“Tarot for Creativity” helps writers and artists get through creative blocks

“My very first experience was in asking the cards about a novel I was writing at the time and it wasn’t going anywhere,” says Chelsey Pippin Mizzi in an interview with Lauren Parker. “Up until that point, so much of my writing had been informed by visuals. And then suddenly there were these three pocket-sized pictures that were inviting me to consider creative ideas.” 

Witches on TV: Pop Culture and Power

TV witches have always captivated me. As a child, I would sit cross-legged in front of the screen, completely spellbound by reruns of Samantha Stephens from Bewitched on Nick-at-Nite. I remember watching her effortlessly clean the house with a twitch of her nose, never realizing that there was something deeper going on in these portrayals of witches.

Classics of Pagan Cinema: Hocus Pocus

“As a nation, we love to cast our projections on the witches of Salem,” writes Meg Elison as she examines America’s favorite film about witches. “What we want from the real people who died by state violence, the places where they hanged, the hysteria that killed them, is fun. We want Salem to be a theme park, to amuse us and titillate us.”

The Festival of Pomona

Siobhan Ball celebrates the end of apple season with the myths and folklore surrounding Pomona, the Roman goddess of apples, and includes a frustrating but authentic recipe for a Minutal of Fruit from Apicius, the ancient Roman gourmand.