Pagan Writers Community

Starting Out as a Pagan Author: Finding Your Voice, Your Path, and Your Readers

2025-11-17T16:56:00.002+00:00

Beginning a journey as a pagan author can feel both exhilarating and daunting. Paganism is wonderfully diverse, spanning recon-structionism, folk traditions, witchcraft, druidry, animism, and countless personal paths. That diversity is a gift - but it also means writers sometimes wonder where they fit, what they can authentically contribute, and how to navigate an often-misunderstood genre. Whether you're writing fiction rooted in myth or non-fiction exploring spiritual practice, here are some grounding principles to help you start with confidence.

Know Your Own Path - Even If It’s Still Forming

Many new pagan writers worry they’re “not experienced enough” to write about their beliefs or practices. But pagan paths evolve over time. You don’t need decades of experience or a formal lineage to have something meaningful to say. What matters is clarity: What draws you to this path? What do you practice? What experiences have shaped your understanding?

Your writing will feel far more authentic when grounded in your lived reality. You don’t need to speak for all pagans - only from your own place in the tapestry.

Read Widely - Inside and Outside Pagan Literature

Good writing comes from good reading. Explore classic and contemporary pagan authors, but don’t stop there. Mythology, folklore, anthropology, environmental writing, poetry, psychology, and history all deepen your craft. Pagan writing sits at a crossroads of spirituality, culture, and story; the richer your input, the richer your output.

Reading widely also helps you identify what already exists and what gaps you might fill. Is there a missing perspective, a neglected deity, a cultural nuance, or a personal experience underrepresented in current books? That might be your opening.

Decide Whether You're Writing Fiction or Non-Fiction (or Both)

The pagan writing world embraces both.

Non-fiction requires honesty, transparency, and responsible sourcing - especially if you’re drawing from closed traditions, Indigenous practices, or historical material.

Fiction, meanwhile, allows myth and imagination to dance freely. Many authors discover their path deepening as they write characters who embody rituals, struggles, and spiritual questions.

Whichever form you choose, let your passion for the craft lead the way.

Build a Writing Habit Rooted in Ritual

Ritual can be a powerful tool for creativity. You don’t need a full altar and candlelit ceremony - unless that inspires you - but small practices help signal to the mind that it’s time to write. A cup of tea, a moment of grounding, lighting incense, or pulling a tarot card can all create a gentle transition into creativity.

Writing is a discipline, and ritual can be the structure that supports it.

Connect with the Community - But Stay True to Yourself

Pagan communities online and offline are vibrant sources of support. Joining groups, attending workshops, or following other pagan authors can offer encouragement and visibility. But remember: no single group defines the entire pagan experience. Seek connections that energise you, not those that limit your voice.

Embrace the Journey

The path of a pagan writer is, like all spiritual journeys, ongoing. Your understanding will change. Your writing will grow. And that evolution is part of the magic.

Start where you are. Write what feels true. And let your words become part of the living tradition.

Let us know how you got started on your writing journey below.

Winter Reading Suggestions

2025-11-07T09:49:00.001+00:00

As the days shorten and the nights stretch long and quiet, winter invites us to turn inward - to rest, reflect, and rekindle our spiritual fires. For those drawn to earth-based spirituality, the cold months are a sacred time for reading, dreaming, and connecting with the deeper rhythms of nature. Whether you’re new to pagan paths or a long-time practitioner, here are some beautifully written books to nourish your spirit through the dark season.

The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden

This enchanting novel, part of The Winternight Trilogy, weaves Russian folklore, old gods, and the magic of storytelling into a tale that feels perfectly suited to the cold months. Arden’s prose captures the frost and fire of winter, reminding readers of the power of courage, belief, and the wild feminine spirit.

Paganism: An Introduction to Earth-Centered Religions by Joyce and River Higginbotham

If you’re looking to ground your practice or understand modern paganism more deeply, this accessible guide explores core beliefs, seasonal cycles, and personal spirituality. It’s thoughtful without being dogmatic, and makes an excellent fireside companion for reflection and journaling.

The Spell Book for New Witches by Ambrosia Hawthorn

Winter is a time for stillness - and spellwork. Hawthorn’s book is full of simple, beautifully presented rituals, correspondences, and seasonal magic. It’s a lovely choice if you want to infuse your days with small acts of mindfulness and intention, from simmer pots to moon rituals.

The Mabinogion translated by Jeffrey Gantz

For readers drawn to ancient myth, this Welsh collection is a cornerstone of Celtic lore. Its tales of transformation, kings, goddesses, and enchanted landscapes reveal the deep roots of European pagan traditions. Reading it by candlelight brings a sense of ancestral connection and timeless wonder.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Equal parts ecological wisdom and poetic reflection, this book bridges Indigenous spirituality and scientific insight. Kimmerer’s reverence for the natural world and her reflections on reciprocity make it a deeply spiritual read - a reminder that winter is not death, but rest and regeneration.

Year of the Witch by Temperance Alden

This modern classic explores the Wheel of the Year through personal practice, history, and modern interpretation. Alden encourages readers to connect with seasonal cycles in a way that feels authentic to their land and lifestyle - perfect for winter planning and introspection.

The Wild Unknown Archetypes Deck and Guidebook
by Kim Krans

Though technically not a “book,” this deck and its companion guide are exquisite tools for shadow work and meditation during the darker months. Each archetype invites contemplation and inner dialogue, supporting the self-discovery that winter so naturally brings.

As the world outside slows, winter gives us permission to do the same. Light a candle, pour something warm, and let your reading draw you closer to the quiet magic that hums beneath the frost - a reminder that even in darkness, the roots of spring are already stirring.

Let us know your winter reading reccommendations below.

The Pagan Roots of the Day of the Dead

2025-11-01T08:38:00.000+00:00

Image by Chait Goli

Each year, at the beginning of November, families across Mexico and Latin America create vibrant altars decorated with marigolds, sugar skulls, food, and photographs. They gather to honour their ancestors in a festival known as Día de los Muertos - the Day of the Dead. Though now deeply entwined with Catholic All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, its roots reach far deeper, into pre-Christian paganism and the ancient rhythms of life, death, and rebirth that have guided humanity for millennia.

Long before Spanish colonisation, Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica - including the Aztec, Maya, Toltec, and Purepecha - celebrated death not as an end, but as a continuation of life. For these cultures, death was a natural part of the cosmic cycle. Rather than being feared, it was respected, even welcomed as a return to the earth and the divine. The Aztecs, for instance, believed that souls journeyed to Mictlan, the underworld, after death. This journey took four years and was aided by offerings left by the living - food, water, and the guidance of a spirit dog.

One of the most significant deities in this cosmology was Mictecacihuatl, the Lady of the Dead. She ruled over the underworld with her husband, Mictlantecuhtli, presiding over festivals that celebrated the departed. These rituals often took place in the ninth month of the Aztec solar calendar, around August, and lasted for several weeks. Offerings of food, flowers, and precious objects were made to ensure that the dead were honoured and remembered - a practice that resonates strongly with modern ofrendas (altars).

When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, they brought Catholicism and the Christian calendar, including All Saints’ Day (November 1) and All Souls’ Day (November 2). Rather than erasing Indigenous beliefs, the two traditions merged - a process known as syncretism. The festival was moved to coincide with the Christian feasts, but the underlying worldview remained distinctly pagan. The result was a powerful blend of Indigenous spirituality and Catholic symbolism: candles representing divine light, crosses mingled with marigolds, and saints sharing space with ancestral spirits.

Even today, the Day of the Dead carries echoes of ancient paganism. The use of marigolds (cempasúchil), known as the “flower of the dead,” harks back to pre-Columbian offerings, their bright orange petals said to guide spirits home. The skull, or calavera, once symbolised regeneration and fertility - not horror, but the mystery of transformation. The act of feasting with the dead, of setting out bread, fruit, and tequila, is a ritual of communion that recalls the pagan understanding that life and death are forever intertwined.

At its heart, Día de los Muertos is a celebration of connection - between the living and the dead, the material and the spiritual, the ancient and the modern. Like Samhain in the Celtic calendar, it honours the thinning of the veil between worlds, inviting ancestors to join in a joyful remembrance. It reminds us that to celebrate death is to celebrate life itself: the endless turning of the seasons, the persistence of memory, and the sacred cycle that unites all beings in the dance of existence.

In a world often afraid of mortality, the Day of the Dead stands as a radiant reminder of pagan wisdom - that love outlasts the grave, and that every ending is, in truth, a beginning.

Origins of the Jack-o’-lantern

2025-10-03T09:35:00.001+01:00

Museum of Country Life, Ireland

When October rolls around, one of the most familiar sights is the glowing face of a jack-o’-lantern perched on a doorstep. In many parts of the world, the pumpkin lantern has become a symbol of Halloween, casting its cheerful or eerie light into the autumn night. Yet this custom is far older than the modern holiday, and its roots trace back to ancient beliefs about light, darkness, and protection from wandering spirits.

The tradition of carving lanterns for the season began not with pumpkins, but with humble root vegetables. Long before pumpkins were cultivated in Europe, Celtic peoples in Ireland and Scotland carved out turnips, swedes, or even large beets. Into these hollowed roots they placed candles or embers, transforming them into protective talismans. The purpose was twofold: the light was a guide for ancestral spirits returning to the world of the living during Samhain, and the carved faces were a warning to mischievous or harmful beings to stay away from hearth and home.

Samhain, the great fire festival marking the start of winter, was a liminal time when the veil between worlds was believed to grow thin. It was a season both of reverence for the dead and of caution against restless or dangerous spirits. Carved lanterns carried the symbolism of fire - light in the darkness, life against death - and added a protective boundary around homes and villages. Bonfires blazed on hilltops for community protection, while the smaller vegetable lanterns served a household or individual purpose, glowing guardians against the night.

Folklore also tells of “will-o’-the-wisps,” ghostly lights seen at night over bogs and marshes, thought to be wandering souls or trickster spirits. The carved lanterns imitated or counteracted these uncanny lights, giving people a sense of control over the unseen. In Ireland, tales of “Stingy Jack,” a trickster condemned to wander the earth with only a carved turnip lantern, became entwined with the practice, lending the name “jack-o’-lantern” to these glowing faces.

It was only with the migration of Celtic people to North America that pumpkins entered the story. Pumpkins, native to the continent, were larger, softer, and far easier to carve than turnips or beets. Their size allowed for more elaborate designs, and their golden flesh glowed beautifully when lit from within. By the 19th century, the pumpkin had replaced the turnip as the lantern of choice among Irish immigrants, and the practice spread widely, eventually becoming inseparable from Halloween festivities.

Yet behind the modern decorations lies the older pagan symbolism. The jack-o’-lantern is not merely an ornament - it is a reminder of humanity’s ancient relationship with fire and light. It embodies protection, transformation, and the power of the hearth to keep the shadows at bay. In carving faces into gourds or roots, people gave form to their fears and their guardians, shaping spirit-beings from the harvest itself.

Today, when we place a pumpkin lantern in our window or garden, we continue a practice that stretches back centuries. Whether we carve a smile, a scowl, or something more abstract, we are echoing the age-old desire to honour the dead, ward off darkness, and hold a flicker of warmth in the turning of the year. The pumpkin lantern is more than festive decoration - it is an ancient fire, still glowing at the threshold of the worlds.

Do Pagan Authors Need Instagram to Promote Books?

2025-09-15T14:15:00.003+01:00

PWC on Instagram

In today’s publishing world, authors often feel pressure to maintain an online presence. Social media, particularly Instagram, has become one of the most popular ways for writers to promote their work, connect with readers, and build community. But when it comes to Pagan authors - those whose work explores spirituality, folklore, and magical practice - the question becomes more nuanced. Do Pagan authors really need Instagram to successfully promote their books, or are there other paths better aligned with the nature of their work?

The Case for Instagram

Instagram thrives on aesthetics. It’s a visual platform, filled with curated images, quotes, reels, and behind-the-scenes snapshots. For Pagan authors, this can be an advantage. Pagan spirituality is often deeply tied to visual symbolism - altars, ritual tools, nature, tarot cards, runes, seasonal festivals, and the beauty of the natural world. A well-curated Instagram account can be an extension of an author’s voice, a living grimoire of sorts that shares their perspective in a visually appealing way.

Readers are also on Instagram. Many people interested in Paganism, witchcraft, and related practices follow hashtags like #witchtok, #pagancommunity, #occultbooks, or #witchyaesthetic. By engaging with these audiences, authors can reach readers who might not otherwise discover their books. Instagram also gives authors a space to collaborate with others, such as book bloggers, witchy influencers, or small Pagan publishers. In this sense, it can act as a digital word-of-mouth network.

The Challenges of Instagram

However, Instagram is not without its downsides. It is a highly competitive, fast-moving platform that rewards constant posting and algorithm-friendly content. For writers who value deep reflection and time away from screens, keeping up with Instagram can feel draining or even antithetical to their practice. Pagan authors, in particular, may worry that the platform’s emphasis on surface-level aesthetics undermines the deeper, lived experience of their spirituality.

There is also the question of authenticity. Many Pagan practitioners value sincerity, groundedness, and community-based knowledge. The polished, market-driven nature of Instagram can sometimes clash with these values. Authors may feel pressured to perform spirituality in a way that fits trends, rather than exploring their path in a genuine and organic manner.

Alternatives and Complements

The good news is that Instagram is not the only option. Pagan authors can reach readers through blogs, podcasts, newsletters, or even local in-person events like bookshops, festivals, and Pagan gatherings. Many Pagan readers appreciate more thoughtful, long-form content than Instagram typically allows. A well-written blog post or podcast episode can build lasting connections in a way that a fleeting reel may not.

Moreover, Pagan communities often thrive in spaces that encourage depth of discussion - forums, Discord servers, or even private mailing lists. These platforms allow authors to cultivate relationships without the pressure of chasing likes or views.

Conclusion

So, do Pagan authors need Instagram to promote their books? The answer is no - but it can be useful. Instagram is a tool, not a requirement. For authors who enjoy visual storytelling and quick engagement, it can be a powerful ally. For those who prefer slower, more grounded forms of connection, other platforms may serve better. The key is alignment: choosing the spaces that resonate with your values, your audience, and your practice.

After all, the most compelling promotion is authenticity. Whether that happens through an Instagram feed, a monthly newsletter, or a conversation at a Pagan moot, the heart of the work remains the same - sharing words that inspire, teach, and connect.

If you're a Pagan author on Instagram, let us know whether you think it's been helpful in the comments below?

The Origins of the Wiccan Rede

2025-09-12T16:38:00.003+01:00

The Wiccan Rede is perhaps one of the most recognizable phrases associated with modern witchcraft: “An it harm none, do what ye will.” For many practitioners, it serves as a guiding ethical principle, encouraging freedom of action so long as it avoids harm. Yet, despite its central place in contemporary Wiccan thought, the Rede’s origins are less straightforward than many assume.

Early Influences

To understand how it came to be, we need to look at its historical, literary, and cultural roots. The word rede itself is an Old English term meaning “advice” or “counsel.” Its use gives the statement an archaic, folkloric quality, as though it has been whispered down through the centuries. However, there is no evidence of this exact phrase appearing in pre-modern magical traditions. Instead, the Rede is a product of 20th-century occultism, shaped by the revival of witchcraft in Britain during the 1940s and 1950s.

One of the strongest philosophical influences comes from the works of Aleister Crowley, the ceremonial magician and founder of Thelema. Crowley’s Thelemic law states: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” The phrase emphasized the pursuit of one’s true will, the deeper spiritual purpose of life. However, Crowley’s maxim lacked an explicit caveat about harm. The Wiccan Rede, appearing a few decades later, softened and reframed this idea, adding a moral dimension to freedom of action.

Gerald Gardner and Early Wicca

Gerald Gardner, often called the Father of modern Wicca, introduced the public to witchcraft in the mid-20th century. Though Gardner himself never recorded the Rede in its now-famous short form, his writings and rituals contained similar ethical guidance. Gardner emphasized the importance of avoiding harm and recognized the reality of magical consequences. The idea that actions - magical or mundane -carry repercussions ties closely into the Wiccan understanding of the Threefold Law: whatever energy one sends into the world returns three times over.

Gardner’s high priestess Doreen Valiente, a poet and influential figure in shaping early Wiccan liturgy, is often credited with helping crystallize the Rede’s expression. In her writings from the 1960s, she stressed the principle of personal freedom balanced with responsibility, echoing what would become the Rede’s essence.

The Rede as We Know It

The most famous version of the Rede first appeared publicly in 1964 at a speech given by Lady Gwen Thompson, who later published a 26-verse poem in the Green Egg magazine in 1975. This poem, which she attributed to her grandmother Adriana Porter, included the closing line: “Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill: An it harm none, do what ye will.” While there is debate about whether the poem was truly a family inheritance or Thompson’s own composition, it undeniably cemented the Rede in the wider pagan community.

Legacy

Today, the Rede is not a rigid law but a guideline. Different traditions interpret it differently - some view it as absolute, while others see it as situational advice. What remains constant is its enduring spirit: encouraging practitioners to act with awareness, compassion, and responsibility. Its blending of ancient language, modern occult philosophy, and community transmission illustrates how Wicca itself was woven together - rooted in tradition, yet evolving to meet the needs of new generations.

Let us know whether you abide by the Wiccan Rede below.

Valiente’s Most Influential Work: The Charge of the Goddess

2025-08-23T11:19:00.002+01:00

When we talk about the roots of modern Paganism, especially Wicca, the name Doreen Valiente inevitably rises to the surface. Often called the “Mother of Modern Witchcraft,” Valiente was not only a practicing witch but also a gifted writer and poet. While she authored several important books - including Witchcraft for Tomorrow and The Rebirth of Witchcraft - her single most influential piece of writing isn’t a full book at all, but rather a work within it: The Charge of the Goddess.

Why The Charge of the Goddess Stands Out

At first glance, it might seem odd to single out this one text. After all, Valiente published numerous writings that helped shape the practice of modern Paganism, providing ritual structures, ethical frameworks, and practical guidance for solitary practitioners and covens alike. But The Charge of the Goddess, first written in the 1950s and later refined across her books, stands as one of the most quoted, recited, and beloved liturgical texts in Wicca.

It is no exaggeration to say that Valiente gave the Goddess her voice. Where Gerald Gardner had drafted earlier rituals borrowing heavily from ceremonial magic and Victorian occultism, Valiente distilled the essence of the Pagan revival into something lyrical, inclusive, and profoundly spiritual. She transformed dry ritual instruction into living poetry, words that inspire connection and devotion.

A Timeless Invitation

The Charge of the Goddess is written as though spoken by the Goddess herself, calling her children to joy, beauty, freedom, and reverence. In it, the divine feminine is not remote or judgmental but loving, immanent, and intimately involved in the lives of her followers. The words reach beyond time and tradition, appealing to anyone who seeks a spiritual path grounded in nature and personal empowerment.

For many modern witches, hearing or speaking The Charge of the Goddess for the first time is a revelation. It affirms that the sacred can be joyous rather than dour, celebratory rather than restrictive. It reassures practitioners that the Goddess meets them where they are—whether in circle, in solitude, or in the quiet moments of everyday life.

The Influence on Pagan Literature

From a literary perspective, The Charge of the Goddess did more than provide beautiful ritual words. It set the tone for Pagan writing in the decades that followed. Valiente showed that Pagan texts could be poetic without being inaccessible, mystical without being obscure. Many of today’s Pagan authors—whether they realize it or not—write in the tradition she helped establish. Her phrasing, rhythm, and imagery echo in countless invocations, prayers, and rituals published since.

Moreover, Valiente legitimized the idea that Pagan traditions are living traditions. By rewriting, editing, and adapting the words she inherited, she modeled the creative process that keeps Pagan spirituality dynamic rather than dogmatic. In doing so, she empowered future generations of witches and Pagans to find their own voice in ritual writing.

Why It Still Matters

Even today, more than half a century after Valiente penned her words, the The Charge of the Goddess continues to be recited in circles around the world. It’s a reminder of what first drew many of us to Paganism: the promise of a spiritual path that celebrates life, honors the Earth, and embraces the sacred within ourselves.

Doreen Valiente left us many treasures, but perhaps none shine so brightly as the words of the Goddess she gave to the world. For Pagan writers, her example is clear: when we write from the heart, our words have the power to shape not only rituals, but entire movements.

Find out more at the Doreen Valiente Foundation.

The State of Publishing in 2025

2025-08-17T09:59:00.002+01:00

If you’ve wandered into the Pagan or earth-based spirituality section of a bookstore lately, you might have noticed the shelves are far from empty. In fact, publishing in this space is buzzing along nicely, with new titles appearing every season. From beginner witchcraft guides to deep dives into mythology and land-based practices, there’s plenty to read — and plenty of debate about the best way to publish these books in the current climate.

How Are Sales Going?

While exact sales figures are hard to pin down (publishers tend to guard that data), interest in earth-centered spirituality hasn’t slowed. Books that weave together spirituality, healing, and empowerment continue to do well. Think titles like The Cauldron and the Drum by Rhonda McCrimmon or New Moon Magic by Dickens and Torok. Broader cultural trends — mindfulness, climate consciousness, and a hunger for alternative wisdom — are helping sustain demand.

Who Are the Big Players?

If you’re an aspiring author in this space, you’ve probably heard of the major publishers:

Llewellyn Worldwide – Perhaps the most recognized name in Pagan publishing, with a century-long track record. If you’ve ever picked up a book on Wicca, tarot, or astrology, chances are it came from them.
Red Wheel/Weiser – Another powerhouse, especially known for occult and metaphysical titles. Their catalog covers everything from witchcraft to esoterica.
Inner Traditions/Findhorn Press – Specializing in spirituality, mysticism, and earth-based wisdom. Their books often have a global, cross-cultural flavor.
Collective Ink (Moon Books and O-Books) – UK-based, with a solid reputation for Pagan and mind-body titles.
Mandrake of Oxford – A smaller press with a strong occult focus.

On top of these, you’ll find vibrant indie presses like Avalonia, Rockpool Publishing, Green Magic, and others that keep the field fresh and diverse.

To Publish or Self-Publish?

This is the question many Pagan authors wrestle with.

Traditional publishing brings credibility, professional editing, great cover design, and built-in distribution. Getting published by Llewellyn or Weiser can help place your work squarely within Pagan communities.
Self-publishing, particularly through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, offers higher royalties and creative control. You don’t need to wait for an acceptance letter — you can just upload your book and go live.

But there are trade-offs. Self-publishing means you’re responsible for editing, design, marketing, and finding your audience. And in a crowded Amazon marketplace, that’s no small task.

The Amazon Dilemma

Let’s talk ethics for a moment. Amazon dominates the ebook market, which makes it tempting — almost necessary — for indie authors. But Pagan readers and writers have been raising concerns:

Quality issues: Amazon is flooded with low-effort, AI-generated “witchcraft” books, which drags down credibility.
Reputation: Self-publishing can still carry a stigma. Some readers assume “self-published” means unedited or inauthentic.
Predatory services: A cottage industry of “Amazon self-publishing helpers” has sprung up, and not all are trustworthy.

Many Pagan authors find themselves torn: they want independence, but they also want their work to stand out in a sea of questionable content.

So, What’s the Best Route?

The truth is, there’s no one answer. Traditional publishers are still the best bet if you want community recognition and a professional finish. Self-publishing gives you freedom and potentially higher earnings, but you’ll need to put in serious effort to produce a high-quality book and get it seen.

Either way, the Pagan publishing world is thriving. Readers are hungry for authentic voices, diverse perspectives, and grounded spiritual practice. Whether you choose a trusted publisher or go it alone, what matters most is the heart you bring to the work.

Question for Readers

What do you think? If you’ve published (or thought about publishing) in this space, did you lean toward a traditional publisher, or did you brave the Amazon jungle?

Let us know in the comments below.

Q&A Pagans Against Plagiarism

2019-08-01T17:26:00.000+01:00

Boudica Foster is a co-founder and member of Pagans Against Plagiarism. She is co-owner of The Wiccan/Pagan Times, has written articles for Llewellyn’s almanacs and has six published non-fiction books on spells and reiki topics, one published fiction novel and is working on the second book in the series. Boudica identifies as a witch and has been Pagan in some form or other since the late 1970s. She has been an active member of the pagan online community since the early 1990s.

How did Pagans Against Plagiarism come about?

About twelve years ago, a friend of mine put me in touch with a publisher with an unusual story. Seems they had a book that had failed the 'Plagiarism Test'. Publishers had software they could run a percentage of the book through, and the software would search the web and compare the content. It would then report the amount of material that they found in the book that was also found on the web. Twenty-five percent plagiarized is considered unacceptable by the publisher. This book went higher.

The author had been so pissed off they had gone onto the internet and were badmouthing the publisher. The author then took the book to another publisher and published it there. The first publisher asked if I would mind reviewing the book and maybe doing some research.

One of our other friends had already taken sections of the book and found the exact websites where the material was originally published. The instances of theft were mind-boggling. There was a blog the individual owned where the instances were eventually all laid out.

The author’s book was pulled by the second publisher. The author then self-published. I did publish a review, as I was a regular reviewer on Amazon at that time. Amazon eventually pulled the book.

The research we did, the information we had gathered and the experience we had gave us a background and was the reason we went into what came next.

When did you realise there was a need for it?

We know many authors and artists in the Pagan community. I was reviewing Pagan books on Amazon at the time and was a top reviewer. I had many contacts with publishers and authors here in the States. Many of my friends involved in this endeavor are from the UK. They also had contacts with artists and authors.

While plagiarism was what brought us into this, it was copyright violations that became the focus of our group. We noticed Facebook groups offering free copies of books that had been published recently. This really annoyed us. Here we are, some of us authors or artists, with books by people we know being given away for free. This shortchanges authors, who lose sales because someone is giving away their books. Why pay for what you can get free?

This started us down the road of, "What is our recourse if our work is being stolen?"

We started sharing what we learned over the course of a couple of years with people who knew us and had similar issues. We finally started a Facebook group as a place where we could gather and exchange information.

Can you explain what plagiarism is?

Plagiarism, as defined by the dictionary, is the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing it off as one’s own.

So, I wrote an article for an online ezine, and a few months later it appeared on another site, word for word, with a different author's name. What was so funny was that I put Boudica at the end of all the articles I was writing at that time. The person who had copied my article had included my name. Never proofread it, just copied and posted it on their website, with a different author byline.

This has happened not just to me, but to a few of the other members of our group. Either their art or their written work has been taken from their blogs or their websites and attributed to a different artist or author.

It is the common denominator for most of the founding members of Pagans Against Plagiarism, and it's what gave us our name. But what we eventually became known for was the more common issue that so many authors and artists have in common – copyright violations.

What is copyright?

The best definition I have found is from Tech Terms Computer Dictionary:

Copyright is a legal means of protecting an author's work. It is a type of intellectual property that provides exclusive publication, distribution, and usage rights for the author.

Copyright is a legal instrument. Not just here in the United States. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, referenced as DMCA, is an international treaty between countries who have elected to uphold the copyright standards set out in that document.

Can you explain what copyright infringement is?

Authors, writers, artists and musicians - hereafter referenced as creators - are covered by copyright laws. These laws dictate when a work is copyrighted, what rights creators have over their work, what is a violation of their rights, and gives them the legal tools needed to enforce those rights. These laws are based on the country of origin, or come under the DMCA.

Copyright infringement is when someone violates the rights of a creator. Country laws give the creator legal standing within their own country, but the DMCA gives the creator legal standing internationally, and specifically on the internet.

The DMCA enacts processes where the creator can claim their property, and, with proper identification, request the removal of their property from any place where it appears illegally.

So, an author finds their book being given away without their permission. The book is copyrighted. As a matter of fact, the book is copyrighted as soon as it is in tangible form, which means even the manuscript is copyrighted. So, the author has legal standing at this point. The take-down notice that the author files with the individual, website or social media platform is called a DMCA. It is a form that the author or their agent files to have the violation of their work removed.

All social media sites have an online form that can be filled out. They have it written into their terms of service that violations of copyright will be removed by them, without notice in most cases. In severe cases, the social media site will remove the group or individuals responsible at their discretion, without notice.

Most website hosting services also have online DMCAs and include the same kind of verbiage in their terms of service. As do Dropbox, web storage sites, online shopping sites and more.

The only exceptions are services that are in countries that have not signed the DMCA, which include Russia, China and some small countries in-between.

The reason I have spelled this all out is because this information becomes the tool we can use to educate and to enforce the rights of creators in the Pagan community.

How widespread is the problem?

At the start, about ten years ago, and two years after the first plagiarism issues we encountered, we started seeing PDF versions of copyrighted books appearing on the web. First they were on websites, then, as social media started to expand, the illegal copies of these books started appearing in the file areas of various groups.

We would notice one book here, one book there. Websites were the biggest offenders, as some of them were distribution sites for many illegal copies. Creators were losing money. For authors, it was illegal PDF copies of their books. For artists, it was downloadable copies of their art. They were either stealing the material from the artists' websites or making print copies and selling them. The artists were hit worse because people were actually selling their art on sites like eBay and Etsy.

Watermarking was the original way for artists to prevent the theft of their work. But, as people became savvier with Photoshop and were able to remove the watermarks, it became harder and harder for artists to make a living off their work. Who was going to purchase nice prints of their work when they could get them cheaper on eBay and Etsy, or free by right-clicking and saving?

Artists started disappearing from the web. Whatever art was out there, there was no way to control it anymore. Some artists spent days filing DMCAs with various websites and social media platforms to get their work removed. How can an artist create when they have to spend days at a time protecting their work? And, of course, there was always a copy that escaped notice and would get passed around again, the cycle repeating itself.

With authors, it started with illegal copies of their books in PDF format. Some industrious souls would copy entire books and issue the finished product in PDF format. Later, with the advent of e-books, we started seeing other formats, which were obviously pirated from e-readers. No matter what technology we create to safeguard our work, there are those who think it is their job to breach it, and they do.

It became obvious that this was getting worse when copies of authors' books surfaced before they were even published. Thousands of copies were either sold or given away for free before the publishers could release the book. This resulted in loss of sales for both the publisher and, more importantly, the author. Pirating of books reached an all-time high.

The results were pretty much the same as with artists. Authors removed themselves from the web and discontinued writing. If you can’t make a living doing what you love, then you have to turn to something else to provide for your family. And the Pagan community lost some very bright and well-loved artists and authors because of this.

Know two things:

There are very few artists and authors who make lots of money off their works. These people are household names. Stephen King, David Hockney. Pagan authors and artists make about $1.57 per book, on average. That will depend on how popular the author is and how many books they have circulating at any time. That means they have to sell over 15,000 books per year to make a salary of $25,000 per year.
Pagan artists will sell a work here and there, but mostly make a living off selling prints of their works. Our Pagan artists have lost much. So much that you don’t see many Pagan artists unless you are at a festival. Only one artist was at a festival I went to last weekend. I remember several dozen back in the day. If they cannot feed their families on their work, they have to go elsewhere to make a living.

What does PAP do to help combat this?

In the beginning, there wasn’t much we knew we could do. We would request the material be removed. That usually ended in a shouting match and getting us banned from many groups. No one likes to be told what to do with their group. They like it even less when you suggest they are stealing money from creators. And when you tell them, 'OK, we are going to report you to the creator or his agent,' the conversation deteriorates to name calling.

We had to learn the laws. What are the options that creators have? Finding the DMCA process was key. We educated ourselves in that, and then passed information along to the creators. We provide links to copyright violation forms. We keep extensive files of sites that provide legal information and online resources for creators.

See, the key to the process is that only the creator, or their agent, can file a DMCA. It must be the creator or their legal agent who files. So, we found ourselves being the education point for all the creative members of the Pagan community.

We also offer education via our Facebook page and group. We offer information to Facebook admins, so that they understand what they are doing when they offer free artwork or books to their members. We offer information. We do not mob a group and demand removal.

When the group was young, someone would stumble across a stash of illegal PDFs, request that they be removed, and get booted immediately. That angered many of the members. Some of them would join the group and try to talk to the admins. This resulted in more shouting matches, and we were accused of trying to mob groups to get them shut down.

Actually, we have nothing to do with groups being shut down. We can’t do that. We can report it to the creator or their agents, but the actual filing is done by them. What happens is directly associated with the people who own the rights.

Some social media sites have a very low threshold for copyright violations. You see that with YouTube and Facebook. They do not want to deal with it. A single violation, the item will be removed. But if they have to hunt thru tons of violations, they would rather just shut the site. They have no desire to get involved in legal suits.

We have restricted ourselves to Facebook and a few side sites on an individual basis. A group that stores their copyright violations on Dropbox or sells the material on Etsy, we will report those to the creators and leave it up to them to follow up. But most of what we deal with is Facebook.

Having seen the extent of copyright violations, we are not nearly large enough to involve ourselves with it all. We have lives, we have jobs, and believe me when I say that it can be a full-time job if we decided to expand beyond Facebook. Some weeks it seems that it is a full-time job.

Have you had any successes in the past?

We have requested the removal of material that violates an author’s copyrights, and Facebook's terms of service.

Occasionally, someone will be, 'Oh, sorry, didn’t know that,' and the material is removed quickly. We have tried various ways. Via comments. Via private messages to group admins.

Most times, we get booted for our effort. Sometimes it is preceded with verbal abuse, or you get a private message after you are booted, again streaming with verbal abuse. Many of us have gotten used to it. But to be honest, we would rather not deal with that.

The first thing we need is proof. That is required by the DMCA. Besides the link to the material, we also provide visual proof of the violation. Usually a PDF copy of their file area with all the books listed. This also makes it easier to identify the books, and the publisher can pick all the titles and report them. Most books are handled by the publishers, who are the legal agents for the authors.

What happens next is between the publisher and the website. Facebook has dedicated staff handling DMCAs. There also appears to be more than just the pagan community filing DMCAs as it can take one or two weeks for them to respond to the publishers, sometimes a bit longer if additional information is requested.

It is totally up to Facebook as to what happens. They decide how much work they are going to put into the response. Most responses are canned.

Hi, Thanks for bringing this matter to our attention. We removed or disabled access to the content you reported for violating the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. We understand this action to resolve your intellectual property issue.

Almost all responses are like that.

We have seen them remove books, remove groups and remove individuals who are consistent offenders. We feel we have had a measure of success.

Two of the largest successes are groups that were strictly up for book exchange. One group had over 900 books, the other had over 400.

Copyright violations are more numerous than plagiarism. We have had one or two more instances of blatant plagiarism in books.

Someone published one of Gerina Dunwich’s books with a new cover and author byline. It was offered as an e-book for free as a promo.

From my days reviewing books, I have learned various authors' voices. Ms. Dunwich has a unique voice, and reading the first couple of pages, I went to my own library and pulled down a book, and sure enough it was the same book, the same graphics, the same font. All he did was change the cover and left off the title pages. Amazon did pull the book when they were notified.

We just report what we find. The rest is up to the creators and their agents. If they report the violations, whether plagiarism or copyright violations, Facebook will take action.

What should someone do if they think their work has been plagiarised?

For plagiarism or copyright violations, they have to file a DMCA. As I said, most sites have online DMCAs. You will need to provide the location of the violation, where the file is located, and you have to provide proof of ownership. Most times, all you need is where your book is on your publisher’s website, or where your art is presented, with a date.

Sometimes they may ask for more proof. A screen capture of where the violation is located, with some identifying evidence of the website, and your work. That works for the publishers most often. It is a simple process. Depending on the website or service, it may take a couple of weeks. Remember, they are dealing with hundreds of notices each day.

If you need assistance, Pagans Against Plagiarism is here to help.

How can people get involved? Where can they find out more?

Being part of the solution is the way to go. We accept members who want to learn more, as well as those who want to help. We will always answer questions. You can join our group here.

Additional information and resources:

US Government website on copyright laws

UK Government website on copyright laws

Australian Government website on copyright laws

Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 PDF

Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998

Q&A Otherworld Books

2017-07-09T10:52:00.000+01:00

Otherworld Books is a newly established Pagan and Occult bookshop based near the centre of Edinburgh, Scotland. The shop aims to offer all books to all paths, whatever your experience level. They even supply book prescriptions if you're not sure what to read next. You can also find them on Twitter and Facebook, and they have an extensive online store. Founder, Claire Proctor, talks about the inspiration for the bookshop.

How did the idea for Otherworld Books come about?

It was about three years ago at the annual Scottish Pagan Federation Conference. Christina Oakley Harrington, who runs Treadwell's in London, was the keynote speaker, as well as hosting a workshop. There were various conversations throughout the day about what a shame it was that we only got the opportunity to do these kinds of things once a year and how poor the selections in some of the more mainstream bookshops had become. Most of the remaining occult shops couldn't really support a wide range of books and didn’t have the capacity for events, and we couldn’t think of a single 'dedicated' bookshop in Scotland at all. At the time, I was vaguely considering a change in direction but, while the idea intrigued me, I didn’t really think of it as a serious notion. However, the more time went on, the more I found myself doodling ideas, checking things out and discussing it with people until one day I came to the realisation that it was something I absolutely wanted to do without really noticing! After that, I threw myself into it and the shop opened on 1st March 2016.

How do you choose what to stock?

It varies greatly. There’s a huge chunk of ‘recommended reading,’ those existing works that by general consensus you should make a point of getting through at some point. So, for instance, most of Hutton’s works on the academic side, Philip Carr-Gomm and Emma Restall Orr on Druidry, the Farrars, Vivianne Crowley and Doreen Valiente on Wicca, Rae Beth and Marian Green on solitary witchcraft. The same is true on the occult end of the spectrum – works by Aleister Crowley, William G. Gray, Israel Regardie, Dion Fortune and so on.

It’s trickier when it comes to newer works. I feel like if you’re investing your time in reading a book it needs to add value – it should be well researched, considered and offer ideas or practical guidance that will help you on your path.

Sadly, there’s still a lot of what I consider commercialised nonsense doing the rounds. I try to avoid things that are simply repackaging the same material with little added value. There are a great many brilliant titles coming out at the moment though, particularly the Moon Books' Pagan Portals and Shaman Pathways series, which I think are the ideal blend of being informative and useful. They are written by authors who really know their stuff. Personally, I have a major soft spot for fiction and quirky titles. The ones that really challenge your thinking about your own beliefs and practice by presenting it in a different context or framework. Anything by Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman, or random offerings like Our Gods Wear Spandex and Cat Magic.

You’re based in Edinburgh, which is a city with a lot of history and folklore. Has anything spooky ever happened at the shop?

I used to joke that there was a poltergeist in the shop. During the first few months, I’d come in to find random individual books had fallen off display shelves with no apparent rhyme or reason. Then, equally as inexplicably, it just stopped. So, I began to wonder! It happened again just the other day, for the first time in ages. One of my regular customers was in and it took us right to a book she had been looking for on behalf of a friend.

Do you think your location helps business?

I think being in Edinburgh helps insofar as it’s an amazing place to be. Somewhere that draws people who are potentially interested in diverse paths. The fact that I’m reasonably central and easy to find doesn’t hurt, but just as important to me is to be a trusted resource for the community wherever they are, which is why I always wanted to have the online side available too.

We love your book prescription idea, where people tell you a bit about themselves and their interests, and you recommend a book to them. What’s the most recent book you've recommended?

Thank you. There are many people who come into the shop looking for assistance, no matter how new to the subject or experienced. There are a lot of books available, after all! I wanted a simple way to be able to offer that assistance further afield.

Sadly, I’ve had no takers for the prescription service yet, though admittedly it’s only been up a few weeks and not extensively marketed.

Where’s the furthest place you have sent a book?

So far, California. Santa Clarita, to be exact, which I’ll probably always remember because my media-junkie brain automatically thought, “Oh, where the diet’s from.”

Is there a strong Pagan community in Edinburgh? Any events you’d recommend during the year?

I would say that there’s an extremely strong Pagan presence in Edinburgh, and Scotland more generally. Perhaps not the strongest community, in the sense of lots of regular groups and events. I don’t think that’s anything negative, just a combination of the demands of modern life and that many who are drawn to paganism actually prefer a solitary path. We have great links as part of the local Interfaith community, though. We have representation as part of the Edinburgh Uni Chaplaincy and, as previously mentioned, the annual Scottish PF conference is held here. The Beltane Fire Society produce their spectacular parades at Beltane and Samhain and, with so much during the August festivals, there’s usually something pagan-themed available. There’s a monthly informal moot group, and I’ve been running monthly workshops since the start of the year. I'm always open to hosting more!

Can you offer up three recommendations on Scottish Paganism, occultism or folklore for people who would like an introduction?

I would say that the best books on the subject allow you to work with your landscape, wherever that may be. While there’s nothing particularly Scottish that I would recommend on that score, as general introductions go, you can’t go too far wrong with:

Pagan Paths by Pete Jennings, on the practical side
Paganism: A Very Short Introducton by Owen Davies, on the slightly more academic side, and either:
The Stonewylde series by Kit Berry for a fictional intro to pagan themes or
Dion Fortune’s works for more ritual magic aspects, particularly Sea Priestess and Moon Magic.

Who is the most memorable customer to ever walk in off the street?

I’ve actually had the privilege of meeting the only person ever to achieve enlightenment! Apparently, Buddha didn’t actually manage it, or, at least, he’s never seen him on any of the spiritual planes.

He had seen Brian Copenhaver’s Magic: Antiquity to Enlightenment in the window and, while he had apparently misunderstood the meaning of the title, he wanted to afford me the opportunity of arranging workshops for him, so that he could share the truth with the good people of Edinburgh. In fact, he’s the person who invented adult colouring books but, because everything he thinks of is automatically shared to the universal consciousness, it was stolen and commercialised before he could do anything with it. Despite an extensive letter writing campaign, he has yet to receive any royalties.

I explained that it might be counter-intuitive to hold events proclaiming One Truth in a shop dedicated to the pursuit of lots of different paths and pursuits, but he seemed to lose interest around then – it could have been because he had finished his can of cider.

In all seriousness though, while the above is all true, I’ve had some genuinely amazing conversations with truly wonderful people in the relatively short time I’ve been here. From the sublime to the ridiculous - the best are usually a combination of both - and I love that anyone of any path can come in, share their ideas, find new ones and hopefully leave richer for the experience.

Guest Post: David Halpin

2017-06-26T15:26:00.000+01:00

David Halpin is a writer originally from Dublin, now living in Carlow. He presents the YouTube series The Occult Book Review and regularly writes articled on esoteric history, Gnosticism and mythology for publications including Ancient Origins, The Wild Hunt and Occultum. He has also appeared as a guest speaker at the Irish Festival of Magic and Spirituality, Féile Draíochta. His children’s book, The Girl Who Spoke to the Wind, has been optioned for film by Irish director Maurice Joyce. You can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Witch is Dead, Long Live the Witch

David Halpin

She was the gatekeeper at the edge of the world. The Final human hymn before all fell to wind and shadow and the strange creaking of stars. She was a pagan chorus. An older song. - The Good People by Hannah Kent.

During a recent conversation it was suggested to me by a prominent pagan spokesperson that in light of human carelessness and recent American environmental decisions, that perhaps it would be best for the planet if human beings destroyed themselves and allowed the earth to evolve without us.

While one part of me understood what this person meant: the overwhelming fatalistic dismay at what our world is becoming, another part was disturbed at what I was hearing. I felt compelled to ask whether or not everyone had a collective responsibility to the next generation, even if they didn’t have children themselves. As a parent, I want to believe that human beings have an instinctual compassion that extends not just to their own families but to all human beings.

The response from this person was that even if the world was destroyed, everything is connected and so ultimately all would be well and destruction would not be such a bad thing.

For days after I tried to reconcile this person’s outlook to what I understood paganism to mean. I know that the current rise of eco-scepticism and the influence of the fossil fuel industries can be disheartening, for example. I also know, however, that there is a tremendous effort by pagans and non-pagans alike to bring attention to the pollution of planet. Surely this should motivate and engage us, another part of me argued, not dishearten and create a spiralling sense of complacency.

A bigger question for me was the ethical and moral responsibility that comes with being a pagan and witch in the first place. Don’t we believe that all life is part of something bigger than ourselves and that we are not only connected to that which we know and love but also those we do not know but still have a responsibility to help?

As the father of two daughters, experiencing an attitude that can lethargically accept the extinction of millions of children as being inevitable and not worth fighting for seems just as psychotic as the actions and policy decisions that have created our catastrophic environmental predicament in the first place.

In fact, as a pagan, rightly or wrongly, I expect my community to feel more empathy and connection with life outside of our immediate circle and personal environment. Surprisingly, as I sought out opposing viewpoints and a more hopeful and inclusive response from pagan influencers and speakers, I instead began to notice a very insular outlook. I began to see a trend which was the opposite of everything I believed paganism to represent.

In an attempt to dispel my growing fears, I began to examine the most immediate window into the current state of witchcraft and paganism, namely the various social media platforms I was connected to. I felt that I would be able to gauge, through observation, the contemporary and evolving attitudes and interpretations of paganism. I believed I could find others, like myself, who did not want to walk away from the future, but to protect it.

What I found instead were pages and pages of ‘selfies’, blogs focusing on ‘Witch’ apparel and a surprising lack of differentiation between being a pagan as opposed to being seen to be a pagan. I also discovered a trench mentality which seemed to redefine paganism to the extent that it was normal to have little to no connection with the environment or communities outside of one particular tribe or culture. There seemed to be no awareness that by creating a ‘new’ witchcraft imbedded in monoculture and superficial symbolism there was a cutting off from the roots and actual practice of witchcraft and paganism in the first place.

I was reminded of what Peter Grey wrote about rebellion as a marketing device in his ground-breaking work, Lucifer: Princeps:

It is part of a deliberate strategy to create consumers, subverting the drives of social and sexual dissatisfaction by channelling them into brand loyalty and consumption, rather than questioning the values of the corporate state. It avoids the crisis of initiation to keep the population dependent and uncertain in an extended ‘kidulthood’, whilst simultaneously breaking social cohesion in favour of the individual as production/ consumption unit rather than as sovereign.

This extended ‘kidulthood’, as Grey writes, is more devastating in consequence than might first seem. By attaching such importance to youth-image and clinging to one stage only in the cycle of life we are destabilising the very wheel itself. Renewal comes only from the passing of the old. Refusing to acknowledge the wisdom and further initiations which come with later life also abdicates the responsibility to the future and from this an attitude of apathy and selfishness is born.

Today, there is often a knee-jerk reaction to a non-indigenous pagan of one particular culture pointing out commonalities with another, which is a shame, considering the common roots of archetypes once we go back far enough in history and time. The fear of being seen to ‘commit appropriation’ might account for some of this, of course.

But there is another effect when we are bound by psychological and cultural borders and when we are pressured to keep only to our own gods and goddess forms, and this is the growing racism within contemporary paganism and witchcraft. It is ironic that those most willing to (with usually good intentions) call out appropriation might also be contributing to the resulting insular and xenophobic conditioning that can often follow.

Paganism has passed through many crossroads. Moving further into the 21st century we are perhaps approaching another which might have the greatest consequences of all. Never in human history has it been so easy to destroy ourselves and yet never in history have there been so many available avenues of escapism in order to avoid facing up to this.

The path we end up taking will be directly influenced by how many pagans and witches begin to take responsibility for an integrated future. The sooner we understand that this involves more than our own life-spans and more than our own specific cultures the better chance of survival we will give the next generation.

Q&A Trevor Greenfield

2017-05-23T11:31:00.002+01:00

Trevor Greenfield is Editorial Manager for John Hunt Publishing, and founder of Moon Books, a subsidiary press of JHP focused on Pagan nonfiction. Trevor holds an MA in Religious Studies from the University of Sussex, and an MA in English Literature from the University of Southampton. He is also the author of An Introduction to Radical Theology and teaches Religious Studies for the Open University.

Hi Trevor. Thanks for taking the time to speak to us about Moon Books, we see your titles regularly on Twitter and Facebook. It's nice to get the chance to learn more about the publishing house and your role there.

How did you get involved with Moon Books?

I published a book with John Hunt Publishing, the company that owns Moon Books, and I had just taken early retirement from an IT multi-national company, so I started doing some copy editing for them. I was asked to take over the management of copy editing and then I was asked to manage editorial and production. We’re a small publisher, it’s not as grand as it sounds! Back then we only had two imprints, O-Books and Zero Books. However, the number and variety of titles we were publishing forced us to consider breaking up into a number of specialist imprints. I asked if I could start a Pagan/Shaman imprint, which I called Moon Books. We opened for business in 2012 and since then we have published over 150 books.

What do you most enjoy reading?

I mainly read nonfiction history books, especially ancient history. I don’t read much fiction but I do like the novels of Robert Goddard. What’s life without an unexpected plot twist?

You work on the publishing side for Moon Books's imprint. Can you talk us through the process of how a book goes from submission to shelf?

An author sends in an online proposal and attaches the manuscript or part of it. If we like the look of it, we ask the author to send in a more detailed submission, which includes the usual things: book description, market plan, competing books, possible endorsers, etc. The submission and the manuscript are then looked at by three readers who comment on whether it’s suitable for us and say yes or no to offering a contract. These reports are sent to our publishing director, who makes a final decision. The process takes a little over a week.

Can you tell us a bit about your own work?

I wrote a book about radical theology and I’ve contributed to a few anthologies, but as publisher of Moon Books I see my role as more creating an environment where writers of all levels can contribute. So, as well as publishing established and new authors, and there’s huge pleasure in seeing a new author develop into a best-selling one, Moon Books also has a writers group and we publish anthologies of their work. Our most successful anthologies to date have been Paganism 101, which had contributions from 101 Pagan writers and practitioners, and Naming the Goddess which had contributions from over 80 Goddess writers and followers, and which was well received throughout the Goddess community.

You teach religious studies for the Open University and you have studied this field at post-graduate level. Can we ask a bit about your own beliefs? What drew you to study this subject, and has it influenced your work at Moon Books?

I’ve always liked religion. I liked the stories I was taught in Sunday school about Noah and Job and Moses. All the old sword-and-sandal movies from the 1960s, Greek mythology. I always thought the past was more interesting than the present, and the past as I imagined it was pretty much battles and kings and interfering gods. How exciting is that! At eighteen I studied Religion at A Level and then went on to university to study Religion. I encountered other religions there such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism.

I can’t really tell you about my own beliefs as they’re a perpetual work in progress. I became a Christian at university, but there’s only a certain amount of times you can say the Nicene Creed in church on a Sunday before you start to question it. Anyway, I came to the conclusion that it was something you could only really believe if you had a first-century worldview and I ended up drifting away.

By chance, I heard Philip Carr-Gomm was talking about Druidry at my college, so I went along. Up until listening to Philip, I had assumed Druids were people who liked dressing up and keeping old customs alive, and who probably had friends who were Morris dancers. Well, I got that wrong! I discovered that Druidry is a non-dogmatic, subjective and deeply creative spiritual worldview. What else should religion be? So, for the last few years I have identified myself as Pagan. But, well, you know, what’s life if not a journey? Recently my daughter wanted to find out about Christianity and so I went along with her to an Alpha course. I wouldn’t say it felt like home, but I didn’t feel out of place, so I’m thinking about writing a book on Christo-Paganism, perhaps that’s the next step, exploring the creative fusion between both traditions.

Is there any aspect of Paganism that is strongly underrepresented on the market? Any books you would like to see written?

I’d be interesting in publishing books that are contemporary political and social critiques. I personally think you can view the prophetic and wisdom religious traditions as temporary expressions, interruptions, if you like, in the hundred thousand year old tradition of Earth Religion. It would be interesting to understand what appears to be people's developing cynicism towards all things corporate and global as a modern expression of Earth Religion - the past and the future as Pagan. Similarly, I think contemporary activism, eco-activism, animal activism, etc. can be seen as expressions that bespeak a re-visioning of nature.

Can you tell us about some of the best books you've worked on? What would you recommend reading?

Interesting question. What would I recommend? Well, I’d recommend you read a Moon Book! But going on beyond that, I think Paganism lacks a narrative, a story, a sacred literature. Some people I speak to think that's a good thing because literature equates to doctrine, narrative results in dogma. I disagree. I think the sharing of foundational mythologies, codes of conduct, expressions of belief alongside new expressions and rituals would be a great thing for Paganism to achieve. So, I’m not going to suggest we get together and read something. I’m going to suggest that we get together and write something. Share our myths and our aspirations. Create a sacred text for the Pagan peoples.

Q&A Emma Restall Orr

2017-01-14T07:14:00.001+00:00

Emma Restall Orr is one of the best-known names in British Druidry. Joint chief of the The British Druid Order for nine years and founder of The Druid Network, Emma has published more than a dozen books on Druidry and Paganism. She now focuses much of her time on Honouring the Ancient Dead, a project promoting the respectful treatment of ancestral remains. Find out more about her on her website.

Hi Emma. Many people know you from your work with the British Druid Order, the Druid Network, and the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. In your biography, you say that you no longer term yourself a Druid. Would you mind talking a little about that?

Thank you for starting with such a sharp question: straight to the heart of it. To state publicly that I no longer consider myself a Druid took serious thought, and I have received responses from some whom it upset and unsettled. The majority of responses were, however, from people eager to understand. The truth is that it was not about a change in my beliefs. My spiritual, my religious and my philosophical perspective is no different from what it was. Indeed, I would say that my beliefs are deeper than ever, my practice more profound.

However, for me, the word Druidry does not describe a specific belief system. My beliefs are animistic, pantheistic, deep green, polytheistic, and I have met Druids who are Christian, who are wholly polytheistic, who are anthropocentric. Druidry, I think, describes instead a path of service. The work of the Druid is to be a teacher, a priest, a leader, a guide. You cannot decide one day to be a Druid. It not only takes years of serious study, but also the acknowledgement and acceptance of your peers and your community before a person should consider taking the word to describe oneself. Of course, we can study Druidry, and practice within the traditions of Druidry, without ever taking the word Druid, but I was known as a Druid. I worked as a priest and teacher for some twenty years. When I stepped away from those roles, I laid down the word as well.

The reason I stepped away has another answer. The deeper mysteries were pulling apart the structure of my being. The universe was breathing its dark emptiness into my soul, calling me to explore places that are formless, wordless, timeless. My ability to hold space, gently and with wakeful responsibility, was eroding. Furthermore, as a person who was widely known as a writer and teacher, the sense of my self was becoming unbearably uncomfortable. People wanted me to be who I had been, who they needed me to be, who they expected me to be, rather than what I was becoming. In the end I had no choice but to let go, to run with the wind on soft paws, into a silence where there was no I.

Now that you no longer term yourself a Druid, how do you feel towards your earlier works, such as Living Druidry and Druid Priestess?

Now and then, someone will ask me about some particular point that I wrote in one of my earlier books, and I will dig out a copy to reread it. “On page 127 you said… What did you mean by…”. More often than not, I am surprised at how much I am still wholly in tune with what I wrote, albeit 10 or 15 years ago. Of course, you must give me the possibility of having matured in my thinking, and at times the perspective does seem to hum with a youthful energy and naiveté that I may no longer have; at times embarrassingly so. I don’t know how much of that is obvious to the reader! Certainly, the anecdotes that are scattered throughout those two books are from a life I no longer live, but that isn’t to say that I don’t have warm feelings about those days. The stories make me smile, reminding me of people and places I knew, many of which I loved deeply.

A direct answer to your question would be: yes, I am still the person who wrote those early books – just a little wrinklier, quieter, more peaceful; a little further down the same old track.

The London 2012 Paralympics included a reading from a gorsedd ritual written by yourself and Philip Shallcrass. Did you know about that at the time, and how do you feel about it now?

Yes, we knew. I was contacted some months before by one of the team creating the closing ceremony, and asked if they might use the gorsedd ritual. We spoke about options and I went to Philip to see what he thought. It was important to me that the magical spirit of the ritual was allowed to feed into the ceremony they created, so that – performed as a piece of community art, not a religious ritual – it retained that magic. However, in the end, Philip and I signed the forms to allow them to use it without knowing what the end product would be. We had to have faith that our words would hold their power, and in many ways I think they did.

It was an honour to be involved in the event. The Paralympics are such an expression of human strength; individuals rising through and above such tangling challenges. Furthermore, Philip and I had worked so very closely for so long with the British Druid Order, it felt like a wonderful gift to that magical relationship, and I am grateful for that. I believe he is too.

Can you tell us a little about your writing process? Where do you write, do you enjoy writing, and how organised are you?

I love writing. Words fill me with delight and wonder, in the same way that others are delighted by little children or butterflies. As an animist, I perceive words as creatures: spirits, patterns within nature, coherences within the whole that have evolved over time, that arrive in moments then slip away, leaving the world quite changed. As powerful creatures with the power to affect relationships, they need to be respected. I write in part to play with words, as we might blow bubbles on a summer’s day, or splash paint upon a canvas, but far more importantly I write to explore the bridges of communication. Not all of my words are set down, or offered as communication to other human beings. If not, they are still part of the experience of communication, as I converse with the gods, my ancestors, the spirits of the landscape around me.

When I am writing a book, I tend to write for an hour or two a day, often on a laptop, on the sofa, on my bed, or outside; seldom at a desk. I have prepared the structure of the book carefully in advance, and sketched the structure of each chapter in a dozen lines or so – then I write. I may sit for twenty minutes, finding a word or sentence, but I don’t edit much. Once a book is finished, I might rewrite the first few thousand words, bringing it in line with the character of the completed text, but otherwise I don’t edit. I’ll give it to a few key readers, and take note of their suggestions. Usually there are sentences that sound archaic which I bring into modern English.

I wholly detest the marketing process. When I worked as a Druid I did book tours and lectures, TV and radio. Now I tend to hand a book over to the publisher and let them do what they wish. The occasional talk or interview is all I concede to. Once a book is done, my soul moves on fairly quickly, immersing myself in the next project.

In your article This Much I Know for The Guardian, you mentioned that Asterix first sparked your interest in Druidry as a child. Do you still look back on Asterix with fondness? Do you think the things that fascinate us as children often shape what we pursue as adults?

I still love the Asterix books. My brother was given them as a child and we’d sit and read them together for hours on end, not just in English – I’m quite sure we had versions in French, Spanish, Latin. As a child, I was fascinated by the Getafix/Panoramix character. As for how much childhood heroes shape us, I would guess that would depend on the individual and their hero. For myself, I was not strong physically as a child and I loved to read about this funny old man who kept the whole Roman Empire at bay with nothing more than, what seemed to me to be, soup. I can make a pretty good soup…

In the write-up for your book Kissing the Hag, it says that it brings us face to face with the raw elements of womankind, and ‘all that makes [women] unacceptable and badly behaved.’ Do you consider yourself badly behaved, and has writing this book changed your own relationship with the Hag?

Badly behaved? - not any more. I was an angry soul through my teens and into my twenties, dealing with physical pain, but the study of nature that is at the heart of Druidic practice includes human nature, our own nature. I find it almost impossible to behave badly now, when I have the slightest inkling that it may be so. I tend to freeze until I can reconfigure my perspective. As human beings, the emotional and instinctive drives can be so powerful, it is a task to learn what these are, how they rise within us and propel us into action, and how not to allow ourselves to be flooded, behaving badly as a result. Emotion should be a guide, another source of information, not a decision-maker. I think most bad behaviour is based on emotionally-fuelled reaction.

Unacceptable is another matter, though. In terms of social conventions, there are still a good many elements of my life that are unacceptable. In many ways the book, Kissing the Hag, is about understanding the distinctions between social rules, human woman nature, honourable interaction and disrespectful actions. The lines can be fine at times.

Of all the ancient places you have visited, do you have a favourite?

The places that inspire me most are those where human impact is minimal or absent. Being in the Amazon rainforest, with untouched forest for many hundreds of miles in every direction, was a formative experience. Of human-made ancient places, as I pause to consider an answer, dozens of images and memories slip into my conscious mind, of many places across Britain: chanting in trance through the night at West Kennett Long Barrow, at Stonehenge, at Rollright, at standing stones in Dartmoor, glorious moments, and so many of them. Then there are places rich with history where I have spent time around the world, ancient Shinto shrines in Japan, Mayan temples in Guatemala. I have no favourite, just a fat pocketful of memories.

What is the strangest thing that has ever happened to you during a ritual? (That you are willing to share).

Your parenthesis helps me answer, because most ritual is private and to share stories would be to break confidences. Having said that, the elements of ritual that I have most enjoyed for the unexpected have mainly been moments of divine presence. I’m sure most of your readers will have experience of ritual where gods are invoked, and nothing happens. In most open ritual the prayers are of appreciation not invitation, and there are many whose prayers of invitation are never answered.

I recall being at Stonehenge at a Christian Pagan Druid ceremony. I had brought with me two friends, a Druid who worked with the dark gods of the Welsh tradition, and an evangelical Christian. It was delicious to feel their invocations, both empowered by utter devotion and sincerity. To stand in that old temple with Yahweh and Ceridwen was rather cool. Not so cool was the conference, the organisers of which I will not disclose, where a roomful of people were asked to invoke their own particular deities to bless some aspect of the event. Most people called out their liturgy, then sat down in ignorance, but some invoked their gods effectively as if it were an almighty contest of strength. The room was suddenly seething with gods of every era and pantheon, most of whom had no desire for peace. I left, along with a fair few others.

The strangest, however, was perhaps a public rite held in the middle of a large English city. I had been asked to create an opening rite for an event that was to showcase different kinds of Paganism. Not knowing many in the crowd, I was guided by locals, and found four different groups, each of whom would honour a cardinal direction. I don’t recall the details, but I seem to remember that there were fairly traditional Wiccans to honour the west, sturdy great Asatru to honour the north, a shamanic band in feathers and fur to honour the south, and in the east a group who followed Star Trek. I shrugged and agreed, keen not to offend the locals. There were a few hundred at the rite, and there was an awkward moment when the police, who were roaming the perimeter, were somewhat unsettled by the well-armed Heathens assuring their gods of their commitment to feasting and fornicating. What unsettled me, though, were the Trekkies. They made their prayers in Klingon, and they had more of a magical vibrational response that any of the others. I might emphasise that I had requested no one invoke anything, but simply honour with appreciation. I don’t know what these silver-painted folk said, but they called upon something, and that something arrived.

There are so many stories, and many are far more strange than amusing. There was drumming up power at a concrete Stonehenge replica on the Columbia River gorge in Washington, there was an event with Brian Blessed and a helicopter, there was Blackpool - but the Klingon always makes me smile.

Are you still involved in organising festivals? Have you noticed any difference in the types of people attending over the years, or has the community stayed fairly steady?

No, I no longer organise festivals, nor do I attend many. My journey has taken me from those huge people-full gatherings to quieter paths of service. However, from what I have attended, and news I hear from others, it seems a key difference is that there were many more youngsters in years gone by. It seems that those who were young have grown and remained faithful, but there is no longer such an inflow of new youth coming into the traditions as there was. Where are they? Playing make-believe on the internet, perhaps. I think the truth is that most come into spiritual and religious traditions for the community, not the mystery. The mystery requires hard work, commitment, devotion, and that means the ordinary things of life are set aside. Few are willing or able to make the necessary sacrifices. The majority who came to gatherings, festivals, public rituals and gorseddau, came to be with other like-minded souls, to share all the fun of the fair within a magical Pagan context – they didn’t come for the intense ecstasy of mind-blowing communion with the gods. Young folk now get their community online, and those that want it can find the magical element in games written with those realities. Who knows, perhaps the would-be priests amongst them are finding their divine encounters in digital ways that I am not versed in.

No doubt, when this younger generation are in their fifties and sixties, they will be wondering what on earth their children are doing...

In the Philosophy section of your website, you talk about ‘wakeful respect without prejudice or assumption.’ Are you particularly engaged with politics in Britain at the moment? Do you have any thoughts on the current climate which seems to favour disrespect and prejudice towards others? Is this a storm we will weather, or a sign of something deeper and harder to remedy?

Politics is a fascinating aspect of human nature, of human culture. Politics entered into my awareness in the mid 1970s, having been brought up in fascist Spain, coming to England as punk exploded, developing a strong socialist belief, which in turn has gently fragmented into a co-operative anarchism. What troubles me most is bullying. It seems to me that there is a tide rising once again. The US has just voted in a capitalist thug as president, Russia is led by another capitalist bully. Such thugs run pharmaceutical, energy, media, financial and other vast corporations. Broad human society is captivated by its various screens. People witness such bullying in factual and fictional stories, day by day in a thousand contexts: in the news, on social media, in movies and TV shows. It becomes increasingly more normal to bully. It becomes easier to bully. It becomes common. It becomes OK. And it becomes OK for the victim to respond by becoming the bully themselves.

The question is, how should one face a bully? How can we honourably respond to someone who expresses their own fears and a consequent need for power by stirring up fear, anger and hatred in others? How can we communicate with someone unwilling to listen or reason? It is often easier to give in, just adapt, bruised and disempowered but still alive. The reasoned path of peaceful resistance can be far harder.

We know that Asterix was a big influence as a child, but what have been the three most important books, or authors, in your adult life?

It is not possible to choose three. I can give you a scattered list of books that come to mind. Books that I have most loved and valued through my life:

Ethics by Spinoza

Ethics by Peter Singer

Walden by Thoreau

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Tao te Ching by Lao Tzu

Confessions by St Augustine

Anarchism by Peter Kropotkin

Not to mention Kant, Schopenhauer, Seneca, Chomsky, Bergson, David Abram, Whitehead, Mary Midgely, the poetry of Yeats, Emily Bronte and Wordsworth.

If you had a magic pen capable of forming your lost thoughts into a story, what would you like to write about that you haven’t already?

Death.

Could you tell us a bit about Honouring the Ancient Dead?

HAD is an organisation that asserts a very clear and simple perspective: that there should be no difference in the way we treat someone who has died whom we have personally known and loved, and someone who died many years ago. Whether a Saxon skull exhumed in a road development, a medieval king searched and found, a body preserved in peat, a box of bones found in a collector’s attic, an ancient thigh bone or urn of ashes, a soldier from 20th century Ypres or 14th century Crecy, whether the individual’s name is known or not, each and every ancestor is no less a person than our own mother, spouse or child. We should treat each with no less respect than we would treat the body and bones of our immediate family, of those we ourselves dearly love. For HAD, that means allowing each person to be laid to rest in peace, and remain at peace.

There are hundreds of thousands of ‘human remains’ in museums and other organisations, boxes of bones with no associated information, bones on display as if they were simply sherds of pottery, skeletons manipulated into poses for gory exhibitions, bones held in store for scientific research for which no funding is ever likely to be found. Of course, there are some who simply don’t care, whose metaphysical standpoint is such that they would be happy for this to happen to someone they love most profoundly. HAD’s remit is not to judge or attack others people's beliefs, but to work for those whose values and interests in the dead accord with its own. From that position, it calls for consultation about ancestors when decisions need to be made. It gives guidance where asked to those whose path brings them into contact with ancestors. It creates best practice guidelines for reburial, for display, for the housing of ancestral bones, and it has what we believe is the most comprehensive current list of ancestors in museums across Britain. Like many charities, its aims far exceed its funding and capacity, but it tries!

What are you working on at the moment?

My day to day work is the creation of a nature reserve and natural burial ground. Like many whose work is with nature, it’s a full-time job, seven days a week, all year through. As a writer, I have spent a year documenting the natural history of the nature reserve; a gentle book of daily observations that will be published online with photographs in time. My hope is that it will be a book that inspires others to notice the moments of beauty, and do more to care for this precious planet.

My next writing adventure, however, is one I’ve been thinking about for some time. A book that follows on from my Pagan ethics, Living With Honour, and my animist metaphysics, The Wakeful World. It explores the politics of human society and religion, how decisions are made and societies formed. Essentially, it is a book about god and anarchy from an animist perspective. However, at the moment, the call of silence is often far stronger, so it may take some time.

New Year Reflections

2017-01-13T19:00:00.000+00:00

After posting a link to a New Year autobiography exercise, we invited PWC members to share their own reminiscences of 2016. River Mourningstar answered that call.

And Then, She Stepped Off of the Edge

It was high summer, last year, when my life took a ninety degree turn and I, not expecting it, stepped gleefully over the edge of the sheer cliff face and into free fall. His easy manner and kind eyes tripped me up in the most beautiful manner and I found myself having to trust my all too broken wings.

We had been friends for some time, years. We enjoyed each other’s company tremendously, but life never allowed us to have time alone, until that point. He believes in being a gentleman. He believes life is to be explored. He believes the unknown should become the known. He believes to be fully human is to live fully. He believes that he is not human, but other.

The two of us, coming together, two halves of a whole, yet complete unto ourselves created ripples in the aether. Without a word spoken, we know what the other needs. Without a painful word, we know what the other thinks. We came together last summer, two children of the night, recognizing in the other that kindred spirit.

Our hearts had been shattered by others. Our souls splintered and afraid of what was to come. Our bad days outnumbered our good days. Our lives were full of people, yet we stood on the periphery, watching, listening. Individually, we stood and looked at those we loved and admired and we looked at those who loved and admired us. We couldn’t understand why. We couldn’t understand why they loved us, why they insisted upon being in our company. As individuals, we could see and feel just how different we were from them, but we wanted to belong. We wanted the friendship. We wanted the camaraderie. We wanted to be seen and appreciated for who and what we were.

It wasn’t until our coming together did we understand that what makes us different also makes us a beacon for others. It wasn’t until our coming together did we understand that we do not, necessarily, need those around us, at least no in the same way that they seem to need us.

Our romance was whirlwind. In two months, we spent nearly every spare moment together. We gave to each other the things we knew, instinctively, the other needed. He brought me gifts unlike any I’d ever received: incense, robes, a sword. I gifted him body jewelry and (my pride as a southern woman) hearty, home cooked meals. We shared knowledge we had gained on our individual spiritual paths. We opened up latent gifts within each other.

As children of the night, we peered curiously into each others abyss. We gazed into that darkness, always the same, yet different, and embraced it. We looked into each others oft tortured souls and acknowledged the pain and hurt there, soothed it with the balm we each so terribly needed. Without judgment, we opened ourselves to each other.

In another month, we began planning a wedding. A month after that, we wed. In less than six months time we realized that each other was what our life had been missing.

Becoming the Sacred Fool, stepping over the edge of the cliff, has opened a great many doors. The only trouble now has become deciding which door to walk through. No matter the shadows, no matter the light, no matter the obstacle, we work as a team. Life is not easy by any means, but it is easier because we work together.

I let my demons out to play with his and they began a dark and macabre dance. He and I reveled in their joy. We reveled in their happiness. We reveled in their bloodletting. We still do. We stand in awe of each other, flanked by our demons, accepting each other for who we are. Oh, we still butt heads. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t. Yet, when our demons decide to not play nicely together, we manage to find a way to tame them.

The last year of my life, 2016, did not even begin until June. My own eyes were closed to life and living until that moment. It was only when my darkness touched a kindred dark did I begin to see. When I began to see became the moment I began to live again. It took another child of the night to remind me that sometimes we must waltz with the shadows to be fully awake.

River Mourningstar is a writer, wife, and Priestess of the Craft, among other things. She has been writing most of her life because the people in her head just won't shut up. She tends to be a jack of all trades, prankster, and a mystery to those who meet her. She lives in the Midwestern US with her husband, cat, and an aquarium of aquatic oddities. You can find her on her blogs Waltzing with Shadows and Ramblings of a Confused Muse, and on Facebook.

Q&A Juliet Marillier

2016-07-25T14:24:00.000+01:00

Juliet Marillier is a multi-award winning author of historical and folkloric fantasy. She lives in New Zealand and has travelled extensively in pursuit of a good story. Juliet is also a member of The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. You can find her via her website (which includes her blog) and on Facebook.

We are so excited to be interviewing Juliet Marillier today.

Thank you to all the PWC members who sent in questions, we've tried to get through them all. We've also got a sneak preview of the cover for Juliet's latest novel, Den of Wolves, out later this year. We've included it at the end of the interview.

Hi Juliet. One of our members cited you as the influence behind her own story, The Enchanted Swans, due out later this year. Christy wanted to ask what first inspired you to novelize fairy tales?

I didn’t make a conscious decision to do so. When I was writing my first novel, mainly as therapy after a particularly challenging period in my life, I was drawn to the fairy tale of The Six Swans – one of my favourites from childhood, and a story with a strong woman at its heart. The theme was particularly relevant for me at that time. I asked myself what would happen if the devastating events of that story – the brothers changed into swans, and their sister set a terrible task to win them back their human form – happened to a real life family. Who would stand strong? Who would fall apart? How would the experience change them?

I have loved traditional stories all my life, from the time before I could read, when my parents read to me or told me made up stories. Myths and legends, folklore and fairy tales contain deep wisdom. Many of them were first told around the fire at night to make sense of the world’s challenges and to give people heart. The lessons in them are still relevant today – they teach us about love and loyalty, strength and courage, faith and honour. They teach us how to live our lives more wisely.

Out of my 19 novels, only four are built around particular fairy tales (Daughter of the Forest – The Six Swans; Wildwood Dancing – The Twelve Dancing Princesses/The Frog Prince; Heart’s Blood – Beauty and the Beast, and more recently Dreamer’s Pool, which owes quite a bit to The Goose Girl.) I do include uncanny elements in all the books, though, even the more historically-based stories, and there are many folkloric or fairy tale motifs and ideas in them.

I’ve also written two shorter stories based on fairy tales: the award-winning By Bone-Light, a modern take on Vasilissa the Fair, and a novella called Beautiful, an unusual version of East of the Sun and West of the Moon, which will be published later this year.

You do it so well, do you have any hints on your creative process?

My background as a musician helps. I studied music to honours level at university and worked for quite a long time as a singing teacher and choral conductor as well as being a composer. Alongside my love of traditional storytelling, that background has helped me develop a particular rhythm and flow in my writing. In terms of process, I plan everything out in advance, initial idea and research first, then an outline, a synopsis, probably a chapter plan before I begin actually writing the book. I keep on editing the previous parts of the manuscript while writing the later parts, so it gets a lot of polishing and refining along the way. I don’t do a series of complete drafts, it’s more like one continuous draft over many months.

That may sound quite rigid, but of course rules can be broken and plans can be changed in the interests of better storytelling. It usually takes me a year from initial idea to finished polished manuscript. Writing is my full time day job, though I also look after five needy dogs, all rescues, and they gobble up both time and emotional energy. But I love them!

You are a member of The Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. Can you tell us a bit about your path to joining, and what part your spirituality plays in your writing?

When I was writing my first novel, Daughter of the Forest, set in early medieval Ireland, I needed to include a druid character. I started researching ancient druidry, rather a challenge since it was strictly an oral tradition and extremely secret, so there are no reliable historical records. It happened that Philip Carr-Gomm, chief of OBOD, was visiting Australia at that time. I attended a talk he gave in which I found out about modern druidry and the wealth of lore and knowledge available on both contemporary and ancient druidic practices. I was delighted to find a spiritual path that chimed with so many of my existing beliefs. I completed two grades of the OBOD correspondence course and I am still learning – it’s a lifelong path.

My spiritual beliefs influence my writing strongly. I don’t mean writing about druid characters and druid ritual, though I have done that a few times. It’s a more general thing. The underlying values of my spiritual path are likely to permeate everything I write. Three beliefs are particularly important to me: that storytelling has a great power to teach and to heal; that god, goddess or spirit is not set above us, but resides within all living things and links them together; and that we need to live the life we have as wisely and well as we can, rather than dwell on what might come afterwards. I never hammer home moral lessons in my stories, and I’m happy if people read them solely for entertainment. But there are some deep-down values and some wisdom there for readers who choose to look for them.

There are six series to your name. Do you always know how many books will be in a series? Do you plan it out beforehand, or do you only know how many books there will be once they're written?

These days I submit a proposal to a publisher, not a finished book or series. That is, I sign a contract before I write the series. So I do have to know in advance how many books there will be, and have at least a rough plan for each one. The exception was the Sevenwaters series, originally intended to be a trilogy. I was asked by a publisher to write three follow-up novels, so it became a six book series.

Do you find it hard to close a series and let go of the characters?

Yes, it can be very hard to say goodbye to characters I love. For me, the characters live on after the end of the series.

Do you have a favourite childhood fairy tale or folk character?

Lots! These days I would choose Baba Yaga, the fearsome old woman who lives in the forest in a hut on hen’s legs, and who possesses the gift of fire. As a child I might have chosen a strong young woman from a fairy tale, either the girl in The Six Swans or the brave young wife in East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Admirable role models!

Which authors do you admire? Who helped to shape and inspire you?

Without a doubt, what shaped and inspired me as a writer was traditional stories: fairy tales, folklore, myths and legends. I admire many authors across a wide range of genres and styles. I love accomplished writing that pushes the boundaries but I also love great storytelling, so my favourite writers tend to be those who combine the two. For historical fiction I really admire the late Dorothy Dunnett. I re-read Dorothy L Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels every year, and also Daphne du Maurier’s Cornish novels. All those writers are great stylists. As a young reader I adored Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. That novel helped give me my romantic streak.

You have travelled a lot in pursuit of research for your books. Is there anywhere you haven't been that you still want to explore? Is there anywhere you would like to return to? And please could you tell us a bit about Transylvania and Wildwood Dancing?

Yes, I’ve been very fortunate in being able to travel quite widely for research purposes, thanks to the kind readers who buy my books and allow me to earn my living as a writer. There are plenty of places I haven’t visited and would love to see, for instance Brittany, Cornwall, Russia, South America. It’s becoming harder to get away now that I have so many dogs! I would love to return to Orkney, where my Viking novel Wolfskin is set, and indeed I am intending to do so in mid-2017 for a writers’ retreat. I’ve visited Orkney three times before and it remains one of my favourite places for all sorts of reasons.

My visit to Transylvania was memorable! Most of my novels are set in my own ancestral territory – Scotland and Ireland – and writing a story set in such a different culture was challenging. I was lucky enough to find a Romanian guide who was a history buff and very ready to take me to out-of-the-way places in search of what I needed for the book. With a regular guide, I might have ended up just doing the well-trodden ‘vampire tourism’ route; and on my own I would have struggled with the language, not to speak of the driving.

The landscape and historic buildings in Transylvania are stunningly beautiful and full of character. We stayed in local B&Bs. People were not very keen to talk about folk traditions – I would have had to stay much longer and win trust to bring that sort of information out. Rural Romania was a place of stark contrasts: we’d be travelling past flower-dotted fields where workers were cutting hay with scythes, and right next to them there would be a huge derelict factory, stark evidence of the mismanagement of the Ceausescu era.

I did use a lot of what I learned on that trip in writing Wildwood Dancing. And I’m sure I still built many errors into the book! It’s a fairy tale story rather than a historical novel. I hope I conveyed a general flavour of the Transylvanian setting, at least. And then, of course, it was off to Turkey for the sequel, Cybele’s Secret.

You have won multiple awards for your writing. Is there one that is especially memorable or dear to you?

I appreciate them all! The Prix Imaginales deserves a special mention. This award is for best fantasy novel in French translation – I won it for Soeur des Cygnes, which was the French title for Daughter of the Forest. The memorable part was the trophy: a large, bright red statuette of Puss in Boots. Puss is too big for the trophy shelf so he lives on top of a bookcase. Most dear to me: a tie between my first major award, an Aurealis for Son of the Shadows, and my only short fiction award, another Aurealis for By Bone-Light, my contemporary version of the fairy tale Vasilissa the Fair.

How different do you find it writing short stories to novels?

Each has its own difficulties. With short fiction you need to refine and refine again, pare the writing down to the perfect words, the perfect turn of phrase, the most economical, effective and powerful way of telling your story. I find writing short fiction rewarding but difficult, and I am very slow at it. Novels come more easily to me, even though they still take a while to write! But some writers find it hard to create a workable structure and to maintain focus in a longer work.

We recently interviewed the co-founder of #FolkloreThursday, to ask about the success of their hashtag on global folklore. Over the time that you have been writing fantasy and historical fantasy, do you feel there has been a resurgence in reader interest in folklore and fairy tales? Did it ever go away?

I don’t think it ever went away completely, but I agree there’s been a recent resurgence in writing based on fairy tales in particular. It shows up in novels and short fiction, as well as in movies and television series such as Once Upon a Time.

Have the marketplace and reader interests changed much since your first book was published?

The marketplace has certainly changed in the 16 or so years since I wrote Daughter of the Forest. The publishing business was hit badly by the global economic downturn; publishers had to rethink how they functioned with the rise of the e-book; and then there was the proliferation of self-published work that digital publishing made possible. As a result, publishers are far less ready to take risks and writers have to do far more of their own publicity and marketing, with a lot less support than before. There’s a trend currently toward a darker, grittier kind of fantasy, exemplified by writers like Joe Abercrombie. The fantasy genre is very broad, though; there’s room for romantic historical fantasy alongside hip urban fantasy alongside so-called ‘grimdark’.

Is the feeling different getting your twentieth book published to getting your very first book published?

It is still exciting when a new book comes out, especially if it has a beautiful cover like the ones Arantza Sestayo has done for the Blackthorn & Grim series. But nothing beats seeing your very first book out there on the bookshop shelves.

How much say do you get on the cover design for your books?

It ranges from zero to quite a lot! With some of the foreign language editions I didn’t even get to see the cover art until the book was published, and there were some highly inappropriate covers as a result. Over the years my US publishers in particular have commissioned some beautiful covers by distinguished illustrators such as Kinuko Y Craft, John Jude Palencar, and more recently Arantza Sestayo, and I count myself very lucky in that.

How do you feel about your earlier works now that you have written so many? Do you ever wish you could go back and change anything?

There are certainly many things I would change if I were writing some of those books now – in particular, I’d fix the errors I made with the history in my earliest books, back in the days when it never occurred to me that readers would expect historical accuracy in a story that was full of magical transformations and Otherworld beings. And I would pare the wordage down in some of the longer books to improve the pacing. Only, of course, I wouldn’t actually do it because I’d much rather write new stories, not revisit the old ones. I hope I keep on learning from my errors.

If a black hole opened up in the middle of the room and you only had time to save three books from your bookshelf, which three would they be and why?

What a terrible question! It would have to be the books I couldn’t replace: my mother’s edition of The Golden Staircase (an anthology of classic poetry with colour plates, published in the early 1900s); her edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales; and her hand-written diary.

What are you working on now, and what can we look forward to in the near future?

Den of Wolves, book 3 of the Blackthorn & Grim series, comes out in September here in Australia, and in November in the USA. Look for my novella, Beautiful, later this year in an anthology called Aurum, from Ticonderoga Publications. And I’m currently writing a proposal for a new adult fantasy series, but as my agent hasn’t seen it yet, I can’t give you any further details.

Anyone interested in finding out more could keep an eye on my blog, where I will post news when I have it.

Q&A Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft and Magic

2016-06-02T16:59:00.000+01:00

We are really lucky to welcome Judith Hewitt, Co-manager at Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, here to answer questions posed by PWC members. You can find out more about the museum via their website and blog. They are also on Twitter and Facebook, and have a Friends Of site.

Hello Judith. Thank you so much for taking time out from running the museum to come and talk to us about its artefacts.

Perhaps we could kick off with a little history? How did the museum begin?

The Museum was founded in 1951 by Cecil Williamson. He had been interested in witchcraft from childhood and collected many items during his travels. He also took in items which people didn’t want as they saw them as taboo or cursed. Cecil was a practising witch and when he died the Museum inherited much of his personal collection.

The Museum moved around a great deal in the early days. Early locations included Bourton on the Water, Windsor and the Isle of Man. For a time, Gerald Gardner was the “resident witch” at the Museum but Gardner and Cecil differed on many issues and the two men went their separate ways. Cecil brought his collection to Boscastle and opened the Museum here in 1960.

What is the oldest item in the collection?

The oldest object in the collection is probably Harriet the skull. This tarred human head was kept in a box. Recent research suggests it is a mummy from Ancient Egypt.

And the newest?

The newest items in the collection would be the objects we collected for the Halloween exhibition which is running for 2016. The newest of all are probably the sweets in our Halloween food section.

Is there an item you don't have at the museum that you would really like to add?

So many things but we have so little space! The collection is always growing due to donations and acquisitions. In the near future, we will try to acquire a toadstone ring. We would also like to collect more written charms. We would like to expand our ritual magic collection to include some older examples – something owned by John Dee would be amazing!

Have any strange things happened at the museum? Is it haunted?

I have worked here for over two years and I can’t say I’ve ever experienced anything but we are always hearing accounts from people who have seen or felt things in the Museum. One lady said she felt like she was being pinched, another described experiencing a strong headache, other people have said they have seen a woman wearing a long dress. In the early days, the Museum housed an entire human skeleton which was known as Joan Wytte. This has now been buried as it made many people feel uncomfortable, the owner at that time was convinced that Joan was unhappy on display in the Museum and that she was making her unhappiness felt in various ways.

Why are people still so fascinated by witchcraft?

To many people witchcraft means mystery, it intrigues them and they don’t know why. We don’t really want to take that away and think an element of mystery and the unknown is an important part of the Museum’s identity. The appeal of Witchcraft as a religion is probably easier to explain as it is so unlike other world religions. It is rooted in the natural world and the seasons, it has a place for a female deity, it is non dogmatic and enables people to connect with the ancient world and their ancestors. Many people like the Museum because they find it “dark” and seemingly timeless and they find the modern world too “light” and technological or transient.

Boscastle was flooded in 2004. Do you still worry about that? How do you protect the displays?

We do worry about it sometimes when the rain is really heavy or the tide is really high but Boscastle now has first rate flood defences which seem to be protecting us - touch wood! On the ground floor, none of the displays touch the ground so if there were a minor flooding, they wouldn’t be affected. We have flood boards and sand bags just in case! We also have a comprehensive insurance policy and an emergency plan with a “pick list” of objects to save if the worst came to the worst. Ultimately, we can’t eliminate the risk of flooding in our current location but we have no plans to move so we have to make the best of it!

What have been the biggest changes to the museum over the years?

Since its move to Boscastle in 1960, the Museum has had three owners. I think the change of ownership and the different styles and approaches of the different owners has probably been the biggest change. Cecil Williamson was the first owner and his displays were based on his relationships with local witches and also his experiences in the film industry. Some of his displays were deliberately intended to shock and confirm rather than challenge visitor stereotypes of witches. When Graham King took over the Museum in 1996 he wanted to make it more of a centre for Paganism and a site of pilgrimage for practising witches so the tone of the Museum changed a great deal. Graham also introduced more museological standards such as the online catalogue. In 2013, Simon Costin took over the Directorship of the Museum and there have been many changes in the look and feel of the displays. The Museum is bigger than any one person, some people view change with trepidation but change is a sign of life and the Museum is definitely thriving!

Do you get any strange feedback from visitors?

Yes, people are very interested in telling you anything odd that has ever happened to them. Most people react very positively to the Museum and go away impressed with the collection and happy to have visited. One lady told me a long story once about a child who levitated and whose mother was persecuted by the police and accused of abuse because of her child’s paranormal behaviour. We also get sent things people don’t want in their house any more and receive letters from people who feel themselves to be cursed. We really are much more than just a Museum.

Are there any books you'd recommend for people interested in the history of witchcraft?

Yes, lots. If people are interested, they are very welcome to make an appointment to visit the Museum library or search its contents online for book ideas.

I would recommend:

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic
James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness
Owen Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 1736-1951

Are there any books you'd recommend for people interested in modern witchcraft?

If you’re interested in the history of modern witchcraft try Ronald Hutton, Triumph of the Moon. If you’re more interested in practice and an “inside view” then Gemma Gary’s Traditional Witchcraft or Levannah Morgan’s A Witch’s Mirror are both great. A personal favourite which gives an overview of all aspects of magic, sacred sites and folklore is Cheryl Straffon’s Between the Realms which focuses on Cornwall.

Do your curators feel a particular attachment to any of the displays? Do they have favourites?

Yes, definitely. Peter particularly likes the corn dollies which are deeply embedded in the British magical tradition as symbols of fertility, life and death, and goddess worship – latterly they have been made by witches in the 21st century. Simon likes the Richel Collection a great deal, although I don’t know if this is his favourite. The Horned God section also resonates strongly with him. My favourite object is a stone altar which was used by witches on Dartmoor. It is small and made to be portable. It is made from three different types of stone found on Dartmoor. They used to burn a fire in front of it and drink their own brewed mead on the moors at night while they communed with the spirit world. It is so simple, beautiful and timeless, to me it represents the essence of witchcraft in the West Country.

Do you get many international visitors? Are there similarities between witchcraft in the UK and in other countries?

We get a lot of international visitors and also international researchers and film crews. People are always pointing out similarities between customs and rituals in Britain and in their part of the world. Many of the objects in the collection are from far flung places and we are always delighted to know more about them. Last year, a visitor from Israel identified some Hebrew words which were written on an object. We are always learning more about the collection.

If you could meet any witch from history, who would it be and what would you ask them?

Tough question! I think it would have to be Joan of Arc. She is now a saint but she was burned as a witch. She seemed to have such power and charisma, she was so young and so different to other women at that time. I don’t know what I would ask her - I would just like to meet her and see what she was like. Maybe I would ask her if she really could perform miracles? Or how she feels about being considered a saint now?

What do you think the future of witchcraft will be? What might you be adding to the display in twenty or thirty years time?

That is an impossible question to answer, I predict that witchcraft will always be unpredictable! Whatever happens we hope to represent the changes and continuities in an engaging and accurate way.

In terms of collecting, I predict big things for the Museum. Simon Costin, the new director, has already added some diverse yet hugely significant objects: from an original Goya etching to ritual artefacts from the Order of Artemis. We also welcome donations from practitioners as the Museum will sympathetically interpret and care for items and preserve them for future generations to understand.

How can people get involved and support the museum?

The best thing is to simply visit us as we rely on visitors to keep us open and the bills paid. You can also join our Friends organisation which is a charity and these membership fees help to pay for new cabinets, conservation of objects and so on. If you are local or have time to spare you can also offer your time – just recently we have had a group of volunteers photographing the collection, another helping us to clean the museum and collections in the off-season, another doing some cataloguing – there is always lots to do!

Q&A Folklore Thursday

2016-05-05T11:09:00.000+01:00

If you're on Twitter, you can't help but notice the hashtag #FolkloreThursday (@FolkloreThurs). It's become something of a phenomenon, even attracting BBC attention. There's now an accompanying website, helping to bring together folklore from around the world. This week, Dee Dee Chainey (@DeeDeeChainey), one of the founding members of #FolkloreThursday, dropped by to answer some questions.

Hi Dee Dee, thanks for joining us. Thursdays are perhaps our favourite day of the week since #FolkloreThursday took off.

For those who don't know, please could you tell us what #FolkloreThursday is and how it came about?

#FolkloreThursday is a weekly hashtag day on Twitter where people can share all things folklore related! Willow and I had been chatting on Twitter for a while, and thought it would be really great if there was a place to go to find out all about folklore. We were already taking part in a lot of the hashtag days, and then the idea came to us that a hashtag day would be a great way to get people together talking about folklore! We planned it for a while, set a date for the launch, and it all went from there!

Why is folklore important in the modern age?

Great question – I really do think folklore is important! I think, in the past, it was a great way to convey social norms and expectations – as well as important lessons – from generation to generation. While many of our social rules today have changed to the ones we see in folklore, narrative folklore really does act as a system of archetypes that give a focus point for us all to reflect on the issues that do still affect us today, particularly through examining the symbols and memes many of us take for granted. Narrative, and other types of folklore, are a great way of connecting to a shared heritage, and an excellent way of learning about cultures: our own and other peoples, allowing us to negotiate ideas, not only about how we’re different, but about how we are all the same; the passing on of traditions and stories are intrinsically human, and something we can all come together to share.

What's been your favourite piece of folklore posted by a participant?

My absolute favourite? Well, that’s a difficult one! I do love ‘body parts’ folklore... so I suppose I have a particular penchant for the Hand of Glory: the ‘guilty’ hand of a hanged murderer that can be lit like a candle, and then be used for all kinds of mischief. Some sources say it will paralyse anyone who sees it, others that it will open a locked door.

Why did you decide to start a website?

We thought it would be great to have a place to gather a lot of the stuff shared on #FolkloreThursday, and have a ‘hub’ for the hashtag that everyone could come to throughout the week. A lot of people said they wished everyday was #FolkloreThursday. I suppose, with the website, it can be!

Does #FolkloreThursday predominantly focus on British folklore, or is it global?

It’s definitely a global thing. We have people from all over the world joining in each Thursday, and they share folklore from all over the place. We’d love to see more diverse folklore each week. We love seeing folklore from people and places we’ve never heard of before!

Have you noticed any similarities in folklore around the world?

Definitely! A lot of the stories shared have very similar themes and plots, particularly those from across Europe and Scandinavia. Some folklore that does stand out to me personally is some of the Japanese stuff, the Yōkai for example. It’s so unique... reading a Japanese folktale is like an adventure – you never know where it’s going to take you!

What's the scariest folklore monster so far?

Ooh, great question! I think I’d have to choose the Encantado from the South American folklore. Legend tells that they are spirits that take the form of dolphins from the Amazon River, then take on human form at night, leaving the waters to seduce unsuspecting human women. They sometimes kidnap humans, and can cause illness, or even death... creepy!

Do you have any theories on why #FolkloreThursday has become so incredibly popular? What is it about folklore that attracts people?

I think maybe it’s different for everyone. We see people using folklore in so many ways: academics, writers using it for inspiration, artists, people relating to it as part of their belief system, others engaging just for fun or escapism. I do wonder how much the interest might be in response to the increase in technology in our daily lives, and things like that. Historically, you do see people turn to the past, as well as to myth and story, for a sense of grounding and reassurance at times of political and social instability.

Personally, I think the current political climate and the trend towards globalisation might have something to do with the resurgence in story, but also with reconstituting a sense of identity and heritage for people. From a #FolkloreThursday perspective though, I would say we’re just pleased that people love it as much as we do, and we’re happy they’re engaging, whatever their motivations! We keep saying it, but we firmly believe that folklore belongs to everyone – it’s a treasure trove of information, and really quite magical at the same time – it’s a way of bringing wonder and awe back into everyday life, and it’s important to have that.

Is folklore in danger of dying out?

From what we’ve seen on the hashtag day, I’d definitely say no! It’s amazing how many things are going on around the world using folklore – from books, to films, theatre productions, as well as a host of local community projects working to get people excited about folklore! I think the popularity of folklore and legends must have risen over the last few years. I’m not sure whether books, films and TV shows like Harry Potter, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Song of the Sea, and the like, have led to the increased interest or have been made because producers realised it’s popular, but you can certainly see a definite trend. And people have responded to that. Folklore has become something that most people are aware of now, in varying degrees.

What are your hopes for the future of #FolkloreThursday?

At the moment we’re still working on getting the website filled with top-notch folklore articles. After that? Well, you’ll just have to stay tuned and wait and see...

How can people participate?

#FolkloreThursday runs every Thursday on Twitter, from 9am to 8pm British time (with a few short breaks in the middle!). To participate, people just need to post their tweet with the hashtag on the end: that means just type the hashtag symbol followed by the words ‘Folklore’ and ‘Thursday’ with no spaces. The tweet will appear in the hashtag feed publicly and everyone will be able to see your post if they’re following the hashtag!

We do have a detailed guide explaining how to get involved and what to post for #FolkloreThursday.

Guest Post: Rayne Hall - Writing About Love Spells

2016-04-11T22:25:00.000+01:00

Rayne Hall has published more than sixty books in several languages under several pen names with several publishers in several genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction.

She is the editor of the Ten Tales fantasy and horror anthologies (11 titles so far, including Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic, Seers: Ten Tales of Clairvoyance) and the author of the bestselling Writer’s Craft series (17 titles, including Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes and Writing About Magic)

After living in Germany, China, Mongolia and Nepal, Rayne has settled on the south coast of England in dilapidated seaside town of former Victorian grandeur. She enjoys gardening, reading and long walks along the sea front.

Rayne has worked as an investigative journalist, museum guide, apple picker, tarot reader, adult education teacher, belly dancer, magazine editor, publishing manager and more, and now writes full time. Her black cat Sulu – adopted from the rescue shelter - likes to snuggle between her arms while she writes, purring happily.

You can find Rayne’s books on Amazon. To find out about new releases, special offers and writing contests, subscribe to her Writer’s Craft newsletter. For writing and publishing tips, as well as cute photos of Sulu the book-loving cat, follow Rayne on Twitter.

Love spells make great fiction, full of secrets, conflict, drama and passion.

Your character can cast her own love spell, or she can seek professional help from a magician (from a witch, a ritual wizard, or other type of mage).

RITUALS

The most common ingredients used in the ritual are roses (often red or pink), something from each of the two people (usually a lock of hair, and in modern times, a photograph), red candles, a fruit (for example, an apple), a crystal (rose quartz is a favourite), herbs (such as dittany or balm of gilead), spices (especially cinnamon), red wine, and a ribbon (red or pink).

However, the ingredients vary between different types of magic. For example, an Enochian may use different ingredients from a Wiccan. Also, individual magicians have their own preferences. The actual ritual also differs.

Typically, the magician may cut the fruit in halves, insert the locks of hair, and tie the fruit back together with the pink ribbon. Or she may brew a love potion which involves red wine simmering in a cauldron with rose petals, herbs and cinnamon.

If both people are present, the magician may link their hands and tie them with a ribbon or scarf.

If only one person is present, the spell won't be complete until the second person has become involved, for example, by drinking the love potion.

CLIENTS

Most clients are besotted with someone who doesn't requite their feelings. They are convinced that this person is the one for them, that they're meant to be together, that they will not be fulfilled and happy until that person is theirs. They also believe that the love spell is in the best interest of that person, and that the relationship will be a happy one if only the person would return their love. They are desperate, can't bear the pain of their unrequited passion any longer, and are willing to pay almost any price for a love spell.

Other clients are lonely and looking for love. They want a spell to help them find a mate. These include teenagers whose self-esteem is low because they don't have a boyfriend, single women whose biological clock is ticking, and men who can't get a date.

On rare occasions, a couple may seek a magician's help to save their crumbling marriage.

In historical fiction, parents and politicians may resort to love spells to bring about an advantageous match, or to bring affection to an arranged marriage.

CONFLICTS

Most modern magicians consider it unethical to interfere with a person's free will. Although they will happily help the couple who wish to strengthen their bond, and the lonely heart in search of a mate, they will refuse to force a specific person's feelings.

However, not all magicians have the same qualms, and in earlier period, many made good money from love potions. Even today, many magicians advertise on the internet, promising to deliver one's heart's desire.

Some magicians compromise by creating spells which work only if there is already some affection between the couple. For example, the desired person must drink wine from the same cup as the client, immediately after he has drunk from it - something she wouldn't do if she hated him. An ancient Egyptian love spell required the man to anoint his member with a potion before having intercourse with the woman of his desire - and for that to work, she already had to fancy him quite bit.

Other magicians try to dissuade the client from focussing on a specific person. Instead, they recommend a general love spell, one which will help the client find a suitable mate.

For the strictly ethical magician, requests for love spells can lead to terrible dilemmas. Here are some ideas you may want to play with:

What if the client is suffering terrible pain from unrequited love, and the magician wants to ease his suffering? What if the desperate client is her own sister, her best friend, her son? What if turning down the request for a love spell causes a rift between them?
What if if the client won't take no for an answer? What if the client is the king, the chief inquisitor, or other powerful person? What if the client threatens to punish the magician for her refusal?
What if the client is rich and willing to pay a lot for a love spell? What if the magician desperately needs money to save her lover or to feed her starving child?
What if a ruthless magician agrees to waive his principles and grant the heroine the love spell she craves ... but only if she pays a terrible price for it?
What if the magician herself suffers from unrequited love? What if her ethics forbid her to manipulate someone's will, but she is convinced that it is for that person's own good? What if her need overrides her conscience?

CONSEQUENCES

Love spells interfering with someone's free will can lead to disaster. Here are some plot ideas:

What if the love spell works at first, but wears off after the wedding? What if the person finds out that their spouse had trapped them with a love spell?
What if the two people love each other, but their relationship is desperately unhappy - and they can't get out of it? What if they blame the magician for their misery?
What if the client loses interest and wants to end the relationship - but the other person is still obsessively in love and won't let them go? What if that person stalks the client for the rest of his life?
What if the client regrets his action, and wants to undo the love spell - and it can't be reversed?
What if a paedophile uses love potions to seduce minors? What if a serial killer applies magic to lure victims to their doom?
What if a fortune hunter tries to trick an heiress into drinking the love potion? What if she's been alerted to his intentions, and has to be constantly vigilant to thwart him?
What if the family hires a bodyguard or detective to protect their heiress daughter from love spell assaults?
What if the victim's family find out that the girl has been the victim of a love spell, and try to save her? What if they make great sacrifices to enable the spell to be undone - but she doesn't want to be saved?
What if the heroine discovers that her best friend's intended is a ruthless man who forced her feelings with a love potion - and the friend refuses to believe it? What if the victim of the love spell is a man whom the heroine has secretly loved all her life, and now another woman has ensnared him with magic?

The fiction potential of love spells is endless. I hope this article has inspired your creativity.

Will you write about a love spell? Or have you already written about one? Have you read any exciting books involving love spells? Leave a comment, and I’ll reply.

Four Little Witches Book Trailer

2015-09-22T11:46:00.000+01:00

Post a link to your favourite Pagan children's book below.

Poem: She is My God

2015-09-14T20:06:00.002+01:00

My religion is found in love.
My church rests peacefully under this fig tree.
My rituals are found in the change of the winds, the phases of the moon, the rise of the tides, and the whispers of night.
My prayers are sent to the sun, and my priests are amongst the branches of this old tree.
I confess to the roots, and they lend me their wisdom.
My strength is found flowing from sacred springs of living water.
My hymns are in the song lines of this beautiful earth.
My communion is found in my lovers embrace.
My Bible is written neatly within the constellations.
My soul finds peace in the rhythms of nature- she is my God.

Brooke Hampton is the guardian of three wild and wonderful little earth warriors. She is a defender of light, Mother Nature, unconditional love, magic and beauty. Author of the Waldorf-inspired children's book Enchanted Cedar: The Journey Home. She considers herself an earth warrior, living food lover, organic gardener, wolf mama, wild water huntress, plant Goddess, love's mistress, book reader, home apothecary/kitchen witch, tea addict, love-maker, naked moon dancer, sun gazer, herbalist, barefoot mama. If you would like to get to know her better, you can visit her cyber-tribe online or on Instagram.

TNA Logo Competition - Book Prizes

2015-06-02T13:12:00.000+01:00

We've had a request from The Northern Antiquarian for help designing a logo.

The Northern Antiquarian (TNA) is an educational nonprofit organisation which engages people of all social backgrounds on the rich diversity of prehistoric and early Christian remains in the British Isles, from Mesolithic times (c.7000 BC) until the coming of the written word in the Dark Ages... In these ever-changing times, TNA believes that it is important to preserve our ancient heritage for future generations, and to work with organisations around the world to find out how our little piece of history links in with other ancient monuments and cultures across the globe. - (read full description)

They are looking for a logo for their website and letter heading and we're inviting you to send in designs by July 10 2015.

The top five designs will be put to a public vote here on PWC and the winners will win beautiful books!

1st Prize

The Folklore of the Scottish Highlands by Anne Ross and The Twelve Apostles Stone Circle, West Yorkshire by Paul Bennett

2nd Prize

The Silver Bough by F. Marina McNeill

To enter, scan your drawings or produce them in .jpg or .tif format and e-mail to: info@paganwriters.net by July 10 2015

By entering you give permission for TNA to use your design if selected.

You can find The Northern Antiquarian online, on Facebook and on Twitter.

Marion Grace Woolley - Q&A

2015-02-04T13:16:00.000+00:00

Marion Grace Woolley is a multi-genre author published by Ghoswoods, Netherworld and Green Sunset. She currently lives in Rwanda and is the Manager of Pagan Writers Community.

Her latest release, Those Rosy Hours at Mazandarn is due out on 14th February 2015.

You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, via her blog and website. She also has a bi-monthly newsletter. There is a Facebook page for Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran.

This month we're shining the spotlight on PWC Manager, Marion Grace Woolley, ahead of her forthcoming release Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran on 14th February 2015. We've put your PWC questions to her and demanded honest answers!

Who is the girl on the cover of Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran?

That's actually a photograph called To The End by Iranian photographer Babak Fatholahi. He's incredibly talented, as is Hungarian cover designer Gábor Csigás, who put everything together. I'm not entirely sure who she is, but there's an article online all about how they made the cover. To me, she is the perfect depiction of my main character, Afsar.

Have you ever been to Iran?

No, sadly not, though I feel as though I have. The closest I ever got was a job in Armenia, which borders Northern Iran, and once, on my way to East Africa, I flew directly over Sari where the book is set. I was so excited, I took a screen shot of the flight path!

I've heard this is about Phantom of the Opera. What made you choose this subject?

The inspiration for Rosy Hours did come from Phantom of the Opera, but you don't need to know that story to enjoy this one. The Phantom of the Opera was originally a serialisation by French writer Gaston Leroux, for a daily newspaper. Within the story, Leroux hinted at another story involving the Phantom, one in which he spent his youth travelling the world and eventually ended up in Mazandaran, Northern Iran, as the playfellow of The Little Sultana.

People have written about this before, perhaps one of the best know is Susan Kay's 1990 novel Phantom. However, I wanted to take a different approach. I wanted to tell it from the Sultana's perspective. She shared the future Phantom's lust for darkness, and I wanted to explore what could make a young girl, born into ultimate privilege and power, so twisted.

In so doing, the novel became a historical intrigue which stands alone in its telling, but which links to many of the characters and events hinted at in Leroux's original.

What is your writing process? Do you plan your novels?

No, my writing process is fairly haphazard. I like to be surprised by what happens.

With Rosy Hours, I've actually blogged the entire process from writing it to finding a publisher and all the pre-release work that goes into launching a novel.

What was the hardest part about writing the book?

Writing Historical Fiction is always hard, knowing when to stop cramming facts and start writing a story. Thankfully there are so many helpful resources nowadays, such as picture archives, YouTube documentaries and academic articles available online. I like to spend the first few weeks immersing myself in the culture and history of the time, then let my fingers start tapping.

Another part that was difficult was recreating a half-told story by a cult author. Phantom of the Opera has a large following, and it is a delicate balancing act trying to remain true to the original characters whilst taking them to a place and time many might not imagine to find them. As with any story that has a large following, readers feel a strong sense of ownership over those characters. Some will follow you to fresh territory, whereas others prefer to remember the characters as they were first told. I'm prepared for mixed reactions from Phantom fans, but I hope that the book hits its mark with new readers.

In your guest post, you talk about the religions of Iran whilst you were researching. How influential is religion on this book?

Religions are as influential on this book as they have been on the history of Iran. Though, for me, the book is more about the stories of religion, the folklore. All religions are built on stories, on heroes and villains, creation myth and colourful retellings. The history of Persia is particularly blessed on this count, with Ferdowsi's Shahnameh.

I'm a writer, I love stories and the way stories affect psyche and shape nations. Many of those stories have found their way into Rosy Hours, and hopefully they add a certain richness to it.

What is your involvement with Pagan Writers Community?

I took over PWC in 2013, after its original founders at Pagan Writers Press felt they didn't have enough time to administer it. I'd been a Facebook moderator for a while, and it was an honour to be offered the chance to take it on.

For some reason the Facebook algorythms favoured us, and with a group of volunteers we took the page from 14,000 likes to over 62,000 in a matter of months! Then the pace slowed down and we've rested at that number for a while now.

I also added this blog, plus an author spotlight and book review section. I love Pagan Writers Community, but we could really do with some more volunteers to help manage it.

If you would like to know more about Marion, check out her guest blog The Day of Chaos.

We will be launching a writing competition to win a signed copy of Marion's novel Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran.

Marion Grace Woolley in January

2015-01-15T12:31:00.000+00:00

This month at Pagan Writers Community we are celebrating the release of Marion Grace Woolley's novel Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran on 14th February 2015.

Marion is a multi-genre author published by Ghoswoods, Netherworld and Green Sunset. She currently lives in Rwanda and is the Manager of Pagan Writers Community.

You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, via her blog and website. She also has a bi-monthly newsletter. If you'd like to keep up-to-date on the release of Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran, you can join this Facebook page.

In honour of the occasion, we are bringing you a whole heap of goodies :-

WEEK ONE

Have a read of Marion's guest post.

Do you have a question for Marion?

E-mail it to questions@paganwriters.net by Friday 30th January 2015.

WEEK THREE

We will select the best of the questions and publish Marion's answers.

Marion has agreed to give away a signed copy of her book and two ebooks! We will be holding a writing competition to select the winners.

WEEK FOUR

At the end of the month we'll announce the winners of the goodies and publish their entries online.

We'd really like to thank Marion for being a guest author at Pagan Writers Community and for generously donating her work.

Guest Post: Marion Grace Woolley - The Day of Chaos

2015-01-15T11:52:00.002+00:00

Marion Grace Woolley is a multi-genre author published by Ghoswoods, Netherworld and Green Sunset. She currently lives in Rwanda and is the Manager of Pagan Writers Community.

Her latest release, Those Rosy Hours at Mazandarn is due out on 14th February 2015.

You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, via her blog and website. She also has a bi-monthly newsletter. There is a Facebook page for Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran.

Ahead of the release of Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran on 14th February 2015, Pagan Writers Community is turning the spotlight on Marion, to find out more about her work and interests.

We are starting with a guest post, looking at the influence of Persian history on modern Paganism.

If you would like to ask Marion a question, e-mail us at: questions@paganwriters.net before Friday 30th January 2015. We will be putting the best questions to her, and demanding answers!

My forthcoming release, Those Rosy Hours at Mazandaran, published by Ghostwoods Books, has perhaps been the most demanding I’ve ever written in terms of research. It’s set in 1850s Northern Iran, exploring the world of The Little Sultana, a character first mentioned in a classic novel by French writer Gaston Leroux.

When I start to write historical fiction, I tend to spend the first few weeks immersing myself in the time. I flick through picture archives, listen to music, watch documentaries on YouTube, and scour Wikipedia for information.

It’s less of a fact-finding mission, more a way to set the tone.

Most of the real fact-checking comes in later, as I start to write. If you become too obsessed with facts and historical accuracy, you start to lose the power of your story. Once I have a sense of time and place, I tend to look up the rest as questions arises: What did people wear? Which languages did they speak? What did they eat? Who was in power?

Sometimes the question you ask simply leads to more questions. This happened quite specifically with Rosy Hours in relation to Paganism.

The mid-1800s in Iran was a time of huge political and religious turmoil. A sect had arisen called the Bábí, followers of a religious leader called the Báb, claiming to be The Gateway to Truth. The Báb was executed on the orders of the Shah in 1850. It was a significant event that eventually led to the expulsion of the Bábí from Iran and the establishment of the Bahá'í faith. It was such a significant period in history that I knew I had to include something of it in my story.

Okay, so what did the Bábí believe? What did they look like? What did they wear?

During my research, I stumbled across a talisman that the Bábí wore to distinguish their faith. It is called the haykal, and I’m sure you can understand why it piqued my interest. The word is borrowed from Arabic, meaning temple, relating to the Temple of Solomon.

Haykal

Whereas this was interesting to me, as it is a shared symbol, if not a shared meaning, between modern Paganism and Persia, there was another avenue of research that quickly became utterly absorbing.

Those Rosy Hours is steeped in folk stories and legends from Persia. This steered my awareness to a much older religion called Zoroastrianism. Established in the 6^th century BCE, it is thought to have influenced the iconography and theories of Judaism, Islam and Christianity. A crossover point between neolithic beliefs and modern worship.

The more I researched, the more my eyebrows started to rise.

Throughout Persia and much of Transcaucasia, New Year is still celebrated on the Zoroastrian date of the Spring Equinox, Nowruz, when light returns to the world. Their altars are made to the seasons, representing the four elements as well as humans, animals and plants. Eggs are painted, as in the Easter tradition, The Guardian of the Fire, the Hajji Firuz, dances with his face blackened like traditional morris dancers, and people jump the fire, casting their sickness into it and taking its strength, much like Beltane.

Painted Eggs for Easter

Then there is Sizdah Be-dar, the Day of Chaos. This is the thirteenth day after Nowruz, and is considered to be the day between years: the old year has finished, the new has not yet begun.

On this day it is said that the only way to stay safe from chaos, is to create even greater chaos yourself. People stay outdoors so that the chaos does not come into the house, they lie to each other in the fashion of April Fools, and create all sorts of noise and mayhem.

This is perhaps where the idea of 'unlucky number thirteen' comes from. What struck me was how much of European Paganism shares its roots with Persian Zoroastrianism. It seems far greater than mere coincidence. Having grown up with Pagan tradition all around me, I felt as though I had perhaps stumbled upon an ancient ancestor, the grandmother of all that is familiar.

Those Rosy Hours, quite unintentionally, yet perhaps auspiciously, has thirteen chapters. A tribute to the chaotic forces which play out within its pages.