SEASON 1 EPISODE 1: MAGIC & LEGACY

In the premiere episode of Marginalia Pod, we delve into why we started this project and introduce our first book - The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. We also discuss the prologue through the themes of magic and legacy.

This episode was recorded on 7 November 2020. We would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land where this episode was recorded - the Guringai and Darug people, and tangata whenua of Te Whanganui-a-Tara.

Show notes

Hi, we’re Jenn D and Jen V! We’re two Antipodean imports who love stories and want to talk about them with each other. We’re fighting the overwhelming entropy of the universe by honoring the repeated signs that we really are meant to be friends (despite distance, pandemics, and other pesky obstacles.) Fate, we’re listening. And we’re making a thing.

We are indebted to, and so thankful for, Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. We really wanted to do something in that tradition—developing a closer understanding of a text, and ourselves, and each other, through a committed practice. Without their wonderful example, we’d probably still be wishing it were possible.

The first book we’re going to read for this podcast is The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater.

For episode one, we’re exploring the prologue through the themes of Legacy & Magic.

Jen V talks about Roland Barthes’ seminal essay “Death of the Author” - if you’re not familiar with the concept there’s a good breakdown here.

We have committed to the practice of marginalia, aka, writing in your books! (Stop clutching your pearls, these are our personal copies! We promise we’re not defacing library books.)

Here’s a general view of the overall practice, including the distinction between those illustrations of medieval monks fighting off massive garden snails and later annotations by readers (we are in the latter category, obvs).

And here’s kind of a cool article talking about marginalia some more.

Our intro and outro music is by the excellent Scott Buckley. Check him out here. 

As always, you can email us at at hello@marginaliapod.com, check the blog for more episodes or updates on www.marginaliapod.com, and find us on Instagram at @marginaliapod.

See you next week for Chapters 1-10 read through the themes of Home & Family. Can’t wait!