Free novel writing workshop this Saturday

Join local published novelist Erika Mailman for a free 2.5-hour
workshop on Writing Your Novel. Come with a notebook and a few
ideas. Erika will guide you through the process of brainstorming,
outlining and how to keep motivated over the long haul. You’ll
do two guided writing activities and leave with a solid idea
for a novel, the beginnings of an outline, and tips for
staying the course.

The workshop takes place 2-4:30 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 13,
at Booksmart bookstore, 80 E. Second St. in Morgan Hill.
Limited to seven people aged 15-99; please call Booksmart
to pre-register at 778-6467.

Erika Mailman is the author of two historical novels, Woman
of Ill Fame and The Witch’s Trinity. The Witch’s Trinity
was a San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book, which Khaled
Hosseini called “a gripping, well-told story of faith and
truth.” She has taught writing at the University of Arizona,
College of Alameda and currently teaches through
www.mediabistro.com.


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Historical Novels Society conference

Recently I attended the Historical Novels Society conference in San Diego, and can't say enough good things about it.

There was an amazing slate of authors, so many great panels that I had a hard time selecting which to attend (typically, four panels per hour), and a great collection of agents and editors who generously shared their insider look at the business.

The high point for me was meeting Heather Lazare, Crown editor, and Michelle Moran, Crown author. Heather's actually my editor (I was very happily assigned to her after Allison McCabe, my editor for The Witch's Trinity, left publishing) and I had never met her. It was fantastic to have that opportunity, and to meet Michelle as well, whose career I heartily admire, over delicious fish tacos.

I was also thrilled to meet Vanitha Sankaran. We share an agent and I was delighted to have been able to blurb her lovely debut WATERMARK. Vanitha did a great job presenting on the Marquee Names panel, and I sat next to her at the booksigning where she signed them hand over fist. Nice work, Vanitha!

I also enjoyed meeting fellow witchcraft authors Mary Sharatt and Suzy Witten, and Sarah Johnson, the guru behind the conference, and Richard Scott, the genie behind the conference, and Gillian Bagwell, who did a great job in a nighttime reading session with Diana Gabaldon and CC Humphreys, and Christopher Cevasco, who I sat next to at dinner, and seeing again fun and wry Christopher Gortner.

I had great conversations with many folks and apologies if I'm not remembering names. I loved talking to the publishing attorney who is very close to finding representation (and thanks for buying multiple copies of my book! hugely appreciative) and the woman who wrote the Goddess tarot. Many other great interactions; sorry if I'm forgetting anyone.

I learned so much that it would be impossible to blog it all, but here are a few highlights that stick in my mind:

• Sourcebooks editor Shana Drehs talked about cover art decisions, and said that most options for a single book she's ever seen was 124!
• Heather Lazare and Michelle Moran also talked about cover art for MADAME TUSSAUD and the many iterations it took to come up with something everyone could live with (I love that cover and would adore seeing the also-rans)
• Someone said it was integral to join Goodreads, and so I have!
• Persia Woolley told of a online seminar in how to use Facebook better as an author
• Someone spoke of the importance of being able to boil your novel down into a one-sentence pitch, and then a one-paragraph pitch. I do that with my mediabistro students, so it was confirming to hear that.
• Shana Drehs talked of the exponential growth of ebooks, with a huge jump just between November 2010 and January 2011
• She also said the point of writing is for the reader to feel "I'm awesome" while reading it. That generated a lot of reflection for me. How do we get a reader to feel like they're cool for reading our book?

The conference alternates between England and the U.S., so the next one will be held in London. Although I'd love to visit, it's far more likely my next foray will be the 2013 conference. Hope to see you there!

P.S. Amended later to add some more thoughts:

• It was great seeing Cecelia Holland get a standing ovation for her keynote address. She said something in that speech that really got me thinking: "We'll never know more about this particular moment than we do right now."
• Enjoyed speaking very briefly with Susanne Dunlap, Bethany Latham, Christy English, Susan Higginbotham, the two fabulous bloggers Heather of Maiden's Court and Allie of Hist Fic Chick and the nice aspiring author from the Crusades era who brought his dad (awww)
  
• And finally, wanted to say that while I was happily reassigned to Heather Lazare, it was with great angst that I "lost" Allison McCabe, an incredible editor who shares my love of all things morbid and dental, and made my book so much better than it was before.

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Visiting Chabot

A few weeks ago I visited Chabot College to talk about my novel Woman of Ill Fame with an English classroom where--gasp!--the wonderful instructor, Danielle Maze, had assigned it. Who ever woulda thought prostitute Nora Simms’s story would be thought of as a textbook?

The students asked really thoughtful questions and I enjoyed that challenge of being slightly put on the spot for things I didn’t instantly know the answer to.

I think the best question of the night was about craft: “Why did you choose to start the story the way you did? At the beginning you can’t tell right away what’s going on, and who’s involved, and you keep reading to have it unfold.”

That’s a great question. I don’t know what spurs the first moment of a novel. I do know a lot of advice says, “Start writing, and then you’ll probably discard the first 20 pages and begin where the story really starts.”

All I knew was, my novel had to start with Nora arriving in San Francisco, and it made sense that she’d use every last second to make money the best way she knew how. I hadn’t really thought of that beginning sex scene as cryptic, or that one is initially unsure what’s happening. I’d have to look at it again (that book was two babies ago!)…but the underlying question is more global than that: “how do we choose to relay information?”

Some writers might well have chosen to say, “Nora Simms lay on a rice bag, having sex with the galley mate as the ship docked” (which is the scene), but instead I chose a more subtle approach to keying the reader in to what was happening. It’s instinctual, and it’s just how people innately decide to write scenes. I never really think about different options for starting a scene; I just start. My mind knows what it wants to do, right or wrong. I’d be curious to know if other writers consider and abandon different approaches before starting.

Two other interesting things arose out of that classroom visit. One was that someone asked me to sign her book, but it was a library book. We laughed a bit for the idea that I could inscribe it, “Dear library patron…” In the end, I wasn’t enough of a scofflaw to sign the book on the title page, but I did write a little secret message at the back on my author photo page. So if you take Woman of Ill Fame out of the Oakland Public Library, you may happen to get that copy.

Another signing issue arose when someone handed me a book that I had previously signed! He must have bought it off Amazon. I had written, “Dear X, Good luck with your writing career!” so it was probably someone I briefly talked to about their writing aspirations. Unsure what to do, I chose the goofy route, crossed out the woman’s name and instead wrote the current man’s name, and wrote something silly in the margins around my original message.

I’m sure this has to have happened to other authors before since I’ve noticed something: most people open your book to the first page, not the title page, to be signed, making it likely they wouldn’t notice the book was already signed. Which actually makes better sense: it’s typically a page with more room for a message (sometimes completely blank), whereas the title page has many elements to contend with.

Anyway, it was fun to talk about (and think about) Nora Simms again. Thanks Chabot students and especially thanks to instructor Danielle Maze.


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Winter reading recommendations

Recommended Reading List

This time, I’m limiting the list to young adult books. Over the course of the last year or so, I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on… is it just me, or do YA and middle grade books have more inventive, memorable and inviting cover art than adult fiction typically does? It is so entertaining to visit this section of the bookstore, and hard to leave without dropping some serious dough.

Here’s a few I’ve really fallen in love with:

Book of Dead Days by Marcus Sedgwick

This book follows a young boy in a late 1700s, unnamed European city, who is servant to a magician who seems to have more than sleight-of-hand abilities. The also-unnamed Boy and a orphan girl who comes into his life try to help his master subvert a long-ago deal with the devil. Time is running out to save the magician’s soul…and the journey is magnificent.

The Agency series by Y.S. Lee

I jumped into this series with #2, because the cover art was just so inviting to me. A strong, young Victorian-era heroine? I’m IN! Mary Quinn works undercover for a women-run spy agency (could this be any better?) and has a half-Chinese heritage (yup, it just got better!). In this installment, she works (literally—she joins a construction crew, and the details of how big-scale construction worked in those days is fascinating) to figure out who pushed a body off the top of the in-progress British Parliament building. Loved it. Number 1 in the series is top of my TBR pile.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Not a new book, and several have followed in the series to complete a trilogy, but what can I say—I sometimes come to things late! As I did with the book above, I grabbed this one based on the incredible cover art. It’s set at a girls boarding school (I always love these stories, and wanted so badly when I was young to be sent away, or given a governess, or something literary), and the main character Gemma suffers visions and learns she is somehow linked to a former student at the school. That student was a member of a supernatural society and stakes get quickly dangerous, and Gemma learns disturbing information about her own mother. It’s a page-turner.

Enjoy the winter reading!

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Blogger author

Many thanks to historical author Brandy Purdy for blogging about Witch's Trinity! She's the author of several Tudor novels, including one to be released soon, The Tudor Throne. Here's her very kind post. Thanks, Brandy!



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My peeps!

A few weekends ago I had the true pleasure of meeting other Parsonses, at the Western Parsons Family Association. The group invited me to come speak about our ancestor in common, Mary Bliss Parsons, who was accused of witchcraft in 1600s Massachusetts.

This group all descends from a Parsons who came west on a wagon train in 1853...and then ultimately from Cornet Joseph Parsons, the first in our line in America (the husband of Mary Bliss Parsons). They are very knowledgeable about their genealogy and came equipped with tomes of family history.

I so much enjoyed meeting this wonderful group of people, who have met up annually for years. They made me feel right at home and seemed genuinely interested in Mary's witchcraft travails. Each year they make quilt squares and Harriet Parsons lovingly sews them into a beautiful quilt. She brought about 10 of the most recent years' and they were incredible works of art.

Here is our group (I'm sitting on the stone wall in a red shirt), and a picture of the sheet cake we all devoured.

I hadn't thought about Mary Bliss Parsons for a while... my book came out in 2007 and since then we've had two children and moved twice and... well, she just hasn't been on my mind. But boning up to do the talk, and then responding to the questions they raised, again filled me with enthusiasm to go to Northampton, Ma. to visit the family home, now a museum, and research more about this intriguing ancestor of mine. Someday!


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Summer Reading Recommendations

My quarterly goal is to do a recommendations list. I did one in the fall, just a few posts below. Hope you will enjoy these summer books as much as I did.

Daughters of the Witching Hill by Mary Sharatt

This book is written with such lovely empathy that it radiates. Based on the details of the 1612 Pendle (England) witches trial, this novel follows Bess Southerns and her family as they scratch a living out of the hard soil. One source of income is doing “cunning” work: healing and magic. Which of course leads to trouble… imprisonment and the threat of execution.

I so sincerely don’t believe in witchcraft, and am so enraged at how even today (read my archives) people are still being tortured and killed for the accusation of witchcraft, that it’s a tough sell for me to accept a novel in which someone really does have powers. But Sharatt’s light touch allowed me to immerse myself in this world.

An interview with Katherine Howe, another witchcraft author, reveals a key point for me. Sharatt says of one of her real-life characters:

Her last recorded words before she was hanged were a passionate vindication of her grandmother's legacy as a healer.

Clearly, these women did believe in their cunning powers, whether or not they truly existed. Sharatt’s earnest and compassionate telling of their lives won over this initially hesitant reader, and I highly recommend this beautifully-told book.

The Children of Witches, by Sherri Smith.

Published in England and available here in the U.S. as a Kindle edition, this novel looks at the world of witchcraft in a medieval German town. Smith asked me for a blurb for her beautiful novel, and I gladly gave one.

The innkeeper’s son Manfred is somehow “not quite right” but has a lovely singing voice and gathers attention and fame for it. Unfortunately, once the spotlight shines on him, it displays other things, and suddenly a village is turned upside down. The priest gathers children to him and they begin pointing fingers. Soon, they run the village and even their own parents are afraid of them. No one will enter the marketplace during the hours that the children are freely roaming and looking for people to enact their spite upon.

It’s a terrifying look at what happens when the most power is handed to the people least able to wield it. With poetic language, this novel is quiet and haunting.

The Dark Lantern, by Gerri Brightwell

Set in Victorian London, one of my favorite historical fiction armchair destinations, this novel tells the tale of Jane, a maid who does that wonderfully appropriate thing of spying on her employers. We quickly learn all kinds of disquieting things about possible fraudulent heiresses, intruders impersonating the man of the house, and even the fact that our maid hides secrets herself.

I’ve never read such a realistic (and harrowing) description of housework of the era. The cinders from the fireplace, which embed themselves in the rug and endlessly need to be cleaned, became nearly a character themselves.

The lantern of the title has a sliding screen that can hide or reveal the candle inside, which provides a beautiful metaphor for the way the author gives brief, half-seen glimpses of truths before leaving us in the dark again. A compelling read very akin to Sarah Waters’ work.

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Witch's Trinity makes summer book list!

My dear friend and fabulous author Tamim Ansary was asked by the San Francisco Chronicle to pick one book to recommend for summer reading. He was kind enough to pick mine: here's the link.

I was thrilled that the Chronicle book editor John McMurtrie ran Tamim's pick as the top book in the list, and with a huge jpeg of my book cover. Thanks so much!

The Chronicle has been kind to Witch's Trinity: it was named a Notable Book in 2007. And as the sole newspaper in the Bay Area that is still running independently, it deserves kudos for standing strong.


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Shirley Jackson Awards

I'm happy to announce I'm a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards which honor "outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic."

Which means I'm embroiled in reading some wonderful books and some not-so-wonderful books, and open to recommendations. The book has to be have been published (or slated to be) this year.

The press release is here.

I'm also excited to see that Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle is going to be made into a film.


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Red Room

One of my favorite scary books when I was a kid was Scott Corbett's The Red Room Riddle. Fittingly, right now there's a wonderful website to check up on authors. It's Red Room: Where the Writers Are.

Within the site, authors can create blog posts. I wrote one recently about my experience of Halloween. Currently, Red Room is featuring me on their home page, linking directly to that post. Thanks so much, Red Room! This is a great site to learn more about writers and to find out event dates and the like.

Speaking of events, I'll be talking to the Mayflower Society in Pebble Beach, California, this Saturday the 14th. I'm particularly excited because I just read Nathaniel Philbrick's incredible book Mayflower, which shed a lot of light on what conditions were like in 1656 Massachusetts at the time of my ancestor's first witchcraft trial.

I think I'm going to buy multiple copies for my family members this holiday season... learning how the Pilgrims and Indians very nearly were able to cooperate (and did in fact live together fairly well for decades) and then how pressures from Puritans, self-interested individuals and general mistrust led to King Philip's War was nail-biting stuff. And I don't usually say that about nonfiction, especially nonfiction whose outcome I already know.

Philbrick's book basically gives the background for every skirmish of the war. "King Philip" was the mocking name given an Indian with apparently regal bearing... his war against the Europeans ultimately spelled the doom of his people--although it so easily could have gone the other way. Philbrick relates:

In the years before the war, Native Americans had constituted almost thirty percent of the population of New England. By 1680, they made up less than 15 percent.

Another shocking statistic is that in 2002, it was estimated that 10 percent of the American population descends from Mayflower passengers. Those Colonials did their best to propogate, having huge families. My ancestor Mary Bliss Parsons (not a Mayflower passenger, but a very early immigrant) did her part, birthing 14 children, nine of which lived to adulthood. A different world, no?


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I’ve blogged before about the passage in the Malleus Maleficarum (the witch hunting bible written by medieval German friars) in which witches gather up men’s stolen penises and store them in a bird’s nest. But recently another nuance to this story occurred to me. Bird’s nests usually contain eggs, right? Once again, witchcraft circles around the concepts of fertility and growth.

Here’s the actual quote:

Witches…sometimes collect male organs in great numbers, as many as 20 or 30 members together, and put them in a bird’s nest, or shut them up in a box, where they move themselves like living members, and eat oats and corn, as has been seen by many, and is a matter of common report.

A subsequent anecdote talks about a man who was a victim of penis theft. He approached a “known witch” for advice on what to do. She suggested he climb a certain tree and “take which he liked out a nest in which there were several members.” He (can we blame him?) tried to take a big one, and she said he couldn’t take that one since it belonged to the parish priest.

It’d be nice to insert here a platitude about how lucky we are not to live in the Middle Ages…except that “penis theft” is still happening, and people are still being killed for this absurd crime.

Google “penis theft” (or enter the term in the search box above to scan my archives) and blow your mind.

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Fall Reading Recommendations

As part of a literary community, I love the fact that I can recommend books written by people I know. I hope as the weather turns, you will sit by the window with a glass of warm apple cider and read each of these books (why not?).

1. The Widow's Husband by Tamim Ansary. I loved this book. A beautiful, literary look at Afghanistan in the 1800s, with tribal life lovingly rendered. Tamim is also the author of West of Kabul, East of New York, and the recently-released Destiny Disrupted, A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes.

2. Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran. I have to confess, this is still in my TBR pile...but I love Michelle's writing and so can confidently make the recommendation. Michelle does Egypt (and now Rome) like nobody else!

3. Flow Down Like Silver by Ki Longfellow. Another one I have yet to read but can wholly recommend on the basis of her previous novel The Secret Magdalene.

4. The Gatekeeper by Michelle Gagnon. Not available until next month, this thriller follows Kelly Jones in her third installment of serial killer trackdowns. Michelle is so personable in real life, you'd never guess her mind is so dark.

5. Exult by Joe Quirk. I loved this novel. Joe is amazing at action scenes that literally make your pulse race. His first novel The Ultimate Rush was well-named for that reason. Joe also writes nonfiction about the differences between the genders: Sperm Are From Men, Eggs Are From Women is a witty read.

6. Remedies by Kate Ledger. I went to grad school with Kate, who made me jog with her in Arizona's brutal heat. She's gotten great reviews for her debut novel, and I can't wait to read it.

7. The God Patent by Ransom Stephens. Could there be a better title? Ransom has published through scribd.com...and I also hear there's an audiobook in the works. That's the one I'll be buying; I'm a big car listener.

8. The Sower by Kemble Scott. This book got lots of noise (including NYT noise!) for Scott's alternative publishing method. His first novel, SoMa, was a finalist for the Lambda award.

All right, those oughta keep you busy for a while. And if you haven't read The Witch's Trinity, that would be a perfect fit for this time of year.

Happy reading!




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My letter to Google

Things are heating up around the proposed Google Book Settlement, since the time for authors to object is nearing its deadline.

Authors, we have until Sept. 4 to file an objection to the Google Book Settlement. For specs, see the FAQ under googlebooksettlement.com. This is a landmark, precedent-setting case; please consider expressing disapproval to the court.

For those of you new to the issue (and those who aren't), I'd like to share my letter of objection.


Office of the Clerk,
J. Michael McMahon
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
500 Pearl Street
New York, New York 10007

August 21, 2009


Dear Clerk:

I’m writing to object to, and express my horror at, the Google Book Settlement currently on Judge Denny Chin’s desk.

As an author, my creative work is copyrighted. What does a copyright mean when a corporation like Google can get hold of my work, without my permission, for financial benefit?

I find it unconscionable that an interloper who had nothing to do with the writing of my books, nor the publishing of them, will now be able to profit from them.

If I were a dressmaker and Google absconded with my gowns, there would be no question that Google would need to promptly return them and face serious legal consequences. However, due to the digital and therefore distributable nature of books, Google’s theft does not appear that way to all eyes.

I opted in to the settlement because it was the only way to protect my rights to my work; my back was against the wall. I did so under situational duress. My literary agent recommended that I do so. I don’t have the time or resources to hire my own attorney, but I do not feel that the Author’s Guild attorneys represent me… nor do they somehow magically represent the world of “all writers everywhere.” I am not a member of the Guild, and I am deeply upset that the Guild is considering the settlement. I would like Google to go to court and have to defend its position.

Under the terms of the settlement, Google keeps 37 percent of all revenue generated by its sales of works written by hapless authors. That is a despicable figure given that the typical percentage for authors who created the content is only 10 percent under traditional publishing.

With the settlement, Google keeps 37 percent. Of the remaining 63 percent, writers and publishers must pay 10-20 percent to the Book Rights Registry (again, an entity I don’t know and don’t want to profit from my work) and then equally split the remains. Doing the math, whether the Registry keeps 10 or 20 percent, the author and publisher percentage is significantly less than Google’s (28 percent or 25 percent, respectively). That is grossly unfair.

Authors sweat and pray and write for years to create a book. Publishers do a fair amount of work as well. They put up money to create a tangible book (or e-book), maintain a stable of editors and marketing staff, and undertake the arcane and unwieldy world of book distribution. These two entities deserve revenue from their books. But what will Google do to receive 37%? It will scan a book—which any halfwit with a scanner can do.

The publishing industry is already on the wane. This Google settlement may sound its death knell. Independent bookstores are closing like the livery stables of yore, and losing business to yet another online competitor may close down the entire literary operation, with thousands of publishing house employees, bookstore employees, and authors left stranded. If we thought Amazon was tough on the business, this new venture will shoot it in the knees.

The saving grace for publishers may be e-books… a new way of reading that may rescue the industry. Yet the Google Book Settlement will undercut this possibly vital new scheme.

Publishers publish books knowing the undertaking is risky. The book may not flourish and its publication will have been an error. But that is the beauty of literature: we do not know which books will please, and we read and write and hope for the best. Already it is famously difficult for writers to get published…if publishers must watch their wallet even more closely, and take less risks on new writers, there will be a trickle-down effect on the entire world of literature.

And what about libraries—those bastions of civic benevolence? If one can access a book at 2 a.m. on one’s computer, who will bother to wait until morning to get in the car and go to the library? The whole library system may founder.

This settlement provides a landmark precedent for whether literary works will be protected by law. If Google is permitted to scan and sell others’ content, the “barn door is open,” as they say, and scads of other companies will leap to do the same thing.

Please protect writers, publishers and bookstores by unequivocally shutting down this unfair, abhorrent settlement—make Google go to court and explain itself.

Sincerely,


Erika Mailman


cc via email:

Boni & Zack LLCbookclaims@bonizack.com

Debevoise & Plimpton LLPbookclaims@debevoise.com

Durie Tangri Lemley Roberts & Kent LLPbookclaims@durietangri.com




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Witchcraft in India

I had a discussion with book blogger Gautami Tripathy of India about her country's modern-day persecution of witches. She was kind enough to agree to write a guest post for me. She cautioned me, "I tweaked it a bit leaving out specific places. Remember, ours is a volatile country."

Please leave comments here and I can get them to her, or you can visit her at Everything Distills into Reading.

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Witch Trials in India
By Gautami Tripathy

I have read a lot of books on the Salem witch trials. And I have been horrified by it, as I ought to be. Most of us think of it as something which is in the past, and simply move on after deploring the past with platitudes.

Is it in the past? And gone? Not so. Here I will highlight that aspect. Witch trials are still happening in today's India. Scary, isn't it?

What is the reason that it still persists? Superstition? Religion? Those do not even scratch the surface. It is more on the lines of property rights. Brand a woman as a witch, throw her out of the village and grab her property. It happens with those women who have no family support and no one to speak for them other than themselves. Sometimes it is also done to settle scores against women who have spurned sexual advances from powerful men. Those women too aren't spared who question the societal norms or go against them. How can a man's ego, any man's ego, stand that?

Mostly childless and helpless widows face the brunt because the husband's family don't want to share their property with her and want her gone from their fold. The villager elders instead of supporting the woman even instigate the woman to be thrown out or sometimes killed. When mobs come out, what does a woman do? The law either turns a blind eye or turns up after the deed is done. With virtually no witnesses, the culprits go scot-free.

Sometimes religious beliefs allow a woman to be tortured. Hinduism too has stories about witches and if something happens to someone, the woman is blamed and all come out against her. In recent years, as many as 700 women have been hunted down as witches.

Most of the witch trials end up in killing. NGOs have come up, spreading awareness, providing for helpless females, but it still isn't enough. As long the feudal spirit persists, superstition rules the roost, and spreading awareness will not help.

Frankly, the government is apathetic too, which is a shame. Maybe it thinks brushing it under the carpet will make it go away.



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Waterstone's

My lovely English editor at Hodder & Stoughton sent me a mobile phone image of Witch's Trinity being featured front-of-store at Waterstone's. It's part of a buy one, get one free promotion for the next week or so. You can see it in the second row, third from left. I absolutely love this yellowish, snowbound landscape cover design.

Waterstone's has been really good to the book; thank you!

Waterstone's has a special place in my heart. When I took my junior year abroad in Ireland oh so many years ago, I won second place in a poetry contest sponsored by University College Cork, and the prize was a Waterstone's gift certificate. I still have and love the book I got with it, a volume of Patrick Kavanagh's poems. It still has the W sticker on it! I loved the dark wood of the shelving units and spent a lot of time wandering the Cork store.




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Bellarmines

The Times Online reported recently the discovery of “witch bottles” which one buries outside the front door to discourage witches from following you inside and wreaking havoc.

Scientists examined the contents of one such flagon, found outside Greenwich several years ago and dating to the 17th century: inside was urine with traces of nicotine, well-manicured nail clippings from a man, a lock of hair, some belly button lint, nails, pins and a heart-shaped leather emblem. There were 200 such witch bottles found.

The article states:

Most witch bottles are heavy stoneware wine flagons from the Rhineland known as bellarmines after the French cardinal whose face was traditionally embossed on the neck. When the import of bellarmines ceased glass bottles were used, although fewer have survived.

As one of the commenters at Times Online correctly pointed out, this is witchcraft to ward off witchcraft.

The link to the article is here.




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Gambia 'witches' forced to drink foul potion

This, from the May 20 New York Times: "Witch Hunts and Foul Potions Heighten Fear of Leader in Gambia."

Under the bizarre rule of dictator Jammeh, squadrons arrested Gambians (mostly elderly, witnesses reported) suspected of witchcraft, took them away on buses, and fed them a strange liquid. The article reads,

"To the accompaniment of drums, and directed by men in red tunics bedecked with mirrors and cowrie shells, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Gambians were taken from their villages and driven by bus to secret locations. There they were forced to drink a foul-smelling concoction that made them hallucinate, gave them severe stomach pains, induced some to try digging a hole in a tiled floor, made others try climbing up a wall and in some cases killed them, according to the villagers themselves and Amnesty International."

The drink made some unconscious, and one man interviewed for the article shakes his head uncontrollably from side to side and has done so since the torture. Amnesty International says that six people have died from the unidentified drink.

This story ran on page A6 of the New York Times...the news about witchcraft persecutions is getting more attention lately, as it should. This is a shameful human rights issue that needs to be addressed.


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Abuse of child witches on the rise

From today's CNN wire, the article "Abuse of Child 'Witches' on the Rise, Aid Groups Say" addresses the horrible plight of children stigmatized by the name witch. It follows in particular the story of 14-year-old Christian Eshiett of Nigeria, whose "rambunctious" ways led him to be repeatedly beaten, and to run away from home as a 12 year old, spending the next two years on the streets.

The article states:

“Children accused of witchcraft are often incarcerated in churches for weeks on end and beaten, starved and tortured in order to extract a confession,” said Gary Foxcroft, program director of Stepping Stones Nigeria, a nonprofit that helps alleged witch children in the region.... The states of Akwa Ibom and Cross River have about 15,000 children branded as witches, and most of them end up abandoned and abused on the streets, he said.

Link here to Stepping Stones Nigeria, should you wish to donate.

Interestingly, Foxcroft feels the belief in witchcraft should be permitted to remain. I strongly disagree. As long as anyone believes another person wields supernatural powers, especially demonically-endowed powers, there is danger.

This is a very sticky issue for Africa and other parts of the world: Westerners don't wish to insist that such beliefs are superstititious or primitive. Medieval Europe found a way to extricate itself from such egregious beliefs (without the interference of colonializing forces). I honestly think the key is for economic conditions to improve. Crime rises when people are desperate--and accusing someone of witchcraft is a crime.

I don't support the belief in witchcraft. However, perhaps Foxcroft feels his best bet is to improve the system from within, allowing the belief to remain while removing children from its target:

“It is not the belief in witchcraft that we are concerned about,” Foxcroft said. “We acknowledge people’s right to hold this belief on the condition that this does not lead to child abuse.”

What do you think? I welcome comments--is the belief in witchcraft harmful in itself, or a benign belief system?

The image accompanied the article on CNN, with the caption "Children branded as witches protest on February 26, 2009, in the southern Nigerian city of Eket."

. . . . .

This originally appeared as a guest post for Historical Tapestry.

I love historical fiction, because I love the opportunity to learn about women's lives of thepast, whether glorious or painful. It helps me hold a mirror up to my own life, and see that I am lucky to live when and where I can vote, where I can speak my mind, where I can take penicillin and not die from a minor infection, where I can undergo labor that is still risky, but knowing my chances of coming out of it alive, with a healthy child, are pretty strong.

History seems to give the lion’s share of textbook coverage to men and battles, but I like to know what women of the day were doing. Sometimes it takes some digging, but the research is always compelling and allows me to feel kinship for these women who made the best of the world they were given.

In the most recent instance, I buried my nose in books about medieval witchcraft. I studied a world where society measured women’s value by how many children they produced, and how many of those they managed to raise to a “safe” age. I learned that having a male relative (father, son, husband) was key to protecting oneself—many widows or unmarried women found themselves accused.

I learned that the cards were stacked against women accused in medieval Europe (New England was far more reasonable—more on that later). Getting one’s case dismissed is hard when you are not allowed to have an advocate (lawyer) speak for you, or even to know who is accusing you. Those were two procedural suggestions from the Malleus Maleficarum, the witch hunting Bible written in the late 1480s. This pseudo-legalistic book by two friars provided a guide to help magistrates figure out how to properly try a witch. A bestseller of its day, it winged its way across the countryside, allowing baffled lawmen to confidently hold inquisitions.

The reason magistrates withheld the accusers’ names? So that the witch could not summon the Devil or other witches to visit retribution on the accusers’ heads.

And why not permit her to be represented? Because anyone who supports heresy is a heretic in turn.

Fertility plays a huge role in witchcraft accusations—and as women are childbearers, they were more frequently accused, although certainly men also faced trial in significant numbers. In a world without supermarkets, staying alive requires that you have a successful harvest and properly store the food, effectively raise and keep animals, and have your own children to help do all this work…all of which hinges on fertility.

Small wonder, then, that so many of the accusations relate to cows and chickens dying—there’s milk and egg production squandered and lying in the dirt. Other accusations involved controlling the weather (and hence crop growth)… this medieval woodcut shows witches calling down the rain with the magic stew in their cauldron.

And of course, many, many accusations related to miscarriages, stillbirths, newborn deaths and outright infertility. These are issues we still struggle with today… imagine that grief compounded by an angry belief that someone else did that to you.

In 1656, a woman was pregnant at the same time as my ancestor, Mary Bliss Parsons. While Mary’s baby thrived, the other woman’s died soon after birth...and she called Mary a witch for it.

This was just one of many crimes her Massachusetts neighbors felt she was responsible for. The others also fell in line with the fertility concerns of centuries: that she made a cow, pig and sow die, caused a neighbor boy to trip in the woods while tracking down his family’s errant cow, and made spun yarn diminish in volume. (She also faced oddball accusations like being able to go into water and not get wet.)

Mary spoke for herself in court, so effectively that she won. And here’s where New England was fairly reasonable: nearly 30 percent of witchcraft cases ended in acquittal. As a new country, not so deeply entrenched in the centuries of witch hunting that Europe endured, the colonies behaved far gentler to their witches. Even when executed, witches knew kindness—the preferred method was hanging, a presumably quicker death than burning at the stake.

Mary again faced the witchcraft accusation 18 years later; apparently, the court’s ruling was unconvincing. She was—mindblowingly—acquitted again, and died of old age in her eighties.

Mostly these sojourns into the past make me so, so grateful that I live when and where I do. Although to be honest, I’d give my eyeteeth (who needs them, really—and in fact what are they?) for a chance to visit the 1800s just for a day.

Preferably not a day when someone with tuberculosis sneezes on me, or a day when I’m giving birth to a breech baby…or a day when a migraine hits…or I have food poisoning and it’s 30 below zero and I have to keep running to the outdoor privy… or I really hate the candidate running for office and wish that I could cast a vote, and my husband tells me it isn’t proper for women to vote… or a day when… actually, maybe I’ll stay here in 2008.

* * * * *
The image comes from a 1489 book on witchcraft, De Lamiis, reproduced in Kors & Edwards: Witchcraft in Europe 1100-1700.

How do witches fly?

This was originally a guest post I wrote for fellow historical fiction writer C.W. Gortner's blog Historical Boys. Gortner's wonderful novel The Last Queen is being released in paperback tomorrow!

How do witches fly?

One of the prevailing characteristics of witches throughout time immemorial has been their ability to fly. Before broomsticks came into the picture, medieval imagery depicted witches flying on tree branches, as in this woodcut from De Lamiis, a pre-1500s tract written by German professor Ulrich Molitor to confirm the existence of witchcraft.

But how might a witch elevate herself? What provides the power that thickens the air and permits her to ride it?

We turn to the Malleus Maleficarum for the answer. The Malleus Maleficarum translates to “The Witch’s Hammer”—not the hammer a witch uses, but one that is used on her. This book, written in the 1480s, provides information on how to identify, question and punish witches, in essence a witch hunting Bible. Two German friars wrote it, based on their experiences roaming the countryside ridding it of witches. No less a personage than Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal bull complimenting these men on their hard work and providing an endorsement for them.

The book became a bestseller of its day, going through multiple editions over hundreds of years… and today, you can purchase a 1970s edition that is still in print. The Malleus purports to be legalistic and reasonable, even while it contradicts itself and provides flabbergastingly ridiculous examples of witchcraft. My edition provides nearly 300 pages of wince-worthy material… we would be laughing uproariously if hundreds of thousands hadn’t died because of its convictions.

So, the answer on how to fly. This comes from Part II, Question I, Chapter 3 (you can see that the very format of the book lends officiousness and dignity):

Now the following is their method of being transported. They take the unguent which, as we have said, they make at the devil’s instruction from the limbs of children, particularly of those whom they have killed before baptism, and anoint with it a chair or a broomstick; whereupon they are immediately carried up into the air, either by day or by night, and either visibly or, if they wish, invisibly; for the devil can conceal a body by the interposition of some other substance, as was shown in the First Part of the treatise where we spoke of the glamours and illusions caused by the devil. And although the devil for the most part performs this by means of this unguent, to the end that children should be deprived of the grace of baptism and of salvation, yet he often seems to affect the same transvection without its use. For at times he transports the witches on animals, which are not true animals but devils in that form; and sometimes even without any exterior help they are visibly carried solely by the operation of the devil’s power.

So there you have it: you must murder children before they can be baptized (saved), and create a potion from their limbs. Or with the devil’s help, you can dispense with the unguent and ride a devil in animal form, or just fly away solely.

The Malleus follows this information with a real-life example, to fortify its truth. The friars write of the town of Waldshut on the Rhine. Here lived a woman everyone hated so much that they didn’t invite her to a wedding that all the rest of the townsfolk attended. Indignant of the slight, she raised a hailstorm to ruin the festivities and prevent the guests from dancing.

Witches “usually” raise hailstorms by pouring water into a trench—since she had no water, she instead urinated into a little hole she dug and stirred it with her finger. A devil stood nearby, and when she was finished, he raised up the liquid and transformed it into the hailstones that fell on the celebrants.

[Quick tangent: how sad that she had no water. Was this indicative of the fact that she was a beggar and scorned for her inability to get food and drink for herself, to the extent that the town excluded her from the wedding celebration?]

As the woman re-entered the town, everyone who had been marveling at the hailstorm saw her and thought, “Aha!” Later, shepherds who had been tending their flocks and saw her urinate into the trench shared what they witnessed, and the witch was arrested.

She confessed to spoiling the wedding because she had not been invited. And they burned her at the stake.

What a frightening land and time to be a person that no one likes. Burned at the stake for the whims of weather, paired with guilt over not providing feast food for the one woman in town who was probably the most hungry.

As I wrote this guest post, I found myself wondering whether Waldshut really existed. Thanks to Wikipedia, I see that it is today amalgamated into the city of Waldshut-Tiengen.

And in the town, yes, still stands the Hexenturm ("Witches' Tower"), a round tower of the medieval fortified walls where witches once were jailed.

Photo credit is from Kors & Edwards: Witchcraft in Europe 1100-1700.