In an episode of True Blood, a guilty-pleasure HBO show I watched religiously in my 20s, the vampire Bill Compton says something I always found profound (particularly for TV): “You think that it’s not magic that keeps you alive? Just because you understand the mechanics of how something works, doesn’t make it any less of a miracle…which is just another word for magic. We’re all kept alive by magic, Sookie.”
I’ve been writing magical realist short stories now for about 18 years, since my final year of undergrad, and all throughout my MFA program and beyond I’ve returned to magical realism and its sisters, fabulism and speculative fiction, though I’ve tried out other types of writing. For me, though, magic doesn’t conjure (get it?) wizards and Harry Potter, or witches or Tarot cards or vampires. I find magic in our real world, particularly our natural world, and yes, also in being a mother.
When I was pregnant back in 2013-2014, I marveled at the miraculous changes in my body, that first kick, that first heartbeat, and the sheer fact that we created something—a whole being, soul included—out of nothing. (Well, I know it’s not really out of nothing; I wasn’t absent during sex-ed class.) And even after my daughter was born, the magic didn’t stop, and still hasn’t stopped eight years later.
I was particularly fascinated by breast milk, how a newly-born infant will sometimes squirm its own way up a mother’s body to get at it, how the first drops of colostrum carry protective benefits, how the composition of breast milk will change over time to adapt to the baby’s age and health, how my body would let milk down at the mere thought of my child or her cry in another room. All of this is not to say breastfeeding wasn’t very hard—it was, let me tell you, and I almost didn’t make it through—and I know that some parents are not able to or choose not to breastfeed, and that does not make their nourishment of their children any less magical. But for me, the idea of breast milk was a profound mixture of science and magic, biology and spirituality.
For a long time after my daughter was born, I didn’t write. When I finally did, the first story I wrote featured the magic of breast milk (though this was capitalized on by the patriarchal-capitalist system in a near-future semi-dystopia). The story was titled “Girl Country,” and it became the title story of my first published book, coming out from Dzanc Books in May 2023. Many of the stories in my collection focus on mothers and children because I find magic every day in raising my daughter. From watching her grow taller overnight, to that first tooth that fell out and then miraculously grew back, to creating imaginary worlds with her toys, to exploring the budding plants in our backyard, to watching deer dance in a field, to that first word read and that first story and poem written: all of it is magic, and I hope she grows up knowing this too.
Jacqueline Vogtman won the 2021 Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize, and her book Girl Country will be published by Dzanc Books in May 2023. She received her MFA from Bowling Green State University, and her fiction has appeared in Hunger Mountain, Permafrost, The Literary Review, Third Coast, Smokelong Quarterly, and other journals. She is currently Associate Professor of English at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey and resides in a small town surrounded by nature, which she explores with her husband, daughter, and dog. Find her on Instagram @jacquelinevogtman and online at jacquelinevogtman.com.