Belated Merry Beltane to you, and welcome to issue #22 of my newsletter, e-mailed to subscribers in May 2017.
"D is for Duel / One Who Dies as a God Dies"
"D is for Duel / One Who Dies as a God Dies" is available now in D is for Dinosaur, the current installment of the Alphabet Anthologies series. Editor Rhonda Parrish asked her authors to record excerpts of their stories for publication on her blog, since most of us couldn't come to the book launch. You'll find mine here, and if you're interested in reading the whole story, you can purchase paperback or Kindle versions of the anthology. Enjoy!
Academic News
My first year as a PhD student of folklore was a productive one, and as promised, I have papers to share with you. I've written on a range of topics; Mjölnir (Thor's hammer), phantom ship sightings, and fairy abduction legends along with more contemporary analyses of the Satanic Panic, the Beaton Institute archive, and digital device usage in cafés and coffee houses. If you're interested in reading any of this work, you can download it for free from my academia.edu page.
The Longest Road in the Universe needs your reviews!
If you read and enjoyed The Longest Road in the Universe: A Collection of Fantastical Tales, would you consider leaving an Amazon review of it? Reviews are an easy way to show some love to good books and help other people find them. If you haven't read the collection yet and want to, you can pick up a copy here:
Closing Thoughts
The last time I reached out to you, Donald Trump had not yet won the Electoral College vote and become President of the United States. Now he's been in office more than a hundred days, and we've seen unprecedented disregard for climate change science, environmental protections, human health, women's rights, and more. The news has been so awful these last few months that I've often felt like a neighbor watching a family grieve at a funeral, uncertain what to say from from my vantage point in Canada.
I'm still not certain what to say about the United States, but I do have something to say about the Earth and the beings we share it with, both human and non-human. They need us now, and we can make a difference to them. So don't despair. Search your mind, your heart, and your life for the ways you're already strong, for the ways you can make a difference, and act.
I know it's hard to believe in the good right now. So be the good, and we'll believe in one another.
Until Samhain,
Ceallaigh