition has to come from really, really deep within. How do I want to spend my time? What are the feelings that I'm willing to spend the next year, two years, three years feeling? What are the big questions, like you said, that are driving me to go back to this puzzle day after day in a way that feels, I don't know if enjoyable is the right word, because it's sometimes frustrating, but at least feels fruitful and sort of like worth it. And like if it all, if I didn't get to do it anymore is what I left behind, something that I'm okay with. You know, representing my time here. And so that does come into play with publishing when you are – I think you have to be really – it's hard to be patient. It is really hard to play this long game. And so sometimes that means we put work out there that isn't ready and that means we get rejected by an agent or a publisher or maybe we do get it out there but it's not received then in the way that we'd hoped or There's just a lot that happens when we just want to get the work out there, to have the outcome to have written rather than to do the writing. ⁓ so publishing is an easy way to measure that. It's usually what so many writers are focused on. But really all you can control is trying to craft this story to the best of your ability in a way that you can stand behind and then do it again.

speaker-0: Yeah. Do you view the work of being a writer as separate from the work of being an author?

speaker-1: You know, for 20 years I've been writing to deadline, right? I've been writing efficiently and, ⁓ you know, probably with sort of that, like, the way they say not to draft with that, right, strong editorial voice in your head that's critiquing everything and, you know, makes you have these sort of overly perfectionist tendencies that keep you stuck sometimes, ⁓ you know, stop you from getting that sort of Ann Lamott shitty first draft out, ⁓ as they say. But having that been my experience going into fiction, did sort of feel like I know how to write, quote unquote. So what I really needed help with was learning about author things, right? Like not just how you structure a marketable story, or how you package this writing long form in a way that people want to read, but you know. Even though I said not to think about the publishing part, it is a whole other set of ⁓ full-time, part-time jobs with the author category, ⁓ you know, from marketing to bookkeeping to editing to all of that. I guess the author part does feel like a bit of a role, not in the sense that you're performing, but in the sense that it's a job description. Like you have to, there are certain responsibilities with that. job that ⁓ I didn't necessarily see coming. I'm grateful for them, but I didn't necessarily ⁓ see that that was another job that I was taking on.

speaker-0: Yeah, you know, the reason, it's interesting that you say you had to learn the parts of being an author. The reason I ask is because I see you as someone who's very good at the work of being an author. And the distinction I draw in my mind is, you know, writing, being a writer is what you do in your pajamas at your desk with your cup of coffee, your dog next to you. And then being an author is what you do when you put your real clothes on and, ⁓ you know, have to go face the public. And I think you're very good at the latter. I also, you you've been such a champion of other Wisconsin writers, both in your role in Madison Magazine and just in general, you you're someone I see a lot, like introducing other writers and being a conversation partner, but also on social media. There is an aspect of that, I think, that is part of the work of being an author and having a platform, but it seems to go beyond that for you. Why does literary community seem to matter so much to you?

speaker-1: Literary community matters so much to me because that is one of the things within my control. know, trying to do my part to contribute to an ecosystem that allows for books to exist and that makes me feel less alone in connecting with other authors or other readers or just people who care about books. ⁓ For me, that's part of the sort of pleasurable part of of this work. And yes, some of it is part of the author job that you described so well. I'm going to steal that one. One is in my pajamas and one is with pants on. That's exactly the difference. So part of it is, yes, serving as a conversation partner or ⁓ things like that, book reviews, things like that. really, I just want to be around other writers. I could talk about writing all day. I do think even though Most of us are writing books that can be read by anyone. I do think there's something special about an author who can see the same world that I live in, ⁓ similarly to how I see it or put words to things that I can feel but haven't necessarily put words to myself. And so I just, I try to show up for other writers. I'm rooting for all of us. ⁓ I just really think... Books are miracles and I just want to do what I can to make sure they continue to exist.

speaker-0: I think part of that work, to come back to still true a little bit, is just writing about real things. You mentioned before, so I feel like it's fair game, that one of your characters is struggling with alcohol. Before you wrote the book, I think you had stopped drinking. I'm wondering how has that sobriety changed your creative process?

speaker-1: Yeah, I feel like I don't get to talk about this piece of it enough. I talk about being sober quite a bit because it comes up as part of the book in an interesting way because Claire Taylor is the character who is struggling with alcohol, but she wasn't in the original version of the book. So that was something that came later and that really surprises a lot of people because alcoholism and addiction are capital T themes in this book, but that was not what I set out to do. And so, I talk about that piece of it a lot, but I don't often talk about how worried I was to quit drinking 16 years ago as it relates to my creative practice. ⁓ I really believed ⁓ that alcohol played an important role for me, whether that was in making me feel comfortable around ⁓ people I was interviewing or... really more than that sort of the Hemingway sort of like, you know, I just need to get a little drunk and, you know, write some beautiful words. And I just really thought there was this important relationship between, you know, alcohol as muse sort of, or at least part of the culture or lifestyle or identity of being a real writer. And I was honestly scared. Like I knew that I wanted to quit, needed to quit, was going to quit, but I had already decided that that was probably going to come at the cost of my writing. And it didn't. It was the opposite. ⁓ And early on, ⁓ when I was early in sobriety, a writer I admire, ⁓ who I didn't realize had also quit drinking 15 years before me, made it a point to take me out for coffee and tell me this. Tell me the same thing. ⁓ He said a lot of writers, a lot of artists. worry about not drinking will somehow make it so that they can't make their art or they aren't as creative. And he said to me, I have so much more access to my brain, to myself, to other people, to the world. He's like, my creativity exploded after I quit drinking, and I just want you to know that. And it was such a gift. And so I'm glad you asked the question, because I don't get to say that often, and I'd like to say that. say that more in case there are other writers who worry about that. ⁓ Because certainly I was nervous when it ended up being such a topic in my novel, but then that was quickly ⁓ replaced by just feeling grateful because there were a lot of readers who connected with that piece of it that almost wasn't in the book.

speaker-0: Yeah, you used the word gift. think that like what generosity for that writer to have done that for you. And interesting to me too that you had, I think it speaks to how ingrained these ideas are that you thought that somehow you would have to sacrifice your writing life when you gave up drinking.

speaker-1: ⁓ I didn't know that's what I thought, but that's definitely what I thought.

speaker-0: I think there are still writers for whom creativity is a sort of magical, mystical process. But I think for most writers we know, it really is a matter of, as you do, getting up from 5 to 7 a.m. Even earlier, no. Oh my god. It's bad. It's a very professionalized thing. If you take it seriously, I think it can be.

speaker-1: I think that the discipline and the structure and the ritual and the sort of scaffolding ⁓ makes a lot of room for that creative magic to come in. And if you can sort of practice that and trust that, then more creativity comes.

speaker-0: Yeah. Do you think you would have written the same book had you been in a different place in your life? Had you not stopped drinking?

speaker-1: No, I don't. I don't think so. That book came out when I was 47. So it feels like a late, sort of a late start. Because I do hope that I'm at the beginning of a fiction career. I hope I get to keep doing this. But I just, I'm glad, I'm glad that the book that came out isn't the version that I finished in three months, five years before it came out. So. You know, there's a lot of living that happens and a lot of learning that happens and ⁓ those experiences that, you know, just, I think, just add to your sort of emotional intelligence that can make a story stronger. I had to have some not so good times to be able to write this book, I think.

speaker-0: Yeah. I feel like I want to put a real fine point in this because, you know, you are now known as a novelist, but as I mentioned in the intro, like you were a very accomplished, well-known journalist before you wrote this book. And I think a lot of your journalism, I see it as sort of like a before and after. You know, a lot of what you've written hasn't traditionally been very personal. It's telling people's personal stories, but you weren't bringing a lot of yourself into it. Right. But more recently, You know, you wrote a fantastic piece for Madison Magazine about menopause that felt a little bit more personal. think you've brought more of yourself into that work. Do you think you would have pitched a story like that or written a story like that before writing Still True?

speaker-1: ⁓ my gosh, that's such an interesting way to think about it. Certainly, I guess when it comes to writing about myself. I do feel like there is quite a bit of toothpaste that is now out of the tube for good. ⁓ Where I may be a little more practiced at it, I wouldn't say that I'm more comfortable with it. So ⁓ I've written some more fiction. I've finished some more manuscripts. And I would say there's less of me in them. And really the things that are in Still True are... They're not directly from my life. It's more about ⁓ these sort of universal conundrums that people get themselves into and these sort of ethical gray areas. And I think a lot of that does come from the kind of journalism that you and I do. ⁓ I think one of the wonderful things about that job is I just don't think there are that many jobs where it is your duty to sit and listen. deeply listen to someone, really try to understand where they're coming from without making about you at all. And then take that information and that story and be trusted to tell it, to understand it enough to be able to tell it to everyone else. And I just don't think there are a lot of jobs like that. And I think that all those years of doing that really gave me at least a... deep respect. I'm not going to go as far as reverence, but a deep respect for the many different experiences that each of us has and the wildly varied ways we all look at, say, the same situation and ⁓ kind of putting everybody on that equal playing field of my experience isn't more valid than yours. Maybe we both ⁓ experience something totally different from the same incident. And I just, I think that that's really what can come through in fiction. There's just more freedom to explore those things when you're making people up.

speaker-0: Yeah, and at the same time, it sounds like ⁓ being a reporter and interviewing people is terrific training for being a fiction writer.

speaker-1: Absolutely. And to be clear, I would never take other people's actual stories. I would never take other people's lives and use it as material. Yes, I don't. At least, not that I know of, truly. ⁓ That's not what I'm interested in. I'm more interested in the sort of emotional truth of things. ⁓ And there's a lot. There's so much we have in common.

speaker-0: some people do

speaker-1: ⁓ about what vexes us. So there's a lot to go on.

speaker-0: We should point out that you also recently left your role at Madison Magazine. I guess it was a year ago now, you said, which is crazy to me. You had been there for a long time, and now you're writing full-time, albeit in a different capacity, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. How has that transition been?

speaker-1: Yes. It's been wonderful. I love Madison Magazine and I really, really, you I miss the people and it's a magazine where just a small, small group of dedicated people are doing really big work and I loved being a part of that. I left to take a newly created position at the university writing, kind of doing the same sorts of writing, but just about the arts on campus. It just felt so exciting. ⁓ And it still does a year later to be, it sounds simple, but going to this place every day where ⁓ it's just a given that everybody there cares about learning and cares about critical thinking and cares about art, just as part of our job. I just feel really lucky to have a job like that right now. ⁓ And, you know, I'm an alum and... ⁓ So is my husband and so are my parents and so are his parents and so is my daughter. you know, I mean, it's just, ⁓ it's good to be back on campus. And you know, we always, I would always joke about, maybe not entirely joking, but always talk about just wishing I could go back to school as a grown person because I just have a different ⁓ appreciation for learning maybe than I did at 18. And now I just feel like that's what I get to do. You know, I'm... back on campus as a grown person where as long as I stay out of the way of the students, I can really just sort of take it all in and I just see things I didn't see the first time around and make connections I didn't make and it just feels good to be there.

speaker-0: I imagine too that ⁓ stepping away from spending so much time with other people's words, I know you were very dedicated to your job as an editor, ⁓ has changed your writing life in some way. How has that been?

speaker-1: ⁓ I do think I have a little more capacity for just getting work out. ⁓ It's a little quieter in my head. My days are a little quieter. The pace is definitely different. At a monthly print magazine, plus the website, it was just a constant go, go, go. And you never really had time to sit back and look at where you'd been and think about the work that had been out there. You just did. did the best you could, and then you moved on to the next thing to do the best you could. ⁓ And we were doing a lot of writing, too, not just working with other people's words. So it's just kind of a lot. And now it's just a little quieter. And that does help, especially with the fiction writing ⁓ that you mentioned. I do that in the early morning hours. And that's still something ⁓ that I love. It's my favorite part of the day, 4, 4.30. something like that and just going up to that desk where nobody needs me, it's just me. I feel like that's a lot more, I just have a lot more space for thinking about those stories and crafting new stories.

speaker-0: We talked about ⁓ how much sort of like you are a part of the Madison writing community. And I see you as a great resource. think you probably have read more books by Wisconsin writers and talked to more Wisconsin writers than just about anyone. If someone had just moved here or was looking to get involved in the Wisconsin writing world tomorrow, where would you tell them to start?

speaker-1: think you just start showing up for things if you can. And again, this is where privilege comes into play, right? And I don't think it's addressed enough, but not everybody can afford to buy books, not everybody can afford to take time to read books, not everybody can afford to, you know, be going to events when you've got kids at home and things like that. But ⁓ if you can, that is a way ⁓ to start to find your community, even if you can find just... one or two other writers that are also showing up at the same things you're showing up to or like the same sorts of things you like, ⁓ there are a lot of us out there.

speaker-0: Are there any like bookstores or reading series or anything you want to shout out?

speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, the libraries around here all have programming and they all work really hard to bring in local writers and to support authors and there are always opportunities there. The Wisconsin Book Festival is incredible. They have these events year round that, you know, it's not just that you get to sit and learn from these writers that they bring in, but you're showing up at these things with all the other people who care about this. And so you start to get to know people. You really do. ⁓ And then the, you know, the independent bookstores in town are absolutely wonderful. They are often... hosting authors, but they also just know their communities. It's all, like I said, an ecosystem. Right now, especially gathering in community over art ⁓ is just really, really, really important. And I don't quite have words for it yet, ⁓ but I keep finding myself at these gatherings. Maybe they are chilly suppers or ⁓ house concerts or readings or just... art shows or things where people are saying, no, we are going to show up in person. We're going to show up around art. We're going to show what we care about, ⁓ just having this world that's creative and communal. ⁓ it just feels like the antidote for a lot of things right now, and it feels really important to me. ⁓ So anyone who is ⁓ new in any town, that's what I would suggest doing, is showing up. for each other where you can, especially where art and food are involved. And just, you know... sort of demonstrating what matters and why.

speaker-0: We began this conversation by talking about Still True and some of the questions that you were chasing in writing that book. There are Maggie Ginsburg fans out there who will want to know what's coming next. You mentioned you have a couple of irons in the fire. I will not make you tell us about the plots of those projects, however. I'm curious what questions you're pursuing now.

speaker-1: I feel like for me all roads lead back to community and it's funny that I brought a David Rhodes book here because I think that's what I'm drawn to in his books as well, that the answer to everything is community. And community can be just two people, but really connecting with each other, ⁓ taking care of each other, this sort of idea that we are the answer instead of waiting to be. saved by some system or person that isn't coming from above. ⁓ You know, just the ways that we can take agency to take care of each other. I think that's on my mind a lot, especially now. And so I would say that ⁓ one of the manuscripts that I've been working on is definitely ⁓ rooted in that. I think I'm always going to be... really interested in questions of being in relation, relationships. Call it marriage, call it whatever you want, you know. This idea that we pick a person or a few people to ⁓ go it with in this life, ⁓ I just think is really interesting. I would say I also am very taken by this idea that ⁓ we die.

speaker-0: Which... What?

speaker-1: I know, it seems like spoiler alert. ⁓ But it is obviously just something we're still, at least in this culture, not that comfortable talking about. And this idea that we die in the middle of living, you know, what is left, the choices we make when we think we have more time to get things right, to fix things, ⁓ you know, just sort of the way that we live as if that's not going to happen when it could happen at any moment and will happen to all of us. I don't know why I think about that so much lately, ⁓ but I do. And so that, I think, comes out in some of what I'm writing now, too.

speaker-0: You want to do a quick speed round?

speaker-1: Okay? Alright. I'm terrible at speed.

speaker-0: That's okay. Do you have a favorite Wisconsin word or phrase?

speaker-1: I definitely say OPE a lot. I've been saying it since long before it was appearing on ball caps and can koozies. ⁓ It's just very apt. We all say it.

speaker-0: What is your most Midwestern habit or pastime?

speaker-1: Okay, wait, I have to think about how I want to say this. I'm trying to think of a better way to say passive aggressive, avoiding the truth stuff, being nice. ⁓ My most Midwestern habit is probably people pleasing. Not always saying what we mean. Being nice in that way that means just know that I'm nice but I don't want to talk to you right now. I think we all do it.

speaker-0: Do you have a favorite place in Wisconsin to write?

speaker-1: I mean, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't my loft. I'm a homebody. I really am a little bit precious about being at my desk with my blanket and my headphones in my space. Yeah, I just, that's what I love.

speaker-0: One more. This is very much not a speed round.

speaker-1: Absolutely failing the speedrun anyway.

speaker-0: Just to put a sort of thematic lid on this conversation, what feels most true in your life right now?

speaker-1: the people I love. ⁓ More and more, the older I get, the worse things get. I just feel like this is why I'm here. This is what matters. This is what I'm doing. I don't know how long I get, but I know that I have these people that I just love and respect and learn from and I'm challenged by and ⁓ I just want time with them. Otherwise, I'm not sure what the point is. And maybe when I'm writing fiction, that's I'm doing too. I'm spending that time with people that I love, even if they aren't real. ⁓ But it's for the same reasons, sort of. I just really think that it's important to be human with other humans.

speaker-0: Maggie Ginsburg, just think you're the best. Seriously, watching how you have supported other writers, especially Wisconsin writers, has been so hugely inspiring, both to me and I think to the genesis of this podcast.

speaker-1: You're the best. I'm so glad that you're doing this podcast. Thank you so much. such a wonderful service. Thank you for having me. I'm totally honored. I appreciate it very much.

speaker-0: Thank you for doing it. Alright, one more big thanks to my guest, Maggie Ginsburg, and thank you for tuning in. You can find Maggie's writing online at MaggieGinsberg.com. And if you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating or share it with a friend. It really helps. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss new episodes. They come out every Wednesday, so listen in. You can reach me anytime at jeffaloisea.com slash writing forward. That's J E F F O L O I Z I A dot com slash writing forward. I'd love to hear from you. This episode was recorded at the Madison public library with support from Dane arts. Our executive producer is Anya van Wagner donk. The theme music is by the Lola Ombre. Our logos and episode art are by Tim Burton. Thanks again for listening. And the words of quick trip employees everywhere. See you next time.