Greetings, All!
Welcome to the July 2024 Folkbyte newsletter. I have news on The Storyteller's Guide to Folklore (plus an excerpt!), The Songwriter's Guide to Folklore, and The Folklore & Fiction Ballads EP. Onward!
Dispatches from the Word Mines
It's great to be back at work full time on my own projects knowing I won't be interrupted by yet another round of dissertation edits. However, my supervisor, one of my advisors and a couple of my examiners all said my dissertation would make a good book and gave me great notes to push it in that direction. I have two non-fiction books, a fantasy trilogy, and three EPs scheduled for work in front of that, but I've slotted it in after those are completed (in the next four-to-five years).
Speaking of current projects, The Storyteller's Guide to Folklore is finally in the top spot, which means it's getting three weeks a month of full time work. The Introduction, one of the appendices, and a portion of Part I are complete, and the work is going well. Interestingly, the book will depart from the podcast in a few important respects, and I'm glad of that because it means long-time followers of the podcast will find something new to engage with in the book. Speaking of Part I, here's a sample of the introduction for that section, to whet your appetite:
Because so many of us have encountered the folk narrative genres in this section as songs and stories in books, it can be tempting to engage with them as literature alone. However, there is another dimension of folk narrative you need to understand if you want to write in these genres. I’ll tell you more about it in Chapter Fifteen, but for now, imagine you’re a Renaissance troubadour travelling across Europe with a head full of ballads. Everywhere you stop, people want to hear you sing, but you know that each village has unique aesthetic preferences. So you change the ballads a little each time to please your audiences. A few listeners learn the ballads by heart because they have not been taught to read, and they go on the road themselves. Two hundred years pass this way until a man comes to one of these villages, writes down all of the ballads he hears, and publishes them in a book. Thereafter, everyone who reads the book thinks they understand the ballads. But do they really?
The Songwriter's Guide to Folklore is in the second spot, which means it's getting attention two days a month. Patrons are seeing more about my progress on this project, which is comprised primarily of research and selection of folk song types right now. One of my biggest concerns in the last round of work had to do with the inclusion of folk song types in Gaeilge and Gáidhlig. My undergraduate degree is in Celtic Studies, and I have an intermediate knowledge of both languages, though my speaking skills are rusty. I do sing in the languages, however, and I live in a Gáidhealtachd where people in the early 20th century were forcibly Anglicized. So I've been concerned about borrowing from songs in these languages to teach English-language songwriting. After conversations with friends and colleagues, I've decided to go ahead with the inclusions but also offer resources for learning these languages.
The Folklore & Fiction Ballads is still pending. I'm ramping up my musical skills after a long hiatus and writing the lyrics for the EP that will follow it, Lead On, Wild God. So I haven't much to report on this front right now. I'll write again when I have more to say.
This Month in Social Media
The Folklore & Fiction Facebook group has picked up a bit of steam. Moderator Tracy Nicholas and I have been posting weekday folklore and writing prompts, which have encouraged good conversations. This at a time when Facebook is introducing forced commercials and scraping our posts for its AI. I've been giving social media the side-eye since 2008, largely because I never quite know how to navigate being social in digital spaces and often find the effort a waste of time, but also because it has proven to be a toxic environment. But Tracy and I have something of a solarpunk attitude about the group. Maybe we'll manage to grow a garden in an otherwise inhospitable place. Should you care to plant a few seeds with us, the link to the group is below.
What I'm Reading
I've just finished Kate Hearfield's novel The Valkyrie, which is just gorgeous, and I recommend it to your attention unreservedly. I'm presently reading a book I'll be reviewing for the Journal of American Folklore titled Stories of the Past: Viewing History through Fiction by Chris Green. I'll let you know when the review is published.
That's all for this month! I'll be back in August with more news. I hope your gardens flourish, and I hope you find time for a walk in the woods, a swim in the lake, or some other nourishing connection with the Earth.
Cheers,
Ceallaigh
Where to Find Me Online
Folklore & Fiction Archive and Newsletter: The first five years of Folklore & Fiction dispatches and podcasts are still available at folkloreandfiction.com, and you can access them by signing up for a free account here. You can subscribe to the Folkbyte newsletter here as well.
Folklore & Fiction Facebook Group: The Folklore & Fiction Facebook group is a place where you can chat about the intersections of folklore and storytelling with other scholars and storytellers. You'll find it here.
Patreon: Patrons are presently supporting my work on The Storyteller's Guide to Folklore, The Songwriter's Guide to Folklore, and a series of video lectures. You can join us here.
Social Media: The social media landscape is increasingly fraught, and I've never been one of those people who could engage with it all the time anyway. However, I do post about folklore, music, and writing in a few places. You'll find them all at linktr.ee/csmaccath.