Maggie Shipstead: ‘Rage and fear are always jostling for real estate in my brain’

Seals and other subaquatic creatures: 7%
I am currently in Antarctica. Today I snorkelled with gentoo and chinstrap penguins and – unexpectedly and fortuitously – a Weddell seal. My brother was with me in the water, and when I said “Weddell seal!” through my snorkel he took off back towards the Zodiac because he thought I’d said “Leopard seal!” – a more menacing proposition. I’m obsessed with swimming with wildlife, especially marine mammals. This must be done with extreme care and respect for the animals, but there’s a clarifying intensity of focus I take from being in the water with creatures who are completely at home there. The feeling of making eye contact with a humpback whale, for example, is like touching the moon: miraculous.

Is my house going to burn down? 5%
Everyone in LA wonders this. Gotta keep living and find out.

The Royal School of Needlework’s Book of Embroidery: 5%
I’m into embroidery and this book is the most delicious, gorgeous, instructive, inspiring thing. I like to look at all the different stitches and daydream. Recently, I embroidered a denim jacket for my friend Aja Gabel in celebration of her new novel, Lightbreakers, and now I’m working on a canvaswork Christmas stocking for my husband, Tim (a project of many months). Also, to an American, the concept of a Royal School of Needlework is borderline magical.

Everything is awful: 33%
Maybe you’ve seen the news, but things are not going well in my home country/the world. Rage and fear are always jostling for real estate in my brain space now and, wow, what a golden life I’ve had that this percentage has historically been much smaller. There’s a whole meta aspect, too, about the right way to think or be in this moment. Arguably, our fascist meltdown should be 100% of this chart, but that seems like an express ticket to burnout and despair. And are personal joy and productivity forms of resistance, or are they cop-outs? All questions, no answers in this third of my thoughts.

Husband and dog: 25%
Look, they’re the best. Tim and Sally. We all enjoy playing chase in the yard, and we like eating dinner in front of the television, and some of us are very into belly rubs, and one of us is ventriloquised by the other two in a way that is annoying to outsiders. We all have our personal candles against the darkness, and these are mine.

Midlife menopausal concerns: 5%
What is it? Is it happening to me? How much of everything that goes wrong with my brain and body can I blame on it? I’d like to speak to a manager about the design of the female reproductive system, please.

Mystery novels: 2%
I always panic when I’m asked in public what I’m reading because it’s probably some random mystery and not, like, Proust. A good, character-driven mystery could be 10,000 pages long and I’d be thrilled. The thornier and knottier and more meandering, the better. Give me that sweet, sweet accumulation of information. At the moment, I’m intrigued by the Golden Age of detective fiction, not so much because I especially love the mode of storytelling but because I’m interested in how the rise of mystery novels was a reaction to the First World War, and rooted in a desire to restore order. Violence causes a rift; the rift is explained and neutralised. Probably there’s some of that in my own love for the genre. I’m wistful for an orderly universe, for solvable puzzles and explicable chains of events. This dynamic might drive a future fiction project. I’m not sure yet.

Fear of the telephone: 5%
Don’t make me call you. Please.

My wardrobe: 3%
As a human in the year 2026, I’m susceptible to the algorithm. Like other social media-addled consumers, I believe in my bones that items of clothing exist that will make me feel confident and look cool. All I have to do is sift the internet until I find them. Then I will hang them in my flawlessly organised closet containing only cherished, sustainable garments that are somehow on-trend and timeless.

Feasting: 10%
About once every six weeks, four friends come over for a potluck dinner. (My house is easiest because I’m the only one without kids.) I make a vegetarian main course, and they bring cheese, wine, salad, dessert, whatever. My husband clears out except for a brief post-dessert cameo, and we talk and eat for hours. We’ve all agreed that this ritual is one of the most sustaining things in our lives, and the acceptance and support we give and receive at that table feels warm and pure and like everything that’s good about being a woman.