Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl from Somewhere Else
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 3/24/1981
WEBSITE: https://www.maevehiggins.com/
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: Irish
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born March 24, 1981, in Cobh, County Cork, Ireland.
EDUCATION:Studied photography in college.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Comedian, writer, podcaster. Comedian, 2005–; actor/writer of the RTÉ production Naked Camera, 2005-07; Maeve in America: Immigration IRL, podcast host; cowriter for the comedy series Fancy Vittles, 2009.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles to periodicals, including New York Times and Irish Times.
SIDELIGHTS
A stand-up comic, podcast host, writer, and television personality, Maeve Higgins has written several comedy books. She was born in Ireland and thought she’s stay there but instead immigrated to New York City. She has performed comedy around the world, including Ireland, Edinburgh, Melbourne, and Erbil, Iraq. She hosts the podcast Maeve in America: Immigration IRL, and has appeared on StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer, and WNYC’s 2 Dope Queens. She has written for comedy festivals, cowrote the comedy series Fancy Vittles with her sister Lilly, was an actor and writer of the RTÉ production Naked Camera, and writes a weekly column for Irish Times.
We Have a Good Time ... Don't We?
In 2013, Higgins published We Have a Good Time … Don’t We? in which she makes humorous observations about everyday life. She comments on funny situations and absurdities to bring out the truth of life’s little situations. From hen nights, to bad food analogies, runaway cats, and overpolite stalkers, she comments on being a regular woman in the big city with warmth and wit.
In an interview with Maggie Armstrong online at the Independent, Higgins lamented that comedy is still a male dominated profession: “Comedy is dominated by white guys. It’s really lame. I noticed it in Iraq, America, Australia. Fewer women do comedy, fewer women are booked for things. There are fewer people of colour, fewer people with disabilities. If comedy is a form of self-expression, then it should be more open to more people. Who knows what affect these sexist systems have on your career, your brain, your work?” In response, she is mentoring women in comedy.
Off You Go
Higgins followed up with the 2015 Off You Go: Away from Home and Loving It. Sort Of full of funny and heartfelt stories of her life in Ireland and America. At the age of thirty-one, she gave away all her possessions and left Ireland for London first, then New York with one bag and a positive attitude. Although she was successful in Ireland in her twenties, suddenly she felt she wanted more. In the book she discusses how she missed the day they taught how to live your life, and offers humorous advice.
Higgins told Irish Times Online interviewer Una Mullally that in Ireland she had “this feeling of: but wait, what am I doing? What should I be doing? What’s the best way to use my life?” Mullally described how being introspective is important for Higgins’ life and her comedy: “Being away from home means she can look back at her life and her country and her people one step removed, which is helpful. She plunged herself into situations while navigating the ‘what’s next’ question.”
Maeve in America
Higgins’ 2018 book Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl from Somewhere Else chronicles how she found herself, physically in New York City and emotionally. Not the adult she wanted to be, she went in search of answers to the awkward questions in life. In her fourteen essays, Higgins bemoans a lack of purpose, and offers insight on a range of topics, like the Muslim travel ban, shelter pets, teaching a comedy workshop in Iraq, renting a gown for a New York ball, how Irish-American nostalgia often imagines an Ireland that never existed, and political and global issues.
According to a Kirkus Reviews critic, “Witty, humane, and topical, these essays offer an enlightened perspective on modern American culture while probing the energetic inner life of a bright young Irish comic. A warmly intelligent and insightful collection.” A reviewer wrote in Publishers Weekly: “Higgins has the rare gift of being able to meaningfully engage with politics and social ills while remaining legitimately funny.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2018, review of Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl from Somewhere Else.
Publishers Weekly, April 9, 2018, review of Maeve in America, p. 64.
ONLINE
Independent Online, https://www.independent.ie/(May 29, 2016), Maggie Armstrong, author interview.
Irish Times Online, https://www.irishtimes.com/ (October 3, 2015), Una Mullally, author interview.
Life lessons with Maeve Higgins: 'I'm dating, which you cannot do in Ireland. You might meet your cousin on Tinder'
2
Comedian Maeve Higgins performs at Kilkenny's Cat Laughs from June 2-6.
Maggie Armstrong
May 29 2016 2:30 AM
Maeve Higgins (35) is a writer and comedian from Cobh, Co Cork who first made her name on RTÉ's Naked Camera series. Her latest book, Off You Go, follows her journey from Dublin to London to New York City, where she now lives. She is busy working on her third book, performing in Brooklyn and co-hosting science show StarTalk on the National Geographic Channel.
I love moving around, and I try and follow where my curiosity is bringing me. I think it's such an incredible privilege. A lot of people would like to do that but they can't. I'm very lucky that I'm a white Westerner.
I live in East Harlem now. It's really fun and everybody speaks Spanish. I think every city has a personality. New York is curious and open and ambitious and inclusive.
London wasn't the right place for me. As an Irish person, it's too close to home, so you don't make it your new home. It was quite an isolated, lonely place for me.
I love the idea of a geographical cure. That if you're not happy with the person you are, you can pick up and move somewhere else. It's such a tempting idea! Leaving London really helped me build a better life.
I'm only identifying my feelings about Ireland now. It takes me a really long time to figure out what I feel about something, and why that is. That's starting to happen with me and Ireland now. Sexism is a global problem, but in Ireland, in my line of work, it directly impacted how far I could go in my career.
At home, women's voices are not valued anywhere near as closely as men's. Eventually many of us go silent. I was lucky to be able to leave and find a place where the male story is not always the default one.
I'm really interested in comedy as a form of self-expression. I've just been to Erbil in Iraq, where I led a workshop for local Iraqi satirists, cartoonists, stand-ups, sketch artists, and after that I travelled around the Middle East. I'm trying to process what just happened and what it means.
Mark Twain said that humour is an equaliser. The further the pendulum swings over sadness, the further it has to swing back over mirth. We talked about this in Iraq. They've experienced so much terror and tragedy in the last 10 years alone. They told me comedy has a place there, that it's valuable in all that darkness.
Often you find that if someone is going through something really hard, jokes and laughing can be a tool to link to other people and not be so alone. If you're feeling shaken up mentally, and you can share that, then you'll feel better. I think Irish people are brilliant at doing that.
I grew up in a huge family. We had a very idyllic childhood. I read a lot, and I loved being funny. So I was kind of the same.
The first year of stand-up was nerve-racking. I sort of can't remember it. Even the day after, I'd be like: "I wonder what I said?" Because it was very frightening. But it quickly became the best way I could find to express myself. It became a compulsion, more than something scary.
When I'm able to write, that's when I feel really happy. There are all the torments around it - torments sound so self-important, but that is the only way I can describe it. But when finally I'm able to, and I'm sitting down and the words are coming - then it's relief.
Comedy is dominated by white guys. It's really lame. I noticed it in Iraq, America, Australia. Fewer women do comedy, fewer women are booked for things. There are fewer people of colour, fewer people with disabilities.
If comedy is a form of self-expression, then it should be more open to more people. Who knows what affect these sexist systems have on your career, your brain, your work? Sometimes I'm like: "Well, I still manage to have a career in comedy, but if I was a guy, imagine what my career would be like, and how much money I'd have!" I'm sure it would be very different. It's a big, complex area and I don't really blame women for not pursuing comedy.
The thing that I can do personally is to mentor other women. There's a whole range of things that are helpful to know. From which comedians are pervy, all the way up to which production companies are taking pitches. Any way that I can assist a comedy sister I will try. And when I'm in a position - which I'm getting into now - of hiring other women comedians, producers, writers, then I'm going to hire women.
I'm dating, which you cannot do in Ireland. You might meet your cousin on Tinder. And you never know where you stand at home. Here, it's so straightforward. People are like: "Do you want to go on a date? Yes? No?" In Ireland, you're like: "Is this a work thing? What does this mean?" It's not until you've bought a house together that you're like: "Yes, OK, we're dating. That must be my boyfriend."
The Kilkenny Cat Laughs festival is one of the first festivals I ever did. I love doing stand-up in Ireland because there's no context needed, it's just like talking to my friends from home.
Maeve Higgins will be performing at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs from June 2-6. See thecatlaughs.com for tickets
Maeve is the host of the hit podcast Maeve In America: Immigration IRL. She has performed all over the world, including in her native Ireland, Edinburgh, Melbourne and, most recently, Erbil. Now based in New York, she's made a name for herself there too. In a good way! She co-hosts Neil deGrasse Tyson's StarTalk on National Geographic and has appeared in Comedy Central's Inside Amy Schumer. Her work has been published in The New York Times and The Irish Times, and she is writing a book of essays for Penguin due for publication later this year.
Maeve Higgins is a contributing writer for The New York Times and the host of the hit podcast Maeve in America: Immigration IRL. She is a comedian who has performed all over the world, including in her native Ireland, Edinburgh, Melbourne, and Erbil. Now based in New York, she cohosts Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk, both the podcast and the TV show on National Geographic, and has also appeared on Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer and on WNYC’s 2 Dope Queens.
Maeve Higgins used to think she'd live in Ireland forever. She used to think a lot of crazy things, like 'macadamia nuts are a light snack'. Then the stunning and humble comedian switched to almonds, gave away all of her possessions and left Ireland with just a carry-on bag filled to the brim with a positive attitude. New York has been kind to our Celtic princess and she's ready to return the favour, by making friends with as many weirdos as possible and writing about it. If you loved her last book - and everybody except her family and friends did - you'll lose your mind and break your heart at this one! Full of amazing stories (she once stayed quiet for ten days); wonderful advice (if you like a guy, get all the same tattoos as him, then introduce yourself and act surprised at the coincidence); and brilliantly unreliable memories, Off You Go will make your day, your night and your bed - if you let it.
Maeve Higgins
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Maeve Higgins
Born
Cobh, County Cork, Ireland
Medium
Stand-up, television
Years active
2004–present
Genres
Observational comedy, Sketch
Notable works and roles
Naked Camera
Maeve Higgins' Fancy Vittles
Website
MaeveHiggins.com
Maeve Higgins is an Irish comedian from Cobh, County Cork, now based in New York. She was a principal actor/writer of the RTÉ production Naked Camera, as well for her own show Maeve Higgins' Fancy Vittles.[1] Her book of essays We Have A Good Time, Don't We? was published by Hachette in 2012. She wrote for The Irish Times and produces radio documentaries.[2] She previously appeared on The Ray D'Arcy Show on Today FM.[3]
Contents [hide]
1
Career
2
Television
2.1
As herself
2.2
Acting work
2.3
As writer
3
Radio
4
References
5
External links
Career[edit]
Higgins started up in comedy in 2005 and has written and performed at many festivals and shows. She began her comedy career on national radio station Today FM after auditioning on The Ray D'Arcy Show in February 2004. She failed to win.[4]
In 2005, she took part in the hidden camera show Naked Camera with fellow comedian and friend PJ Gallagher. She landed her own television show, Maeve Higgins' Fancy Vittles, in 2009. Since 2010 she's occasionally been performing with Josie Long and Isy Suttie.
Higgins appeared on Ken Reid (comedian)'s TV Guidance Counselor Podcast on March 20, 2015.
2006
‘Ha Ha Yum’ with sister, Lilly, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
2007
‘Slightly Amazing’ at the Adelaide Fringe Festival
‘My News’ at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
2008
‘Ha Ha Yum’ with Claudia O'Doherty at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival
‘Kitten Brides’ at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
‘I Can’t Sleep’, a children’s play written by David O'Doherty. Higgins performed this skit with O'Doherty at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.[5]
2009
‘Kitten Brides’ at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival
‘I Can’t Sleep’ at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival
‘Kitten Brides’ at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival
2010
'A Rare Sight' at the Brisbane Comedy Festival and Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Performed with Nick Coyle.
'A Rare Sight' at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival. Nick Coyle could not attend due to surgery on shoulder.
'Personal Best' at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Television[edit]
As herself[edit]
2008 Spicks and Specks (TV series)
2005, 2006 Tubridy Tonight
2009 The Podge and Rodge Show
2009 Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation
2009 The Modest Adventures of David O'Doherty
2009 Maeve Higgins' Fancy Vittles
2015 "StarTalk (2015 TV series)" with "Neil deGrasse Tyson"
Acting work[edit]
2005-2007 Naked Camera - Various characters
2006 Magic - Chloe
2012 "Moone Boy"
2015 Inside Amy Schumer
As writer[edit]
2005-2007 Naked Camera
2009 Maeve Higgins' Fancy Vittles
Radio[edit]
'What Would Maeve Do?' on The Ray D'Arcy Show
2016 - The Unbelievable Truth (Series 16, Episodes 3 & 6)
Maeve Higgins is the author of “Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl From Somewhere Else” and a contributing opinion writer. As a comedian, she has performed all over the world, including in her native Ireland; Edinburgh, Scotland; Melbourne, Australia; and Erbil, Iraq. She is also the co-host of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s podcast and television show, "StarTalk," and the climate justice podcast "Mothers of Invention," and has appeared on Comedy Central’s "Inside Amy Schumer."
Anger as comedian Maeve Higgins claims ‘assistance dog’ for flight
Thursday, April 05, 2018
Jacqueline Hopkins
Comedian Maeve Higgins is in the doghouse with disability campaigners after revealing that she pretended to need an assistance dog in order to avoid paying for her pet to travel on a flight from the US.
She told Ryan Tubridy on last week’s Late Late Show that she had bought a fake service-dog vest on Amazon and pretended to need an assistance animal because of a disability.
The Cork-born comic said she used the ploy to bring her dog, Shadow, on a transatlantic flight last Christmas in order to avoid red tape and charges.
“I got my own row on the airplane,” she said.
Her admission has attracted criticism from disability charities and campaigners on social media who expressed outrage and disappointment at a ruse that was “insulting” to people with disabilities.
My Canine Companion, an Irish charity that provides highly trained animals to people with disabilities, said it was outraged that Ms Higgins was “having a laugh over faking a service dog”.
“A mockery has now been made of people who genuinely use a service dog for everyday life and travel,” it said.
“Faking a service dog is not funny.”
Nicole Duggan, author of My Boy Blue blog and mother of a child with autism who uses a service dog, was also highly critical of the comedian’s comments.
“Ryan Tubridy laughed and joked with a woman who was insulting every person who has a service dog in this country. Every person that has a disability,” she wrote.
“They joked about Maeve Higgins bringing a dog, who is not a service dog, on a plane with her, pretending that she was, in fact, a working dog… They joked about how she got her pet to come on holidays with her for free by pretending she was a service dog and forging documents. I am disgusted.” she added.
“My little boy is four years old. His ‘My Canine Companion’ autism service dog Willow is going to keep him safe. She is going to give my little boy his independence back. She is going to help him walk independently.
“Willow helps Riley every day in hard situations. She helps him cope. She calms him down… How dare RTÉ make a mockery of service dogs.”
Higgins tweeted after the show that she was “unbothered in advance about the comments”, but later apologised following the torrent of criticism.
“Big apologies to anyone hurt or offended by my emotional support dog bit on [the Late Late Show]… Much love and respect for people who need, fundraise for, and train service dogs and thank you for the information! Will do better!” she said.
Efforts to reach Maeve Higgins for comment through her publicist were unsuccessful.
“Maeve in America”: Heartfelt Tales on the Bumpy Road to Immigration
By Patrick Sauer
February 20, 2017
SHARE
The story of the United States has always been the story of immigrants. Which means we’ve both embraced the poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and hung up a nativist “No Vacancy” sign and sent the unwashed back to whatever hell they were trying to escape. Both acceptance and rejection of immigrants are American traditions. The latest chapter was, of course, the Trump Administration’s haphazard unconstitutional cruel-on-its-face Executive Order banning immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries that won’t be needing luxury hotels anytime soon.
Buy The Book
We Have a Good Time ... Don't We?
by Maeve Higgins
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Indiebound
iBooks
Maeve Higgins is an immigrant. But she’s from Ireland and not Muslim, so the red, white, and blue carpet was rolled out when she moved to New York City in 2014. Still, she has the eye and empathy of a national newcomer. As an insider-outsider, she became fascinated by the Gotham stew, a city of more than three-million immigrants (and another 500,000-750,000 of their undocumented brethren), more than 800 languages, and one kick-ass Steve Earle ode to the whole cultural cacophony.
Higgins was a successful stand-up comic overseas and her profile has only grown since she passed through Ellis Isla–err…JFK. She’s appeared on shows like “Inside Amy Schumer,” written pieces for the New York Times such as the lovely “Two Irish Girls Who Made it to New York” about her homelass Annie Moore, and authored two essay collections, Off You Go and We Have a Good Time… Don’t We?
Last fall, she took her fascination to the airwaves and launched the podcast Maeve in America. Higgins sense of storytelling is terrific — she clearly relishes bringing these immigrant tales to you — but the podcast’s sense of timing in the Trump era is, like a giant stupid expensive wall to his diehard supporters, everything. We met up before her monthly “Cool Kids” show with Britain-cum-Brooklyn writer Jon Ronson. Maeve in America returned for its second season on Valentine’s Day, with bittersweet tales of love and arranged marriage. Higgins explained why the podcast is so important in the here and now, why pulling up the ladder is as common as dropping a rope, Ichthyphobia, and the Bizarro World Fox News version of Maeve in America.
First things first, though. Take a few minutes and get to know Maeve a little better through her stand-up. Here she is performing on A Prairie Home Companion.
SIGNATURE: How would you describe your comedy?
MAEVE HIGGINS: It’s observational, low-key, generally family-friendly. I don’t work blue. Other than hosting this show with Jon Ronson, I don’t actually do a lot of stand-up anymore. I’ve been doing it for ten years and I’m interested in a lot of other things at the moment. Comedy is like a bad boyfriend I keep trying to break up with because it’s an unhealthy relationship.
SIG: Are you writing a lot these days?
MH: I try because even though I find writing really hard, it’s very satisfying. My first two books were published in the UK and Ireland, and I have a deal with Penguin to write a third one in America. I should be sitting down to do that but the podcast is taking up most of my time. Unintentionally so. Comedians are used to doing a bunch of different things, so I thought the podcast would just be another thing. It’s taken over, every day, every night. I love it, but didn’t expect it to be quite so time-consuming.
SIG: What is the new book going to be about?
MH: I said to the editor, “Why don’t you choose the best parts of my first two books and I’ll add an American section, and we’ll be good, no?” They said “Uh, Nooooo.”
It’ll be funny essays, maybe a little more political. My editor lets me follow my own curiosity, which is cool.
SIG: Have you done much political comedy?
MH: No. Right now though, I feel like we kind of have to. Things are turbulent and it feels fake not to talk about what’s going on. Immigration is certainly topical.
SIG: I’d say so.
MH: I actually had the idea for the podcast over a year ago, even before Donald Trump called Mexicans ‘rapists’ as a launchpad to his presidential run. I’ve been living here for three years and in meeting other immigrants, I realized how easy it was for me to come to America. I have an O-1 Visa for ‘Individuals With Extraordinary Ability,’ in my case, I had a good career at home and simply got letters from friends in the industry. It was straight-forward, which got me thinking. “Why me? Why not them?” It opened a can of brain worms.
I love podcasts, but I didn’t want to just be a comic commenting on immigration issues. I want the people I speak with to tell their stories, to get their voices in listener’s ears, and to hear how they’re being affected. It makes for a much better show. Here’s a good example. I got to interview one of my dream guests in January, Dan-El Peralta, the Princeton professor who wrote Undocumented. He’s erudite and funny, but the day we spoke was the day Jeff Sessions was nominated for attorney general. In the front of his book, Dan-El has a quote from a 2006 Sessions speech from the Senate floor in which the new attorney general said people coming from the Dominican Republic have no skills to benefit America. Dan-El was understandably devastated. It set the tone for our conversation. I want Maeve in America to have levity and comedy, but right now, these problems are so real. It’s something I’ve bumped up against. Mona Chalabi, our show’s data expert, is a good friend of mine. She cracks me up and we have great rapport, but right now, she’s also a Muslim immigrant living in fear. I can’t come up and be like “I’m going to tickle you now.”
SIG: Chalabi wrote “Americans Are More Likely to Like Muslims if They Know One,” which I think is a real strength of the podcast. You’re introducing immigrants of all different backgrounds in a more intimate way than a newscast…
MH: We have a Syrian man coming on who initially didn’t want to talk, which I totally get, but I convinced him to let me interview him at his home and work. And this was before the Muslim travel ban came down. He’s already nervous, but I told him when people meet you on the podcast, they’ll see you’re a regular guy who is obsessed with his one-year-old, trying to quit smoking, and works in a luggage store. Even though he himself can’t travel anywhere.
"I don’t understand how people who have been the victim of bigotry turn around and become bigots."
TWEET THIS QUOTE
You hear ‘Syrian asylum seeker’ and you think either someone is a victim, or a danger. Nope. He’s a teddy bear of a guy who learned about New York from the show “Friends.”
Putting a personal face on this big loaded word ‘immigrant’ was our intention from the beginning. I’m an immigrant and I was reluctant to call myself that at first. “I’m an ex-pat, a cosmopolitan living in New York City.” No, I’m an immigrant.
SIG: Where did you grow up in Ireland and did you always have wanderlust?
MH: I’m from Cobh in the south of Ireland, which is where the seaport was for the one million people, in a country of only six million, who left. My dad is in construction, so we weren’t world-travelers, but he did get a job building a hotel in Zimbabwe. At the age of nine, I lived there for a couple of year. My whole family of six moved from rural Ireland, and my baby sister was born in Africa. I realized years later that was when my eyes were first opened. “Oh, there are other ways to live.” If you never go anywhere, you just think that’s how it is. Getting a break from a tiny island, within Ireland, where everyone is related to each other, gave me the chance to meet people of another race and see that perhaps we weren’t living in the center of the universe.
I’ve been lucky in the last few years, I’ve gotten to go to interesting places. I taught a workshop in Iraq last year and went on holiday to Iran for a month. I’m a generally nosey person, curious about how people live. Joking around is a great way to make human connections.
SIG: What’s your summation thus far of Irish-Americans?
MH: Irish America really baffles me. There seems to be a weird disconnect of holding onto values that are no longer held in Ireland. The other day Paul Ryan tweeted that he’s so proud of his Irish roots. I’m mortified for him. And I’m afraid to check if Steve Bannon is Irish. I assume he is, he looks like every drunken stereotype.
Last year was the deadliest year for migrants in the Mediterranean, why can’t you see, that was us? It’s good to talk to people. Sure, a woman wears a hijab, but she’s a really great aunt who eats too much chocolate. Tiny silly human things. A thing we’ve explored on the show is a concept I was ignorant of, pulling up the ladder behind you. Every wave of immigrants have done it, but the Irish did it big time. So quickly. Ireland isn’t doing enough for refugees, which is ironic, because we had those coffin ships as well. So many parallels, the echoes of the past are getting louder.
SIG: Displaced tribalism is indeed a strange phenomenon.
MH: For Irish America, it sometimes comes close to white pride, which is sad. The Ancient Order of Hibernians was set up to keep Catholic churches from getting burned, just like mosques and synagogues are being torched today. The AOH started in a good place to protect their faith and people, but became the group who wouldn’t let gay people march in the St. Patrick’s parade under their own banner. I don’t understand how people who have been the victim of bigotry turn around and become bigots. It should be the time to show how open-hearted we can be. Although, I realized a few days ago the last two presidents have a parent who was an immigrant and both have been very tough on immigrants.
SIG: Barack Obama deported more people than any other president, which may come as a surprise to some of your listeners, but I’m wondering if the immigrants you’ve spoken to even see a huge difference between him and Donald Trump…
MH: It’s been bad for a long time. I went to Friendship Park along the U.S.—Mexico border where immigrant families that have been split apart can talk to one another through the fence. It’s heartbreaking. Since Donald Trump was elected, I think regular Americans are waking up to the problems, but immigration policy has basically degenerated since George H.W. Bush, who was rather humane in his reform efforts. Trump’s rhetoric is really harmful and hurtful, but he’s just building on policies that were already in place.
I think President Obama was wonderful in many ways, but he fell down on immigration. And that isn’t just my opinion, it’s the opinion of an executive at the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, whom I spoke with for a President’s Day podcast. He was disappointed that he couldn’t trust a president born in Kenya…
SIG: Birther jokes will never die.
MH: I think a lot of what Donald Trump is doing is just to scare people, on both sides. I have my doubts he thinks refugees are a real threat, but if he can frighten them into believing they can’t come to America, they’ll look elsewhere. There’s a bigger game being played.
The Executive Order has gotten a lot of people angry because of America’s religious freedom, but it troubles me there wasn’t a lot of fuss kicked up beforehand about how few Syrian refugees have been let into the country. My sister is a humanitarian and worked in Syria for years, now she’s in Jordan. They can’t get over how abandoned the Syrians have been all over the world, but especially in America which has plenty of room and a long history of taking in refugees. It’s shocking. Americans revere their Revolutionary War heroes, but ignore the fact that many of these Syrian refugees were fighting for their freedom. They could be killed or thrown into a horrible prison for changing their Facebook to an anti-Bashar status, but they did. Twelve percent of the country has been killed or injured in the conflict. Students willing to die for democracy, going against al-Assad? They’re extraordinary. We should be so lucky to have Syrians move to the United States.
SIG: Your episode with Nayyef Hrebid, a gay Iraqi who served as a wartime translator for U.S. troops, was a real eye-opener as to how hard it is to get into America. It took him years, and his husband even longer. Telling his story is important because there’s such a misconception out there about all these people coming in without a long vetting process…
MH: Before talking to Nayyef, I had no idea how long it took some people to get into the country, so it was an education for me as well. When I started the podcast, my instinct was that personal stories will help get the message out, immigrants are people just like us. But an instinct isn’t the same as hearing from a man who worked for the U.S., saved soldiers’ lives, had to wait years to come to America, and still couldn’t get his husband in even though he was about to be killed. Or Dan-El’s story about being undocumented the whole time he was in school… As someone who came here with papers, it’s hard for me to grasp how someone who was brought here as a toddler, went to school, got a job, and paid taxes, can’t just out their name on a list for citizenship. There is no list. No line to get in. No man to talk to.
SIG: Among the tough human dramas, Maeve in America remains a lot of fun, it must be a kick to delve into these subcultures of subcultures in New York City.
MH: It’s brilliant. You really have to go digging. I insisted on a number of our producers being immigrants or children of immigrants because I don’t know what I don’t know.
I’m lucky to be in New York with all the different immigrant communities and organizations, but I am also fortunate to know people with direct ties to them to act as guides. There have been times when our producers have asked for “more Maeve,” and I certainly love to gab, but I’d rather hand off the mic. Listening is equally important. They can do justice to their own stories. Take the Christmas episode, I’d never heard of bunuelos, which are Colombian fried cheese balls, so we found a guy who makes them every year. I also didn’t have a clue that Polish people adopt a carp before Christmas, which I still wish I didn’t know. At the market in Greenpoint, it’s a nightmare. I should say I don’t like fish, they horrify me. Last time I went to an aquarium, I fainted. I hate them.
SIG: Have you found being Irish helps you get immigrants to open up?
MH: In the beginning, I had trouble getting in because I said the show was comedy. People were like, “No thanks.” Back in October, Fox News did a hit job on Chinatown at the same time we were doing a story on a Chinese-American. I needed to speak to historians about Chinatown and got turned away, “Sorry, not funny. Bye.” What I have found works is doing a lot of pre-interviews and outreach. It shows I’m not just in and out, for a quick thing. Each piece ends up having ten hours of raw material. I need context to then add the comedy, which isn’t going to happen in a basic fifteen-minute interview. It takes a while to get the good nuggets, to get to the deeper truth. We talk to so many people and they’re so generous. There’s 60 million immigrant stories out there; I’m obsessed with all of them.
SIG: Are there any books you’ve read lately that inspired Maeve in America?
MH: Absolutely. Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War is amazing. The Upstairs Wife about women in Pakistan is another one I love, and How the Irish Became White is fascinating. Those books are windows into worlds. There are also novels, like say Jane Eyre. What’s always interesting to me is someone who leaves their life behind and starts over.
SIG: This might be a corny question, but walking over here I saw the Scozzari Bakery exterior that was painted in my neighborhood for the movie, so I have to ask, does the Colm Toibin book Brooklyn (or its film adaptation) do anything for you?
MH: My friends are always teasing me that it’s my life story, “Oh Maeve, you have a boyfriend in every country and live in Brooklyn and blah, blah, blah…” But no I wasn’t interested in the story. A woman, written by a man, whose biggest struggle is that she has to learn to eat pasta? It’s that mawkish Irish diaspora weeping-in-a-pub stuff Americans love. But then on the plane, I was bawling my eyes out watching it.
She left from my hometown and I identified way too closely with her. I’m privileged and have options that a lot of my guests don’t, but I do feel close to them in that I left all of my family behind as well. I can’t see my favorite baby in the world grow up. I’m not going to see Sadie change from a six-month-old to a one-and-a-half-year-old. I use to minimize my own experience, that everything I did was by choice, but actually, many elements of immigrant stories are universal.
SIG: Lastly, what is your best-case scenario hope for Maeve in America? I could definitely see you going to the Anthony Bourdain route…
MH: Maybe I’ll take it to Fox News. In that version, it will be me meeting an immigrant every week and asking them to please go back where they came from.
My biggest hope right now is to pick up more listeners. My second hope is to get more listeners with different viewpoints and from other parts of the country. The show has done well in Brooklyn, and in comedy circles, among a left-leaning crowd, but what’s the point of doing the show if we aren’t reaching an audience that might not encounter immigrants on a regular basis? I’ve heard from immigrants themselves who like it, but not from someone whose mind was changed somehow. I don’t expect many listeners to have a Road to Damascus moment, but we’re working so hard to get these stories told and I want them to be heard all over, by all kinds of people. If it isn’t working this way, maybe TV, but I feel like podcast is the venue because it’s such an intimate way to hear these American stories.
Oh wait. My biggest hope is to get my visa renewed in August. That one’s super important.
Queen Maeve: Higgins on her new book ‘Off You Go’
‘My career is different to my male peers. I was always told that I was ‘niche’
Sat, Oct 3, 2015, 05:45
Una Mullally
Maeve Higgins
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‘I have this feeling that I missed the day in school where they explained how to live your life.” Maeve Higgins is on the phone talking about her new book, Off You Go, a follow-up to the brilliant collection of essays We Have A Good Time, Don’t We?. Among the tales of moving from place to place, Off You Go perfectly captures the “what am I going to do now?” ennui of one’s early 30s; hilarious and poignant, panicked and winning.
Higgins, from Cobh, now lives in (spoiler) New York. It has been a hot and sticky summer, but now autumn is ready. The colours of autumn suit her better, she thinks. And the long coats.
“I’m dog-sitting my friend’s dog at the moment and I took him to the park this morning and it was just perfect. The right temperature, you know, just A Girl Walking Her Dog in the City. Whereas I hadn’t been leaving my apartment. I’ve just been sweating and writing.”
The sweating and the writing is paying off. Higgins found success in Ireland in her 20s. Now she performs regularly in her new home, and hosts a monthly show in Union Hall in Brooklyn with Jon Ronson called I’m New Here – Can You Show Me Around? She has appeared on Inside Amy Schumer and more frequently on the National Geographic Channel’s StarTalk talk show, a spin-off of the podcast of the same name presented by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
I feel a strong twinge of Collective Feminist Vindication Syndrome learning that Higgins is doing well in comedy’s most crucial city. My friend Etain brought sandwiches over to my house the other afternoon for lunch and I told her I had interviewed Higgins the day before.
“Oh my God,” she said, with the kind of crazed look that means I could never introduce her to Maeve Higgins were the possibility ever to arise, which it probably wouldn’t. “I love her,” Etain sighed. We talked how good her stand-up is, and her erstwhile RTÉ series Fancy Vittles. “That’s why I fangirl over her stuff,” said Etain. “Because she’s so intelligent. I’ll be thinking about one of her jokes five hours later like ‘that’s so funny and so sad and relevant to me’.” We laughed at that because it sounds weird but it’s also true. Higgins’ perfect pacing, her excavation of awkwardness, the tangential surrealism and kindness of her work means you don’t so much guffaw at her gags, but splutter, and then digest them. Beginning stand-up at 24, Higgins was on a track. Do this festival, do this show, do this television series, and now go to England and to Australia. She was in a privileged position and she knew it.
Before she hit 30, she had already achieved a lot. But then, and she can’t quite put her finger on when it started, she began . . . wondering. “It just set in a bit. It was almost like my teens. This feeling of: but wait, what am I doing? What should I be doing? What’s the best way to use my life?”
She tries to answer those questions by talking about them on stage and writing them down. Often, that’s the only way she even knows what she thinks because she hears herself saying it or sees herself writing it.
Leaving Ireland was important for her. Being alone is important. Being introspective – and she hopes this isn’t contradictory – as well meeting other people and finding out how they do ‘it’, is important too.
Being away from home means she can look back at her life and her country and her people one step removed, which is helpful. She plunged herself into situations while navigating the ‘what’s next’ question. Living on Bere Island. Moving to London. A silent meditation retreat. And then moving to New York. There, she continued to try things; subletting, SoulCycle.
In a way it’s not surprising that Higgins is steadily working away in the States. There is a depth and intelligence to her humour that creates an ideal breeding ground for surrealism and nuance. She is – along with Sharon Horgan and the Rubberbandits – amongst our most interesting voices in comedy.
Ireland, like most other places, has a glut of lads-shouting-clichés type comics who don’t have a lot to offer in terms of the global advancement of the art form. That’s okay. But there’s a moment in the book, when upon returning to Dublin to do a gig at the International Bar, Higgins overhears a comic and his wife on Wicklow Street laughing about a rumour she was waitressing in London.
Higgins describes him as “a middle-aged white man with a commercially successful line in ‘what are we like at all, at all’ comedy. I hope that doesn’t give him away”. Zing. The zing hides a sting though. She writes: “So what if I used to live in a beautiful house and have my own TV series and then all that fell away and now I live in a terrible flat with a mouse colony under the sink and the only gig I have is right back where I started?
“So what if I can’t afford to buy these fancy vegetables to make a teeny pot of privileged ratatouille? Yes, I’ve taken a waitressing job in a soulless hipster restaurant in Shoreditch. Yes, the owner does coke in the office and siphons my tips. So what? Since when did I care so much about success and status? Since I lost them, it seemed, and since others who note such things reminded me of that loss.”
As that might reveal, there’s profundity between the gags in Off You Go. What is success anyway? “The thing is as well, making the album, writing the screenplay, that’s all satisfying, but ultimately everyone’s just going to be asking ‘what’s your next screenplay? What’s the next album?’ I think that treadmill, I think I was on that. And it doesn’t really work. For me, achievements are identifying my feelings!”
It’s impossible to ignore the excellent comedy being made by women at the moment, with much of it seeping gloriously through a feminist filter. “I think there is definitely more space for women now,” Higgins says, “and I think a lot of that space is made by the ones who managed to get in there and wriggle some room for the rest of us. Take Amy Schumer, who is very recently a big success. She definitely looks out for other women and puts us in stuff, helps us get heard. Same with Tig [Notaro] . . . I do believe that if you can’t see it, you can’t be it. I think it’s really important to be out there doing your thing, and that in itself is feminism. Personally, I think it needs more action that that, but if you’re a woman doing a great job in pretty much anything, then great, thank you.”
Higgins’ appearance on Inside Amy Schumer came about through knowing one of the writers, the comedian Jessi Klein, and meeting the producer Kevin Kane. The show’s team keeps an eye on up-and-coming comics in New York. And now she’s one of those.
Is there a sense of achievement or even vindication now that she’s doing her thing in New York? “Sometimes I have tiny victories where I don’t have to look at my phone to know which direction I’m going in.”
In Ireland, Higgins noticed one main difference between herself and male comics: money. “I see that my male peers in Ireland own homes and earn more money than I do. For a while I was like ‘oh, that’s because I don’t tour as much and I don’t release DVDs’. But there are bigger forces. There are always bigger forces, it’s not just the individual. So sure, because of sexism, my career is different to my male peers. I was always told that I was ‘niche’. That’s literally the feedback that I got, ‘too niche’. And I’d be like ‘fair enough, I guess my stuff is kind of weird’. But now I’m kind of like, ‘hmm, it’s not that weird!’ It may be different, but it’s just as good.”
Moving to New York has worked for her. “Here, people are curious about what I’ve got to say and they seem to be listening,” she says, wondering what would have happened if she stayed in Ireland. She thinks a lot of Irish artists find that. It’s a small country.
“I got support from some areas, but when it came to actually growing as a writer, it was hard. I can’t put all the blame on myself for that. That’s my tendency, to be like, ‘oh you didn’t push yourself enough’ and ‘why didn’t you do this?’ But I’m also like, ah here, it still is a patriarchal society, and my chosen profession as a stand-up is really male-dominated. So I’m not going to beat myself up too much . . . I think Irish people have a real romantic notion about New York. I did, and I still do, even though it’s roasting and there are cockroaches in my kitchen.”
London didn’t work. “I moved to London because it’s so close to Dublin and there’s a big history of Irish comics going over there and there is a big comedy industry over there. But I found it to be a clichéd-level of unfriendly, unwelcoming, difficult, lonely, all those things. And I joke about it – all those poor men who went over there to work on building sites and became alcoholics and were mortified to go home. Those poor men.
“But honestly, no wonder! And you can’t say that it’s English people – London is full of people from everywhere – but it’s a tough old city.”
It’s aloneness rather than loneliness that surfaces again and again in Off You Go. “I actually think I’m naturally inclined to be on my own,” Higgins says. “I never feel bored, probably because I’m so self-absorbed. The very odd time I’ll feel actually lonely where I’ll think ‘what is this?’ Maybe once every few months.”
Maybe that introspection is really about reflecting and thinking things out, because there is a leanness and a honed nature to the writing in Off We Go, writing that’s not afraid to try to make sense of the world by putting it on the page.
In the chapter The Judge Make Time (a Kendrick Lamar reference), she writes, “We dip and weave and convince ourselves that we have saved time here or spent too much time there, always feeling there is never enough time, and for what? It doesn’t matter. The light has faded and you’ve taken your chances or you haven’t.” Might as well take them so. Off you go.
Read an exclusive extract from Maeve Higgins’s book Off You Go on Monday on the Life pages in The Irish Times
Maeve Higgins is finding herself stateside
Monday, October 05, 2015
From Naked Camera to Bere Island to New York, Maeve Higgins tells Richard Fitzpatrick why she has to devour life.
Cobh’s Maeve Higgins left Ireland a few years ago, having spent 12 years living in Dublin. First she spent “an unhappy year” in London.
Then she passed a short spell living on Bere Island before fetching up in New York.
They do things differently in that city, as she recounts in her memoir, Off You Go: Away from Home and Loving It. Sort Of. Take the dating game, for example. Here is a three-way exchange she had one evening in a bar in the city’s West Village.
Adult 1: “We should have a drink, would you like to go out?” Adult 2: “Totally, let’s do that. How’s your week looking? I could do Thursday after 7pm.” Adult 3 (Higgins): “What? Oh my God like I can’t believe this what the fuck it’s so simple and this whole time oh Jesus what have I been doing I want to start over how is this possible it’s no big deal just be honest and direct and say what you want but then how has the Irish race even continued on some level these people are so cynical but no no it’s not like what we do is in any way romantic they are right and I am wrong oh what will become of us all?”
It is a marvel to her that adults in New York have a dating mechanism that allows them to assess each other’s attractiveness and suitability. There is no such thing as dating in Ireland, she concludes; people circle each other, usually in pubs, guessing if the other person is interested in them. Questions are left unsaid, not to mind answered: “Is there someone keeping a dinner for you?” “Do you fancy me?” “Are you gay?” It is only the cold or the drink that pushes people together.
Being gay is something Higgins has wondered about herself. She throws it out there at one stage in her book. “I was kind of joking about that,” she says, smiling, before adding, “but I definitely was [thinking], I’m sure I must be gay. I have to be. I just adore women.
“[A lesbian friend] said: ‘Do you want to go down on me?’ I’m like, ‘Well, no. No.’ So I’m not gay but I wish I was. It would be so much easier. I find I’m drawn to gay people and to women. It doesn’t make any sense. Maybe I’ll turn out to be one of those people who turns out gay later on, but it still hasn’t happened. I still like men. It’s annoying.”
Higgins is never afraid to take a pop at herself. Her book is laugh-out-loud in passages. In one section she goes through a list of things she’d rather forget about her life experiences, including a time she stayed with her brother and his girlfriend. She thought they’d gone out so she started snooping around their bedroom. Rummaging in the sock drawer, she noticed her brother’s girlfriend wide-awake on the bed looking horrified at her through the wardrobe mirror.
Anyone familiar with her stand-up will know she’s perceptive, too.
Men catcall women in New York, she’s discovered. It doesn’t happen in Ireland because a bloke would be afraid to find out after wolfing at a girl that he’s “just told his niece to take care of that ass”.
Time away from Ireland has made her discover things about herself also. “I learned I’m quite resilient. I’m always stressing about stuff, thinking that I’m doing everything wrong, but when I write it down and look back I see, Well, I managed that. I was fine. That’s a big thing for me. I’ve always had doubts.
“I can see my Irishness very clearly. In New York, people are very direct. I didn’t think I was indirect, but I am. What is it? Is it because I’m a woman? Is it my family? No, it’s being Irish. I know exactly what other Irish people mean when they’re not saying what they mean. There’s none of that in America. It’s: ‘I feel this way.’ ‘This is how it is.’ Whereas at home, I feel like we have a code. And the Catholic thing – I haven’t been a practicing Catholic since I was a kid. I thought that wasn’t something that affects me at all, but sure I constantly feel guilty and morbid!”
Her career is thriving stateside. She’s guested on Inside Amy Schumer. She co-hosts a monthly live gig with Jon Ronson and she’s a regular on National Geographic Channel’s StarTalk. She can’t say for sure if she’ll return home for good.
“People don’t seem to stay in New York forever although there are all these really cool, old ladies who potter around on their own wearing black polo necks and necklaces and I do look at them thinking, Oh I’d love to be you!”
Off You Go: Away from Home and Loving It. Sort Of by Maeve Higgins is published by Hachette Books Ireland. It costs €14.99.
Higgins, Maeve: MAEVE IN AMERICA
Kirkus Reviews. (May 15, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Higgins, Maeve MAEVE IN AMERICA Penguin (Adult Nonfiction) $16.00 8, 7 ISBN: 978-0-14-313016-1
An Irish comic and writer gathers essays about her experiences living and working in the United States.
In this sharp and readable book, Higgins (We Have a Good Time...Don't We?, 2013, etc.) tells the story of how she came to America as an adult still learning how to go about "the endlessly tricky business of being a regular human being." In "Rent the Runway," for example, she details her experience of renting a decidedly unmagical--but more affordable--second-choice gown for her first New York ball. The process uncovered all of the author's personal insecurities, but a moment of grace at the ball made her realize that she was more than just her attire. In "Pen as Gun," Higgins turns her attention to her profession, discussing an especially memorable experience leading a comedy workshop in Iraq. Working with Muslim comics who spoke truth to power made her acutely aware of "the sliver of shared space between comedy and tragedy," and it gave her insight into the dark humor of her Northern Irish counterparts. A keen observer of culture, the author offers timely insights about race and immigration in America. In "Aliens of Extraordinary Ability," she describes how Irish-American nostalgia often imagines an Ireland that never existed; at the same time, she muses on the privilege her "indoor ghost face" has conferred on her in America. Higgins points out how early Irish immigrants learned how to collaborate in the oppression of other minorities to get ahead but how descendants like Mike Pence continue to ignore the crucial role race played in their ascension to (white) success. Her own commitment to truth before humor emerges clearly in "Wildflowers." Unable to keep a promise to a producer that she would turn a podcast about immigration into comedy fluff, the author lost the show but maintained her integrity. Witty, humane, and topical, these essays offer an enlightened perspective on modern American culture while probing the energetic inner life of a bright young Irish comic.
A warmly intelligent and insightful collection.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Higgins, Maeve: MAEVE IN AMERICA." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A538293853/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ed26f4ed. Accessed 27 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A538293853
Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl from Somewhere Else
Publishers Weekly. 265.15 (Apr. 9, 2018): p64.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl from Somewhere Else
Maeve Higgins. Penguin Books, $16 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-0-14-313016-1
"Aside from getting champagne in your eye, or being snapped at by your pet toucan, bemoaning a lack of purpose is the most privileged problem in the known universe, so I won't drone on about it," writes comedian Higgins in the first essay of her wickedly funny collection. In the 14 pieces that follow, Higgins delivers on her promise to reach beyond the self while addressing such topics as Rent the Runway, a designer-clothes rental service, and the Muslim travel ban with incisive humor and deep humility. In her exceptional essay, "Pen as Gun," about teaching a comedy workshop in Iraq, questions that begin with the self give rise to political and global considerations: "What if comedy, and creativity, these nebulous things I've devoted all these years to, are, in the grand scheme of things, unhelpful? Or even pointless?" While Higgins wisely steers clear of reducing insight to adage--"Comics taking themselves seriously have always made me laugh"--her commitment to wrestling openly and ethically with personhood and privilege suggests "that we are not alone, that we have this common language." Higgins has the rare gift of being able to meaningfully engage with politics and social ills while remaining legitimately funny. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl from Somewhere Else." Publishers Weekly, 9 Apr. 2018, p. 64. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A535099987/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=93bb948e. Accessed 27 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A535099987