Ceallaigh's Blog
Folklore & Fiction
The March 2020 Folklore & Fiction dispatch has been recorded as a podcast, and you can both read and listen to it here. In it, I'm discussing charms with help from scholars J. Stanley Hopkins, Jonathan Roper, and others, discussing the use of charms in storycraft, and providing you with an example and an exercise on the topic. I also wrote a supplementary dispatch that month, which I've recorded as a podcast, and you can both read and listen to it here. In this one, written just after the pandemic was declared, I'm discussing the value of keeping a journal you can pass on to others.
Folklore & Fiction
The February 2020 Folklore & Fiction dispatch has been recorded as a podcast, and you can both read it and listen to it here. In this edition, I'm writing about superstition with help from scholars Ülo Valk, Torunn Selberg, Alan Dundes, and others, discussing superstition in the context of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series of books, and providing you with an exercise on the topic.
Delighted to be a speaker for The Folklore Podcast Lectures alongside an excellent lineup of fellow folklore researchers. All proceeds support the work of The Folklore Library and Archive and the podcast. You'll find more about the series at the link below.
Greetings Friends!
This month marks a substantial change from the material you're accustomed to receiving from me. I'm podcasting my second year of archives, and the dispatches are already available at folkloreandfiction.com, so there's no sense shipping them out to you as newsletters. Instead, I'm introducing a new newsletter format that combines my Folklore & Fiction work with whatever insights I happen to have on folklore, storytelling, and spirituality along with any news I might have about my own career. Hope you like the change.
Greetings, Friends!
I had meant to post a year-end writing recap on New Years' Eve, but I had friends over to play D&D for two days straight, and I'm the glass cannon of the party (sorcerers FTW!). Clearly, casting Tasha's Caustic Brew on invisible giant spiders was far more important than writing about writing. Anyway, here I am, and here's the recap.
But I can't really call this a "writing" recap, can I? My first publication of the year was Shatter and Rise, an EP of three songs I released into the world on May Day. Of all the work I brought to the table this year, I'm most proud of these three songs. They were a long, long, long time in coming. Welcome to the world, little musics. If you're Canadian, I hope you'll consider "Shatter and Rise" and "Cruel Johnny" for the 2023 Aurora Award in the Best Poem/Song category.
Buy Shatter and Rise on Bandcamp | Stream Shatter and Rise
Hello, and welcome to the December 2022 Folklore & Fiction dispatch. At the summer and winter solstices, I mimic the sun and pause to reflect on my own creative work. However, in this edition, guest contributor Rebecca Buchanan will pause and reflect in my place with a return to June's discussion of Pagan futurism via her short story, "Hysthaany." Rebecca is the editor of the Pagan literary ezine, Eternal Haunted Summer and is a regular contributor to ev0ke: witchcraft*paganism*lifestyle. She has published four short story collections and two poetry collections as well as numerous other novellas, short stories, and poems in every genre from fairy tales to fantasy to horror to mystery to romance to science fiction. She has a Master’s degree in Women’s Studies in Religion from Claremont Graduate University, and a personal library that is threatening to outgrow her house.
Here are the folklore-related memes I published to social media in November 2022.
"The play's the thing."
After a year of writing that began just before Christmas in 2020 and a year of production in the hands of the Odyssey Theatre in Ottawa, I am delighted to bring you my modern fairy tale audio drama, "The Belt and the Necklace," starring Chandel Gambles, Mark Huisman, Neta J. Rose, and Nicole Wilson. I hope you'll listen to it, and I hope you'll share it with friends. (Grab your headphones for this one. The soundscape is gorgeous.)
Learn more about "The Belt and the Necklace" on The Other Path website.
Hello, and welcome to the November 2022 Folklore & Fiction dispatch. This month, I'm bringing you a bit of Arthuriana rescued from a fire and later added to the Child ballad collection. I wish I could sing it for you, but alas! There is no air to pair with it, and the ballad itself is fragmented. Dispatch readers will see evidence of this fragmentation in the transcript, while podcast listeners will hear it in the pauses I've added to the reading.
Let's get started.
