Welcome to the July 2025 edition of the Folkbyte newsletter! Friends, I have a lot going on this summer that I'm not quite ready to tell you about, so instead, I'm reintroducing an essay I wrote in May 2019 titled "Animism as Activism for Pagans and Non-Pagans." I hope you enjoy it.
Animism as Activism for Pagans and Non-Pagans
ani-mism noun 1 the attribution of a living soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena (Barber 2005, 51).
Welcome to the June 2025 edition of the Folkbyte newsletter! In this edition, I'm writing about The Long Hidden Friend, House of the Wolfings, The Songwriter's Guide to Folklore, and a few other newsy bits and bytes.
Housekeeping
It's come to my attention that about a dozen of you have missed the last three newsletters because of a database glitch. If this is you, here are the newsletters you missed. Note that the March 2025 edition contains information about updating your account details if you ever need to do that.
Góðan daginn, and welcome to the May 2025 Folkbyte newsletter, hitting your inbox a day late because I've just returned from a week of publishing events and symposiums in Reykjavik. Here's all the news that's fit to print.
Welcome to the April 2025 edition of the Folkbyte newsletter! Last month's edition went out without a hitch, though I've had one report of difficulty logging in from a Folklore & Fiction archive researcher. I think the problem has been resolved, but please know you can always reach out to me about these sorts of things and expect a personal response. Sean and I worked hard to make certain the archive remained available on the new website as a resource for storytellers, and I want you to be able to use it.
Welcome to the March 2025 edition of the Folkbyte newsletter, coming to you from a new virtual private server, a new website, and a new mailing system. Monthly newsletters resume with this missive, but first, my apologies to anyone who received duplicates of the September 2024 edition. My old website was already nearing end-of-life, and it was on a shared hosting plan besides, so it began to fail as more people signed up to use the Folklore & Fiction archive. My new website is coded from the ground up by my excellent in-house web developer and husband Sean.
I'm extremely fortunate that I've been able to complete my PhD and transition into the life of an artist scholar, as I had hoped I would. These last few weeks have been filled with music, as I'm preparing to finally release remixed, remastered, and in some cases re-performed versions of the Child Ballads I recorded for the Folklore & Fiction podcast.
Dear Friends,
This is just a year-end note to let you all know where the Folklore & Fiction project stands. The new website is almost done, which means the Folkbyte newsletter and short educational videos will resume in the new year.
Greetings All!
This is a good news/bad news sort of post. The good news is that the Folklore & Fiction website has been moved to a new virtual private server! The bad news is that the Folklore & Fiction archive and newsletter infrastructure are taking longer to upgrade than anticipated.
Hello, lovely people, and welcome to the September 2024 edition of the Folkbyte newsletter. This month, the Seven of Pentacles is the newsletter mascot for our wee crow's focus on filling his nest with shiny things.
"Through careful conservation of energy, the engines of creation move forward."