Y’all.
Y’all.
I knew that nominations for the Witchies are announced sometime in October, and I was kind of maybe hoping for a nod, but I was also being super low-key about it. And then Mike messaged me last night all, “You can stop fretting now,” and sent me a link, and Y’ALL.
I ended up with three nominations: Best New Blog, Exceptional Blog Post, and Best New Voice. And speaking of voices, I’m going to be relying solely on written communication for the next few days, because I basically dislocated my larynx by screaming for nine hours straight.
Overall, my fellow Patheos Pagan writers had a marvelous showing this year. Phoenix and Gwion got nominated for Outstanding Pagan Book (Life Ritualized), as did Jason (The Horned God of the Witches); Jason also got nominated for Outstanding Blog (Raise the Horns); he and Irisanya are both in the running for Outstanding Devotional Book (The Horned God of the Witches and Pagan Portals – Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow and Messenger of the Godds); and Brandy was nominated for Outstanding Folk Magic Book (Cord Magic: Tapping into the Power of String, Yarn, Twists & Knots).
On top of all that, my favorite High Priestex Mortellus snagged two nominations for their book Do I Have to Wear Black?: Rituals, Customs & Funerary Etiquette for Modern Pagans (Outstanding Pagan Book and Exceptional Cover Design), and they also got nominated for Exceptional Blog Post (“The Spring Riot”). And my buddy Shane was named in the category of Outstanding New Vlog/Videocast for their YouTube channel Artemis NYC.
It’s a tricky sort of challenge to interpretive happy-dance for everyone at once, but I am somehow pulling it off.
The Witchies are the capstone of The Official Witches’ Sabbat, three days of online classes, workshops, and rituals produced by Modern Witch University and Owlkeyme Arts. (You can register for the event here.) I’m not quite sure what one wears to a virtual awards ceremony, but it feels like it might be the right time to pull my Mr. Firedancer sash out of retirement.
And hey, listen, I realize that my chances of winning even one Witchie are slim, but whoever first said, “It’s an honor just to be nominated,” wasn’t fooling: I am bouncing off the damn moon right now. And I wouldn’t have made it onto the list at all if I didn’t have readers, so thank each and every one of you so, so much for being here.
And over on Twitter, I did promise to make out with anyone who votes for me, and I am nothing if not a Witch of my word. So y’all get to casting those votes, and I will start liberally applying some delicious necromantic lip balm.