I’m thrilled to reveal the cover art for the Knopf Canada edition of The Witches of New York. The wonderful Kelly Hill at Penguin Random House Canada has done a spectacular job with the design and I couldn’t be happier with it! It’s a perfect marriage of history, magic, mystery and the obscure. When we get closer to the publication date (November 1st, 2016) I’ll explain more about the cover’s details, but for now I’ll just say that it holds a few clues and secrets that are tied to the plot. (I can’t tell you how hard it is for me …
Category: Witchy Wednesday
I started this post last Wednesday, (pre-Halloween) but WordPress wasn’t cooperating, so I bailed and decided to save it for this week instead. It actually seems quite fitting for today, since it’s post Election Day in the United States and for the last week, my Facebook feed has been filled with awesome quotes and images relating to the suffragist movement and a woman’s right to vote. What does the suffragist movement have to do with witches? Read on. A couple of weeks ago, a lovely online friend sent me a link she thought I’d like. (Thank you Kristen!) It was an …
It’s nearly Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, and aside from spending time with family, visiting a pumpkin patch, and stirring pots of bubbling goodness on the stove, I’ll probably end the holiday by curling up on the couch with pillow, popcorn and cozy blanket to watch a few movies. Since it’s also Witchy Wednesday, I thought I’d list my top movie picks featuring, you guessed it, witches. In no particular order… 1. The Wizard of Oz. This classic film was shown on national TV in the US every year throughout my childhood. Strangely enough they aired it right around Easter which …
Hello October! I took the last two Witchy Wednesdays off while I was in New York visiting the World Maker Faire, the Brooklyn Book Fair, my US editor, and all my favourite haunts (Madison Square Park, Central Park, Obscura, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hayden planetarium, Katz’s Deli, the Morgan Library, etc…) Now I’m back home, where it’s properly autumn, happily settled in a landscape that’s dotted with apple trees, pumpkin patches, turning leaves and wood smoke. I adore all that comes with fall – cool, frosty mornings that beg for kitchen fires and hot porridge, the late harvest …
Crone…the word alone conjures the image of an elderly woman with a wrinkled, warty face and penetrating gaze. In fairy tales, she’s often referred to as a hag or a witch, and (to the dismay of many an unwitting character) her advice and her voice is dismissed until it’s “too late.” In some ways, things haven’t changed much since such folk tales were first told and written. All too often we push women aside as they age, relegating them to the fringes of society, leaving their wisdom unnoticed (and to our great loss) unheard. What is it we fear in …
Welcome to Witchy Wednesday! This is the first in a series of posts I’ll be devoting to the topic of witches and witchcraft. I’ve long been a fan of all things “witchy”-crystal balls, incantations, black cats, etc., and as a child, my favourite Halloween costume was “the classic witch.” So, it seems only natural that I’d eventually choose to write a novel inhabited by witches of my own making in all their strange, enchanting glory. While writing The Witches of New York, I gathered heaps of historical accounts and odd tales alongside bits and bobs of practical magic. Not all …