CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT:
Interview with Maggie Felisberto

Rappahannock Review Fiction Editors: Fia’s Luck in “Boardwalk 452” is the main antagonizing force while also being a helpful aid in the story. Why was luck the main focus of this story?

Maggie Felisberto: I honestly don’t remember what drew me to the idea of luck in the first place, but it’s something that I’m still interested in. To me, luck is like a true neutral force that operates neither for good nor evil, but it’s also incredibly banal. I was reading Magic For Beginners by Kelly Link around the time I first drafted the story, and that collection really grasps at the banality of magic in a way that I wanted to emulate. The idea of luck/unluck became my way to enter into that space.

RR: Mel’s ritual with her father drives the narrative forward on the road trip she and Fia go on. What was the reason the Monopoly McDonalds collab was the main driving force?

MF: In 2013, I semi-actively played the McDonald’s Monopoly with an ex, and we collected a lot of pieces. We never got a rare one, though, so I started to look into how people actually won the prizes. The idea of two strangers on a road trip playing the game was based on the stories of people who took those real road trips looking for rare pieces. As the characters developed, Mel’s backstory came into focus. I see her as having the opposite relationship to luck that Fia has; the unlucky things come and come with no shining spots of good luck in between. In a way, the two balance each other out, which is why they’re able to be successful together.

RR: Fortune telling is used along with the main theme of luck in the piece. Why did you write that fortune telling coincides with luck?

MF: When I first wrote “Boardwalk” I was reading a lot both by and about Ursula K. Le Guin, and one thing she was hugely invested in was the I Ching. I think the original draft of the story didn’t have the fortune telling aspect, but I decided that it needed something to anchor Fia, some kind of grounding ritual. I chose the I Ching in honor of Le Guin. I think there’s something really resonant about the way that games of luck mimic the physical actions of fortune telling. In poker and in tarot, for example, it’s the luck of the draw that determines your fate.

RR: You have a Youtube channel called “HappyBearToes” where you review books. Have any of those books influenced your writing of “Boardwalk 452”?

MF: In the initial drafts, no; I started HappyBearToes in 2018 during my PhD in part to let off steam, and it eventually became part of my dissertation, but the first draft of “Boardwalk 452” was written way back in 2014 as part of my MFA coursework. I shelved the story for about seven or eight years because I was completely unable to write a satisfactory ending, then picked it up again after I finished the PhD. I think of the books that I’ve reviewed on the channel, Transparent City by Ondjaki would be the one that has had the most influence in my writing. Ondjaki plays with fate in that book through a magical realist lens, and I needed that as an example to find the right ending for “Boardwalk 452.” I’d also say that Mariana Enriquez became a big touchstone for my short fiction after reading Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, though I scrapped the video I filmed on her work before posting it.

RR: Was there anything besides Transparent City that allowed you to make a “satisfactory ending”?

MF: I had to let go of the idea of a concrete ending first and accept ambiguity. In the final version, the audience never knows for sure whether or not Fia gets that Boardwalk piece, though it can be assumed. In all of the original versions of the ending, she pulled the piece alone and tragedy struck. It never felt right. Some of the best advice I’ve gotten on endings came from the author Chelsea Catherine, and she suggested coming up with the worst possible ending you can imagine so that you can see what *really* needs to happen more clearly. That was for a different story, but it’s advice I’ve applied to this and other projects since then.

RR: What is your favorite McDonalds menu item?

MF: I almost always go for a double quarter pounder with cheese, and I’d be remiss to not shout out the Oreo McFlurry.