Ceallaigh's Blog
In 2017, I conceived the Folklore & Fiction project as a series of blog entries that would eventually culminate in a book. Since then, the project has explored the intersections of folkloristics and storytelling with monthly dispatches and podcasts covering a variety of topics and reached a growing community of newsletter and podcast subscribers. I've been delighted to learn about your creative and commercial successes as a result of my work, and I hope you'll continue to share those successes with me! I've also realized that Folklore & Fiction is an umbrella for sub-projects. The first of them concludes with this dispatch and podcast, and the first book will follow in 2024. I have several other sub-projects in various stages of development, but before I launch the next one, I need to re-tool my approach.
Folklore & Fiction
The December 2020 Folklore & Fiction dispatch has been recorded as a podcast, and you can both read and listen to it here. At the summer and winter solstices, I mimic the sun and pause to reflect on my own creative work. In this edition, I'm discussing myth in fiction with my short story "T Is for Three (at the End of All Things)," which was published in the C is for Chimera anthology. Because the story is only about a thousand words long, and because it's a creation myth, I'm reading the whole story in the podcast. Hope you enjoy it.
Important Notice To Mailing List Subscribers
Since 2016, the C.S. MacCath newsletter and later the Folklore & Fiction newsletter and dispatch have been managed by Mailchimp. However, Mailchimp is integrating generative AI into its platform and has updated its terms of service with language that surrenders copyright of anything created with that AI to Mailchimp. Because it's unclear how deeply this AI will be integrated into the platform, I don't know if I will be surrendering the existing content of my newsletters, dispatches, and mailing lists, and I also don't want to create anything new on the platform. I haven't accepted the new terms of service, but I only have until mid-November to move the mailing list before they come into effect.
Folklore & Fiction
The October 2020 Folklore & Fiction dispatch has been recorded as a podcast, and you can both read and listen to it here. In it, I'm writing about child lore with help from scholars Gary Alan Fine and others, author Philip Pullman, and The Choral Scholars of University College Dublin. I'm also exploring the use of child lore in storycraft and providing you with an exercise on the topic.
Folklore & Fiction
The September 2020 Folklore & Fiction dispatch has been recorded as a podcast, and you can both read and listen to it here. In it, I'm writing about language and verbal lore with help from scholars J.L. Austin and Richard Bauman, author Frank Herbert, Swedish performers Emma Åslund and Åsa Larsson, and others. I'm also exploring the use of language and verbal lore in storycraft and providing you with an exercise on the topic.
Folklore & Fiction
The August 2020 Folklore & Fiction dispatch has been recorded as a podcast, and you can both read and listen to it here. In it, I'll endeavour to provide you with an accessible introduction to narrative scholarship on the topic of conspiracy theories and summarize my discussion with a list of questions you can use to evaluate the trustworthiness of narratives you encounter online and elsewhere.
Folklore & Fiction
The July 2020 Folklore & Fiction dispatch has been recorded as a podcast, and you can both read and listen to it here. In it, I'm writing about material culture with help from the Library of Congress American Folklife Center, scholars Judith Farquhar and Simon Bronner, The Joy of Vegan Baking, and the 2005 science fiction film Serenity. I'm also discussing the use of material culture in storycraft and providing you with an exercise on the topic.
Folklore & Fiction
The June 2020 Folklore & Fiction dispatch has been recorded as a podcast, and you can both read and listen to it here. At the summer and winter solstices, I mimic the sun and pause to reflect on my own creative work. In this edition, I'm discussing representation issues in fiction with a passage from my short story "D is for Duel/One Who Dies as a God Dies," which was published in the D is for Dinosaur anthology.
Folklore & Fiction
The May 2020 Folklore & Fiction dispatch has been recorded as a podcast, and you can both read and listen to it here. In it, I'm writing about folk customs with help from scholars Richard Sweterlitsch and Wayland Hand, author Naomi Novik, and friends Vigdís Andersen and Sveinn Svavarsson, among others.
Folklore & Fiction
The April 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 curses with help from scholars Natalie Underberg, Evangelos Gr. Avdikos, and others, outlining the use of curses in storytelling, and providing you with an example and a reflective writing exercise. If you're new to the dispatch and podcast or missed March 2020's "What is a charm?" edition, do go back and check it out before engaging with this one. Many folklore scholars agree that curses may be viewed as negative charms, and with that in mind, this discussion is an extension of the last one.