Whenever Jason Mankey gets arrested for tax evasion or treason or whatever, I fill in for him on Witches Movie Coven, a weekly videocast in which a panel of magical practitioners (Mankey, Patti Negri, Richard-Lael Lillard, Courtney Buckley, and Heather Greene) discuss an occult-themed film. It’s my favorite way to spend a Wednesday evening, and I highly encourage you to tune in, even when I’m not warming a seat.
On a recent episode, we covered The Last Witch Hunter, a terrible, terrible flick that I love inappropriately and have seen roughly 32 times. And towards the end of the show, Richard-Lael wanted to know what good things everyone had coming up, and I mentioned that my book will be released in November.
“What’s the name of the book, Thumper?” Heather asked.
I froze for a second, and not just because my Internet connection was shite. My honest-to-the-Gods reaction was, “Well, that’s an odd question. Heather’s my editor. She already knows the name of the book.” And then I froze harder, because I realized she was instructing me to share with the class.
“Am… I allowed to say it?” I finally asked.
Every once in a while, being Gardnerian works against me. Like, for the past two years, I’ve said next to nothing about the book, because I was contractually obligated not to squeal. And that was easy as pie: I mean, non-disclosure agreements are basically oaths, and I have mad skills at keeping those. But suddenly, I was being encouraged to promote the book, and my knee-jerk response was, “Come back with a warrant.”
About eleven years ago, I was sitting in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and during the part when people who were available to sponsor raised their hands, my own sponsor turned to me and was like, “Go for it.”
“The hell?” I hissed at him. “I can’t sponsor. I haven’t worked the Twelfth Step yet.”
“The Twelfth Step is sponsorship,” he hissed back.
So I raised my hand, because whether or not I liked it or felt ready, it was time for me to share my experience with others. Which, a decade and change later, was really all my co-hosts were asking of me.
“It’s called The Chaos Apple: Magic and Discordianism for the Postmodern Witch,” I said quickly, in case anyone changed their mind and cut my feed.
“Smashing the pre-order button,” Courtney yelled.
So that was a neat little moment of validation.
But yeah, I made a book; one which will hopefully offer some framework and direction for the growing Chaos Witchcraft movement. And it is legitimately available for pre-order: You can find it on Bookshop.org, as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and directly through the publisher, and I will eventually have hard copies in my Etsy shop. Plus my BFF Mike wrote the foreword, without me even having to threaten to blackmail him. (Mike used to write under the pen name Isobel Bird, so if you were a fan of the Circle of Three series, you’ll definitely want The Chaos Apple as a curio and/or collector’s item.)
Going against type, I am not particularly worried what readers will think about it. Some people will love it, and others won’t — that’s just kind of the nature of offering anything up for public consumption. But it’s going to exist, as an actual, physical thing. Once I fully get my head around that, the Movie Coven will not be able to get me to shut up about it.
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