“The uncanny prompts us to see even ourselves as unfamiliar—a stranger, someone we don’t recognize,” writes Marguerite (Maggie) Sheffer in an opinion piece for Education Week. The article is an unexpected spark, a literary craft talk, in an otherwise policy and practice-driven professional journal related to careers in public K-12 education.

I first met Sheffer in 2023, when we collaborated on an AWP panel for teachers who centered the classroom in their literary work. We are both former high school English teachers, and Sheffer is a graduate of the Randolph College low-residency MFA in Creative Writing. Sheffer lives in New Orleans and teaches courses in design thinking and speculative fiction.