Suspend All Disbelief: Magical Realism and Speculative Fiction

Magical Realism and Speculative Fiction are two genres where the ordinary meets the extraordinary. In a conversation moderated by Danny Cherry Jr, authors Marguerite Sheffer, Desiree Evans, and Bryan Camp explore crafting worlds that blur the lines between reality and fantasy, often incorporating supernatural or magical elements in their work.

Free and open to the public; donations gratefully accepted. Donations support One Book One New Orleans' year-round work.

The Andre Cailloux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice is accessible to community members who require mobility-related ADA accommodations. Parking near the venue is free, though somewhat limited. The nearest RTA stop is at N. Broad and Columbus.

MEET THE PANELISTS

Bryan Camp is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and the University of New Orleans’ Low-Residency MFA program. He started his first novel, The City of Lost Fortunes, in the backseat of his parents’ car as they evacuated for Hurricane Katrina. He has been, at various points in his life: a security guard at a stockcar race track, a printer in a flag factory, an office worker in an oil refinery, and a high school English teacher. He can be found on bluesky: @bryancamp and at bryancamp.com. He lives in New Orleans with his wife and their cats, one of whom is named after a superhero.

By day, Danny Cherry Jr. is an MBA-havin', caffeine-addicted corporate drone. But by night, he's a novelist, short story writer, essayist, and a sometimes-journalist. He's a frequent contributor to Antigravity Magazine, and has written for: Buzzfeed News, Politico, Progressive Magazine, and more; and published fiction for Apex Magazine, Hexagon, Fiyah Literary Magazine, amongst others.

He's the President of Third Lantern Lit, and his work has been acknowledged in Locus Magazine recommended reading list for 2022, as well as the Best American Sci-fi and Fantasy 2023 notable stories list. He was also selected for Gambit's New Orleans “40 under 40” class of 2025. His novel is titled "The Pike Boys" and is available wherever you buy books.

Desiree S. Evans is a Louisiana writer whose work spans poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for kids, teens, and adults. She is co-editor of The Black Girl Survives in This One (Flatiron, 2025), the bestselling horror anthology that won the 2025 Locus Award. Her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and has appeared in literary journals such as Obsidian, Gulf Coast, The Offing, and other venues. Desiree was most recently a 2024-2025 Steinbeck Fellow in fiction, awarded through the Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University. She was previously the 2021-2022 Gulf South Writer in the Woods, awarded through Tulane University’s New Orleans Center for the Gulf South and A Studio in the Woods, and the 2022-2023 Southern Studies Fellowship in Arts and Letters Writer-in-Residence, awarded through the Hub City Writers Project. Desiree is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and the Michener Center for Writers at The University of Texas at Austin, where she received her MFA in fiction.

Marguerite Sheffer’s debut short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees, won the Iowa Short Fiction Award and was a Finalist for the PEN America Robert W. Bingham Prize. The collection was named a “Best Debut Book” by Debutiful and a “Most Exciting Debut Story Collection” by Electric Literature. Her stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Epiphany, BOMB, The Cosmic Background, and LitHub, among other venues. She is a founding member of Third Lantern Lit, a New Orleans writing collective, a member of the Water Collaborative’s Brackish Artist Collective, and was named one of the 2025 New Orleans “40 Under 40” by Gambit. She teaches design thinking and speculative fiction as tools for social change at Tulane and is working on a novel