Jeannie Marschall is a teacher and rewilding soapboxer from the buzzing centre of Europe & has also been a host head for fantastical short stories and poems for more than 30 years. Recently, those stories have started spilling over onto the page in earnest, both in German and English. The results can be found in over 50 places, e.g. Tenebrous Press, Flash Fiction Online, QueerWelten Magazin (Ger), or Black Spot Books. 2026 will see Jeannie’s first long form works out in the wild.

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Get to know Jeannie!

What’s your favorite reading format?

Whatever the situation demands: Hardbacks for when I’m feeling extra fancy, paperbacks for rocking chair comfort, ebooks for travelling, audiobooks for when I’m frollicking in the garden.

Favorite contemporary author?

Terry Pratchett, hands down–sharp social philosophy, kindness, wit, and a deep, righteous anger, all disguised as just a jolly bunch of tales about a flat world atop four elephants atop a space turtle. Yes, please.

Favorite historical author?

Ooof, um. Hard to choose only one. Let’s say 100+ years? I like John Milton for his booming opulence, Mary Shelley for her snark, Edgar Allen Poe for his sheer, over-the-top drama, Walt Whitman for his ability to see glory and soul in the smallest things. In German, Mascha Kaléko (born 1907) because whew, those poems flow as much as they hit. Mind, I have not reached the bottom of my read-the-classics list at all, so. More to come!

What story do you wish you could read again for the first time?

Hello! Hello! Hello! by Fiona Jones. It’s a SciFi tale whose narrator is as non-human as they get, and yet the commonality, kinship, and beauty captured within that tale moved me to tears. We are much more alike, my friends … Highly recommended.

What character do you wish was real?

Oh, Death. So intriguing with regard to motivations, tasks, duties, morals, views. I’d be utterly fascinated with them as an actual entity … and probably also following all social media compilations of sightings and conversations with them too.

What fictional world do you wish you could inhabit?

This one’s easy: I’m a huge Trekkie, so. Travel, learning, post-scarcity. Beam me right up.

What are your favorite qualities in a story?

I want to see why what happens matters–not necessarily on a grand scale, but on a personal one. What’s at stake, what makes the characters tick, why do they care? If I see them care, so will I, and I will root for them and cheer for them and weep with them. I also love an elegant, sharp, or unusual turn of phrase and clever twists/reveals (ones that don’t go, “Haha, you missed it!” at the reader, preferably).

What’s your go to reading snack/drink?

(Hot) chocolate; and I have discovered the most grown-up of drinks, the peak of nature’s genius, water. Always a hit.

What story fundamentally changed you?

Fahrenheit 451; that world where people are utterly fine with living in screen-induced indifference because it is more comfortable and convenient, while books and thought and imagination are crushed …that shocked me deeply because I could see how it might happen. And yeah, let’s say looking at some of today’s actual developments, I’m not exactly thrilled. Yet, I am just as strongly sure those pesky, stubborn, dedicated readers will always resist.

What genre would you like to write in that is outside your comfort zone?

Oh, I love a good mystery–I kinda grew up on Agatha Christie, and I ADORE solving riddles and puzzles, always have. Would be great to be able to put them in a story. However, turns out I’m utter rubbish at that …at least currently!

What’s your favorite sentence or quote from this (your Shiraki Press) story?

A line I really enjoyed writing was when a creature from the forest tells Tilly, “Everyone heard. Screams, pain, blood on the land. What is going on, witch? Are you losing your touch?” It was great fun to imply a much larger universe, infuse it with a sense of things really happening in other beings’ lives in the background, of people hearing of one another, talking to and about each other. Community is an important theme in the story–it’s not about that one character, it’s about how everyone slots together and has a place in the world. Hinting at all those lives was a fun challenge.

What’s your idea of happiness?

Peace, sun on the garden, our loved ones are well, the tea has the perfect drinking temperature, the book is excellent, and tomorrow is Sunday.