Banana Pitch is a literary magazine based in Oakland, California. Founded in 2012, it began as a site where people pitched story titles and founder Michelle Kicherer would write stories based off of those titles. But we’ve morphed into something more! In October of 2015, our first official online issue came out. With the help of our new staff members (check out that Masthead!), the long-awaited Spring Music Issue rolled out in April. It included stories, poems, comics and illustrations related to the theme in some sort of way.

We aspire to showcase the work of a diverse pool of writers and visual artists. We celebrate the work of people of all ages, cultural backgrounds and gender identifications, and strongly encourage everyone to submit. Find a little more on our interests, ethos, and guidelines under the submissions tab and please, send us your work. Next issue arrives Fall 2016. It has some surprises lurking within, and will be our biggest and best issue yet.

But first, a little on how we got our name. It began with an idea for a show…

 

 

 

 

[Banana: The Pitch]

 

Okay so she’s in the bathroom and she gets this super stiff whiff of really over-powering banana. Like, absurdly strong banana smell. She looks all around for it, to see if there’s a banana peel hiding in her bathroom for some reason. She looks in the garbage can, in the medicine cabinet, down the sink drain, inside the toilet bowl. The banana smell is so strong. And finally, she swings open the shower curtain, and there’s this life-size banana in there.

So, a banana is in the shower?

Well, it’s a bathtub, but yes. But I mean, it’s life-size.

So, the size of a normal banana?

No, I mean life-size like, the size of a person. And it waves at her!

So it’s a person in a banana suit?

No, it’s just this huge life-size banana.

Ok, so what’s it look like? I mean, how do we create this thing?

I don’t know. It’s just, this like, huge banana thing.

Does it have a face?

Hm, I’m not sure. I mean, maybe sometimes.

Sometimes?

Sometimes like, when it gestures to something.

So it has arms?

Not necessarily, but I guess it could have some sort of arms, but they only appear when he’s waving or something.

So it’s a male character?

I guess so, it just seems more likely that this giant banana would be some sort of masculine thing, but maybe that’s sexist of me to say. And it doesn’t really come into play, honestly. It’s whatever viewers want to assume it is.

Okay. So tell me more about what the banana’s role is in the show.

Well, it kind of just appears randomly. When the main character is in a pickle, or is having some sort of internal thought that she thinks is weird or anything, she’ll look up and this giant banana will be there.

So is it a guiding figure of sorts?

Sort of. More like, to commiserate. It’s just kind of there with her sometimes.

Okay. And do other people see it?

What do you mean.

I mean, is this completely in her head, or do other people also see this giant banana creature?

I don’t think we’ll ever know.