I was granted the opportunity to appear on the Salty Witches podcast the other night, which was a hoot. And I only said like two bad words, which is a new personal record in self-restraint.
Mike and Austin are excellent hosts, so what could’ve just been a run-of-the-mill interview quickly turned into a trio of queer witches cutting up and having a gay (pun intended) old time, while gabbing about Chaos Magic, Discordianism, Traditional Wicca, our biggest social media gripes, and the most entertaining faux pas we’ve ever made in rituals. (You can click here to give it a listen.)
At one point, Austin asked about my current projects, and I realized that while I’ve mentioned it on other platforms, I’ve neglected to tell my readers here something kind of important. So let’s get everyone updated right now.
Remember back when I accused Storm Faerywolf of leaving a dead opossum in my mailbox and then condemned him for not writing C. S. Lewis erotica? A few days after I put up that post, Storm messaged me on Twitter all, “My editor would like to speak with you.” And I was like, “Welp, definitely just got myself blacklisted.” But I went ahead and messaged his editor anyway, with the understanding that I would probably have to reach out to the Patheos Pagan channel manager next and apologize for getting us sued.
But it turned out that she actually enjoyed the post, which was a huge relief. And then one thing led to another, and there were some emails and phone calls and a Zoom meeting, and I signed some paperwork, and… well, this is landing on bookshelves in November:
Virgo Witch is part of Llewellyn’s upcoming Sun Sign Series, all of which was authored by Ivo Dominguez, Jr., with a different witch of each astrological sign coming in as co-author. And it’s available for pre-order here, here, and here. But the coolest part is that my name is on a book cover, y’all. It’s going to be a little while before I stop freaking out about that.
Although I can’t really rest on my Virgo laurels at the moment, because I still have to finish the book that Eris is forcing me to write. Which is coming along! Mostly! I’m still trying to work in clown witches (which I promised my own editor I’d include), and unpublished blog drafts are getting cannibalized like it’s the Zombie Apocalypse, but I’m going to get there one way or another.
If anything, I’ve already shown myself that I can write half a book — all I have to do is write two more half-books, and Bam! I’m golden. The challenge right now is trying to keep my brain on track, since it keeps distracting itself with either anything other than writing a book, or all the books I could be writing instead.
Like, I’ll call my friend Sarah all, “Did you know that there have only been three books written on lithomancy? I should totally write the fourth one. In fact, I’ve spent the past three days outlining it. I’m also working on a PowerPoint presentation, in case I ever get asked to put on a lithomantic workshop at a conference.” And she’ll be like, “Wow, that sounds fascinating! And hey, apropos of nothing, but where are you with the book you’re contractually obligated to write?”
And I’ll be like, “Shit. I forgot about that one. I gotta go.”
I promised Mike and Austin that I’ll come back on Salty Witches a little closer to the release of the full-length book, so if you hear me chatting with them again, it means that all is on schedule, and that the book is speedily moving down the birth canal towards its due date. Plus I’ll probably have stopped stressing about Virgo Witch by then, which will be nice.
And in the meantime, just to give myself a vacation from all the anxiety excitement, I’m going to take a composition break and enjoy a re-watch of the similarly-titled, b-rated horror/sexploitation classic Virgin Witch. There’s no astrology or Chaos Magic in it to speak of, but the High Priest and High Priestess of the film’s coven are named Gerald and Sybil, so at least one of the screenwriters knew what they were talking about.
There’s some encouragement and solidarity to be found in that, which will come in very handy six or so months from now, when I’m cracking open an advance review copy of Virgo Witch. Lord and Lady willing and the creek don’t rise, it’ll read like I know what I’m talking about, too.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In