I’m a fantasy writer and Christian witch with over 10 years of research, practice, and passion under my hat. Discovering the fantastical concept of “real world” magic as a youth—and the ways in which the institutions in power have tried so hard to stamp it out, despite it being an undeniable part of our cultural and spiritual psyche—has inspired me to explain all I know in my fantasy and seek out all the magic and wonder in my reality. After all, our fantasy stories must get their inspiration from the real world—from all the magic, mysticism, and struggle hidden under the pretty face of mainstream religion.
In a world where Winter's King hasn't moved his season for a century, Aveline, a half-Summer, half-Winter pariah, is dying in the endless Summer on the other side of the continent. But when her emperor finds her barely surviving, he tells her that her mother is dead—and it's Winter’s fault. Only Aveline, the Summer woman with a Winter face, can end the seasonal standstill.
Vengeful, Aveline sneaks into Winter as a contestant in the King’s bridal competition to kill him, only for a failed assassin to shatter her plans. Aveline is stuck in the castle, and worse, to stay competing while finding her plan B, she has to court the King. But how long can she pretend before her identity is discovered?
Uprooted has it all: the cultural Easter eggs, the adventure and fantasy, and of course, the touch of enemies-to-lovers romance that, to me, completes any story set in its own world. The main character was a gem, as was her counterpart, the Dragon. Both of them were spunky in their own way, grating against each other as they held their ground in a relationship neither of them expected to develop the way it did.
I also tend to learn quite a bit from my fantasy books as much as my academic books when it comes to my own magic, and this here was a fantastic example of ceremonial magicians vs. witches. Whereas the Dragon spend a lot of time holed up over grimoires and texts by their predecessors, those who take a more personal and fluid approach to magic, like Agnieszka, are making magic with whatever’s available, to serve their own ends.
A dark enchantment blights the land in the award-winning Uprooted - a enthralling fantasy inspired by fairy tales, by Naomi Novik, author of the Temeraire series.
Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel Winner of the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel Winner of the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novel
Agnieszka loves her village, set deep in a peaceful valley. But the nearby enchanted forest casts a shadow over her home. Many have been lost to the Wood and none return unchanged. The villagers depend on an ageless wizard, the Dragon, to protect them from the forest's…
Like Naomi Novik, Katherine Arden is a master at weaving folklore and fantasy together, this time with a touch of history, too. The touch of Russian folklore woven throughout a coming-of-age story is gripping, each character grappling with their own social, cultural, and political struggles alongside a dangerous world of magic.
And, again, for all its fantasy and fiction, this whole series gave me some insight on how to understand the power of magic and faith itself in the world we live in right now—the modern world full of stresses and struggles and seemingly inexplicable situations. As a Christian witch myself, the mix of old and new faith, and the power of them bothrepresented together here, was something that made me really think more about how “real life” magic works with strong faith as its backbone.
_____________________________ Beware the evil in the woods...
In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, an elderly servant tells stories of sorcery, folklore and the Winter King to the children of the family, tales of old magic frowned upon by the church.
But for the young, wild Vasya these are far more than just stories. She alone can see the house spirits that guard her home, and sense the growing forces of dark magic in the woods. . .
Gaiman’s fairytale-like writing gives it a nostalgic feel I didn’t even know I was looking for, and the idea that stars aren’t just big balls of hot gas, but people? That lines up with the idea that every star is an attendant angel, for me—or older ideas of religions past, that the stars themselves were the “visible gods” of our world, watching over us from the cosmos.
All fiction comes from something someone said before, and it’s one of the things I love most about fantasy. Stardust is one of those books that really just gives you the old-school whimsy and magic and romance that, when you’re trying so hard to think of somethingnever-been-done-before, reminds you that there’s a reason stories like these are called classic.
Now a major motion picture—this charming fairy tale by the #1 New York Times bestselling author, weaves a magical story set long ago in the tiny English village of Wall, a place where things are not quite what they seem.
Go and catch a falling star . . .
Tristran Thorn promises to bring back a fallen star for his beloved, the hauntingly beautiful Victoria Forester—and crosses the wall that divides his English country town from another, more dangerous world of lords and witches, all of them in search of the star. Rich with adventure and magic, Stardust is one…
I am Slovene-American, my mother being off the boat. This book told me what I’d wanted to know: how my people engaged with the world around them, not just physically, but metaphysically. Anyone interested in understanding the way folk belief mixed with medicine, and why people would resort to beliefs we would view strange in modern day, could learn quite a bit from this book about the rural folk of Slovenia and their medicine.
It’s also a key resource for one fantasy book I still have in the works, which is reminiscent of Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale, and it is a wonderful anthropological resource that shows, very plainly, how magic is alive in this world as much as it is in the fictional ones we love so much.
Like Mlakar’s book, this book reveals old folk traditions, but in a more explicitly stated and conversational way. For anyone with Italian ancestry who wants to look at the ways that old folk religion hides, adapts, and stays alive under the dominant religion of the area, this is an incredible read—and whether you’re a writer or a witch or both, you’ll find a lot of inspiration from it.
Say what you will about whether or not magic is real: this book reminds us that we’re not all so different from our fantasies—that our imaginations are as real as anything else, and that the world around us brims with power, even if it’s just the power to shift our mindset to look at our situation a different way.
In this fascinating journey through the magical, folkloric, and healing traditions of Italy the reader learns uniquely Italian methods of magical protection and divination and spells for love, sex, control, and revenge.
"Mary-Grace Fahrun's Italian Folk Magic is an intimate journey into the heart of Italian folk magical practices as they are lived every day. Having grown up in an extended Italian family in North America and Italy, the author presents us with the stories, characters, saints, charms, and prayers that form the core of folk religion, setting them in context in an authentic, down-to-earth, and humorous voice. A delight…
My life and work have been profoundly affected by the central circumstance of my existence: I was born into a very large military Catholic family in the United States of America. As a child surrounded by many others in the 60s, I wrote, performed, and directed family plays with my numerous brothers and sisters. Although I fell in love with a Canadian and moved to Canada, my family of origin still exerts considerable personal influence. My central struggle, coming from that place of chaos, order, and conformity, is to have the courage to live an authentic life based on my own experience of connectedness and individuality, to speak and be heard.
Trapped in her enormous, devout Catholic family in 1963, Annie creates a hilarious campaign of lies when the pope dies and their family friend, Cardinal Stefanucci, is unexpectedly on the shortlist to be elected the first American pope.
Driven to elevate her family to the holiest of holy rollers in the parish, Annie is tortured by her own dishonesty. But when “The Hands” visits her in her bed and when her sister finds herself facing a scandal, Annie discovers her parents will do almost anything to uphold their reputation and keep their secrets safe.
Questioning all she has believed and torn between her own gut instinct and years of Catholic guilt, Annie takes courageous risks to wrest salvation from the tragic sequence of events set in motion by her parents’ betrayal.
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