Book Banter with Rayna

Listen to this conversation with Marguerite Sheffer about her new short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees. Spanning the Gulf South to the far reaches of space, these inventive tales introduce us to teachers and ghosts, aliens and ice cream consultants, each grappling with the uncanny edge between the ordinary and the extraordinary. Tune in as we talk with Marguerite about blending the familiar with the fantastic, bending genres, and exploring the strange wonders that shape our lives.

-

About the Guest

Marguerite Sheffer’s collection, The Man in the Banana Trees, won the 2024 Iowa Short Fiction Award, was named a “Best Debut Book of 2024” by Debutiful and a “Most Exciting Debut Story Collection” by Electric Literature and a finalist for the 2025 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. Her short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Epiphany, BOMB, LitHub and others. At Tulane University she teaches courses in design thinking and speculative fiction as tools for social change.

-

About the Book

PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection 2025, Finalist A Debutiful "Most Anticipated Debut Book of 2024" One of Electric Literature's Most Exciting Debut Short Story Collection of 2024 Named a Best Book of 2024 by Debutiful and Electric Literature.

The stories in The Man in the Banana Trees take place in the past, present, and future--from the American Gulf South to the orbit around Jupiter. We meet teachers and students, ghosts and aliens. An ice cream consultant in the year 2036 predicts a devastating flavor trend and a disgruntled New England waiter investigates a mysterious tanker crash. Although wildly varied in setting, length, and genre, a thread of the fantastic unites these stories, as characters struggle to understand that thing lurking at the edge of their perception: something sinister, or maybe--miraculous.

-

📚 Purchase a copy of The Man in the Banana Trees here: http://bit.ly/3Ii3Qnd

🎧 Book Banter is a cozy conversation series with authors, illustrators, and other literary creators. Let’s talk books!

-

Subscribe to Book Banter with Rayna wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@Book_Banter 

Settle in for a fascinating conversation with Christopher Romaguera as we explore his translation of Charras: A True Novel of the Assassination that Roiled the Yucatán. This gripping work brings to life the political tensions and human dramas surrounding a real assassination that shook the region, and Romaguera’s translation opens the story to an entirely new audience. Join us as we discuss what drew him to this project, the delicate art of translating voice and history, and the enduring impact of a tale rooted in memory, justice, and place.

-

About the Guest

Christopher Louis Romaguera is a Cuban-American writer who lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was born in Hialeah, Florida and graduated from Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He has an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) at the University of New Orleans. Romaguera has been published in Passages North, New Orleans Review, Pleiades Magazine, Catapult, Massachusetts Review and other publications. He was a monthly columnist at The Ploughshares Blog from 2018-2023 and was the Poetry Editor at Peauxdunque Review. Romaguera was an Editorial Intern at Electric Literature. He is a VONA alum and was a 2023 Periplus Fellow.

-

About the Book

Charras is the true story of Efraín "El Charras" Calderón Lara, a twenty-six-year-old union leader and student activist, and the Yucatean government's successful plot to kidnap and murder him. Acclaimed Mexican novelist Hernán Lara Zavala combines real-life newspaper articles and interviews with renderings of key events, laying the state-sanctioned narrative of Charras's death beside the actual experiences of those involved. To kaleidoscopic effect, Zavala enters not only the mind of the hero but also those in his orbit: the governor of the Yucatán, Charras's bureaucrat brother-in-law, even the mercenary hired to carry out the kidnapping--the chilling "you" whose point-of-view the reader must inhabit to unravel what took place during that fateful spring of 1974.

📚 Purchase a copy of Charras: A True Novel of the Assassination that Roiled the Yucatán here: http://bit.ly/4nk7uM7

🎧 Book Banter is a cozy conversation series with authors, illustrators, and other literary creators. Let’s talk books!

-

Subscribe to Book Banter with Rayna wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@Book_Banter 

Pull up a chair and join us for an illuminating episode of Book Banter! Rayna sits down with Ciera Horton McElroy, author of Atomic Family, a gripping Cold War drama that explores how one family’s secrets and sacrifices ripple through generations. With vivid historical detail and emotional depth, McElroy’s debut shines a light on the human side of nuclear anxiety. Tune in for a fascinating chat about family, fallout, and finding hope amid the tension of the atomic age.

-

About the Author

Ciera McElroy is the author of Atomic Family (2023), the Southern Literary Book of the Year. She is also the founder and CEO of Clover and Bee Communications, a boutique agency specializing in film marketing, serving clients like Kingdom Story Company, Lionsgate, and Sony Pictures. Ciera serves on the Board of Directors for the Kerouac Project, a residency that allows writers to work in Jack Kerouac’s Orlando home.

-

About the Book

A South Carolina family endures one life-shattering day in 1961 in a town that lies in the shadow of a nuclear bomb plant. It’s November 1, 1961, in a small town in South Carolina, and nuclear war is coming. Ten-year-old Wilson Porter believes this with every fiber of his being. He prowls his neighborhood for Communists and studies fallout pamphlets and the habits of his father, a scientist at the nuclear plant in town. Meanwhile, his mother Nellie covertly joins an anti-nuclear movement led by angry housewives—and his father, Dean, must decide what to do with the damning secrets he’s uncovered at the nuclear plant. When tragedy strikes, the Porter family must learn to confront their fears—of the world and of each other.

-

📚 Purchase a copy of Atomic Family here: http://bit.ly/4ma6gT3

🎧 Book Banter is a cozy conversation series with authors, illustrators, and other literary creators. Let’s talk books!

-

Subscribe to Book Banter with Rayna wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@Book_Banter 

Pull up a cozy chair and get ready for a spine-tingling good time! In this episode of Book Banter, Rayna chats with Rob Renzetti author, animator, and the creative mind behind My Life as a Teenage Robot and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. His latest book, The Cursed Cloak of the Wretched Wraith, is packed with eerie fun, magical mayhem, and a dash of dark humor that fans of spooky adventures will love.

-

About the Author

Rob Renzetti is a veteran of TV animation whose work on Cartoon Network’s Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends earned him an Emmy. He created the Nickelodeon show My Life as a Teenage Robot, acted as the supervising producer for Disney’s Gravity Falls, and served as executive producer on the first two seasons of Disney’s Big City Greens, among other projects. Recently, he has published four books for Disney Publishing, including the New York Times #1 Best Seller Gravity Falls: Journal 3 and Onward: Quests of Yore.

-

About the Book

From the creator of My Life as a Teenage Robot comes the epic finale to the middle-grade horror series about a horrible bag, the spine-chilling world hidden within it, and a terrifying adventure into the world of GrahBhag.

Perfect for fans of Coraline, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and Small Spaces.

With a combination of dry, absurdist humor and no-holds-barred horror, Rob Renzetti has crafted a delightfully imaginative fantasy world that will hook readers as surely as it will send chills down their spines.

-

📚 Buy The Cursed Cloak of the Wretched Wraith here

-

Subscribe to Book Banter with Rayna wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@Book_Banter 

This episode brings together four acclaimed poets to reflect on the state of the New Orleans and the world of poetry in the years since Hurricane Katrina. We will begin the evening with Brad Richard to discuss the new edition of his collection Motion Studies. Throughout the hour poets Mona Lisa Saloy, Alison Pelegrin and Karisma Price will join the conversation to share their work and insights.

Together, these poets will share work that grapples with memory, loss, survival, and the role of poetry in giving voice to what cannot be forgotten. Through verse and conversation, they will explore how the storm shaped not only their writing, but also the larger story of New Orleans and its communities.

About the Poets

📚 Purchase these poet's books at BookBanterBooks.com or your favorite indie bookstore.

-

Subscribe to Book Banter with Rayna wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@Book_Banter 

This episode of Book Banter with Rayna takes you right into the buzz of a live event at Blue Cypress Books! We had the joy of sitting down with award-winning author Robert Fieseler to dive into his riveting new book, American Scare: Florida’s Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives. It was an unforgettable night of history, storytelling, and community.

—

Robert W. Fieseler is a journalist investigating marginalized groups and a scholar excavating forgotten histories. A National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association "Journalist of the Year" and recipient of the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, his debut book Tinderbox won seven awards, including the Edgar Award, and his reporting has appeared in Slate, Commonweal, and River Teeth, among others. Fieseler graduated co-valedictorian from the Columbia Journalism School and is pursuing a PhD at Tulane University as a Mellon Fellow. His highly anticipated second book, American Scare: Florida's Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives, has been declared a "masterwork" by ALA Booklist, and he lives with his husband on the gayest street in New Orleans.

—

A vital exposé for both our history and our present day, American Scare tells the riveting story of how the Florida government destroyed the lives of Black and queer citizens in the twentieth century. Fieseler describes the heartbreaking ramifications for citizens of Florida whose lives were imperiled, profiling marginalized residents with compassion and a determination to bring their devasting experiences to light at last. A propulsive, human-centered drama, with fascinating insight into Florida politics, American Scare is a page-turning reckoning of our racist and homophobic past—and its chilling parallels to today.

—

-

Subscribe to Book Banter with Rayna wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@Book_Banter 

What if choosing love meant risking the friendship you’ve always relied on? In this episode of Book Banter, we talk with Darby Baham about A Risk Worth Taking—a charming and emotionally layered friends-to-lovers romance that throws a love triangle into the mix. Set in New York, this novel explores connection, loyalty, and the complicated choices we make when the heart and head don’t quite agree.

—

Darby Baham is an author and storyteller on a mission to make women like herself feel seen and believe that love is possible for them, yes them. The former Times Picayune and Washington Post contributor often uses her doubts, hopes, and fears to connect with her readers and inform the themes in her Harlequin romance series, The Friendship Chronicles. The sixth book in the series, A Risk Worth Taking, releases July 29, 2025, continuing her love letter to female friendships and offering an intimate look into the dynamic love lives of Black women.

—

Her Best Friend...

After years of failed romances, Giselle Lewis has decided to play it safe. She's given up on getting swept off her feet or falling head over heels. These days, she'd much rather keep her feet on the ground as she tiptoes cautiously into love with someone sensible. Someone reliable and predictable. Someone who definitely isn't Brandon Clark, her friend and secret crush. Taking a chance on something more with Brandon could end in disaster, ruining their friendship. On the other hand...turning her back on all they could have together might be the biggest risk of all.

—

-

Subscribe to Book Banter with Rayna wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@Book_Banter 

What if finding a vampire was your last shot at saving someone you love? In this episode of Book Banter, we sink our teeth into Margie Fuston’s emotionally charged and darkly magical YA novel Vampires, Hearts, and Other Dead Things. It’s a story about grief, girlhood, and the desperate hope that maybe—just maybe—the impossible might be real.

—

—

—

-

Subscribe to Book Banter with Rayna wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@Book_Banter 

Ever wonder how home ec went from baking pies to building parachutes? In this episode of Book Banter, we chat with Danielle Dreilinger about The Secret History of Home Economics—a fierce, fascinating, and wildly underrated slice of feminist history. From the classroom to the cosmos, the women behind home economics changed the world in ways you’ve probably never heard.

—

—

—

-

Subscribe to Book Banter with Rayna wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@Book_Banter 

In this episode of Book Banter we talk with Madi Hannan about art, pets and her children's picture book, Scrim on the Run.

-

Author/Illustrator of Scrim on the Run, Madi Hannan, known as “Madicat” in her art career, is a high school science teacher by day and an avid creative by night. When she’s not busy bringing characters to life with her signature whimsical charm, you can find her wrangling her mischievous pets: Jacques, the agility-loving Aussie; Butters, the cat with a lot of opinions; and Dante, the black cat who may or may not be plotting world domination. She’s also working on perfecting her sourdough bread recipe. Madi’s artistic journey has taken her from painting pet portraits to crafting door hangers and anything else she can put her doodles on. She firmly believes that life’s too short for boring art and that every story deserves a touch of humor (and maybe a hidden cat silhouette or two). Born and raised in New Orleans, Madi draws inspiration from the swamp and city that have given so much to her, especially her love of crawfish and snowballs. Madi has previously illustrated one children’s book, Fird the Bish, and is currently working on several more children’s books after her success of Scrim on the Run!

Scrim the dog got loose in the Big Easy, and New Orleans may never be the same. Known for his wiry fur and mischievous antics, Scrim has become a beloved figure in the city, darting through neighborhoods, dodging potholes, and leaving a trail of smiles wherever he goes.

-

Purchase a copy of Scrim on the Run here: https://bookshop.org/a/106612/9781455628537

-

Book Banter is a laid-back conversational interview with authors, illustrators, creators and other bookish folks.

-

Subscribe to Book Banter with Rayna wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@Book_Banter