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Shadowmoon Writing Workshop Questions

Early in 2000, I received an invitation to give an online writing workshop, via IRC, sponsored by Shadowmoon Coven. This workshop eventually took place on January 23 at 11 A.M. and involved about a dozen people total, including a couple of guests who didn't belong to the coven but were issued special invitations. I found the experience quite enlightening, and other people indicated that they learned a lot too. As part of the pre-workshop preparation, I wrote up a list of questions and answers, revised and updated for reprint here. This list has also become part of my "How to Write for Blessed Bee, Inc." workshop that I present in person at Pagan gatherings.

These questions were divided into three basic categories: Writing Basics, information about my background, and the Pagan Market.

Writing Basics

1. What do you consider the best type of documentation for Pagan writing -- MLA, APA, is there any type of standard yet?

There is no universal standard in the mainstream publishing world, let alone the Pagan field. Each editor tends to think of their own style as "the standard" so you have to get guidelines from every market where you want to submit material. The academic styles like MLA and APA are a bit stuffy for most Pagan markets anyway, and they leave out a lot of things important to Pagan writers. I developed a stylesheet for Blessed Bee, Inc. which takes into account the kind of Pagan usage questions ("Do I capitalize 'Pagan' or not? Can I refer to Silver RavenWolf as just RavenWolf?") that the academic standards don't. However, if you do use a recognized standard, few editors will gripe about it; they'll just adapt it to their preferred styling if necessary. Of the ones you mentioned, I prefer MLA.

2. What are the topics in Pagan writing that receive too much coverage?

The Burning Times, sex magic, generic women's rites, spirit guides, power animals/totems, quartz crystals, anything to do with Gerald Gardner, and anything that sounds like "fluffybunny ritual" or "Wicca Lite." If you want to cover this kind of material, you need a really innovative angle. A good rule of thumb: If in the last year you have seen three or more articles on a given topic, or if more than one magazine has done an issue on the theme, then it's probably overworked.

3. What topics would you like to see more coverage on?

New trads like Gothic Paganism which are developing right now, ways of using technology to live a Pagan lifestyle, Pagan families, the role of computers and cyberspace in Paganism today, the rise of Pagan clergy, good journalistic reports of current events, and anything with solid scholarly background or at a higher level of expertise. We need people to chronicle our community's growth and accomplishments. Any article offering innovative and effective solutions to chronic problems has a high chance of success too.

4. Many of our perceived leaders in Paganism are authors. What are your thoughts on this?

I'm glad that we have some leaders who are articulate enough to write books, and some authors who are active enough to serve as leaders. At its best, this is a wonderful combination. The two talents don't always come together. The downside is that sometimes people think they will be good at one because they're good at the other, and then they flop. Also, other folks may think less of an author/leader, either because they think the person is all book-learning and no practical experience, or because they think the person is giving out information that should remain secret.

5. Can you give an example of a really good Pagan publication and one that could use improvement?

In my considered opinion, SageWoman is the best Pagan publication today. SageWoman is a paying market, the staff people are congenial and competent, the magazine comes out on time, and the content is high quality. This magazine has the highest circulation of all the Pagan periodicals I know. I'm not saying this is the best publication because I work there; rather, I work there because this is the best publication. We are trying to bring PanGaia up to the same standard.

Green Egg could use some improvement. At various points in time, Green Egg has been a pretty terrific Pagan magazine, but right now it's not at peak performance. The design makes it hard to find all the pieces of a given article, the arrangement of ads can be confusing, the content is not as high quality, there are too many typos, and the reliability could be better.

6. How do you see the relationship between the editor and author, from both perspectives? Does this differ within Pagan writing? For example, for my Pagan pubs I can do almost all of my submissions by email while in more mainstream journals I must use U.S. mail submissions.

I see editors and writers as part of a team. This is a rather rare perspective. Usually editors and writers get along like cats and dogs; I put a lot of energy into trying to change that for the better. Most problems are caused by misunderstandings. Therefore ...

The author's job is to produce high-quality, fascinating material and to present it in a professional format by the deadline. The editor's job is to select the most promising of the submissions received, then take those manuscripts and polish them to perfection. Ideally the two should play off each other -- as a writer, I enjoy brainstorming articles with my editor friends; and as an editor, I enjoy being able to approach my writer friends with a hot project. But when a writer acts like a prima donna or doesn't turn things in on time, and when an editor mangles an article that took hours to write or doesn't bother to tell the writer that a piece has been accepted, then the system breaks down and it can be a total disaster. Sadly, as a writer I've encountered a lot of wretched editors, and as an editor I'm seeing some pretty pathetic writers. My best advice is, hold yourself to a high standard, and try to work with other people who measure up to your standards as much as possible. Don't encourage losers.

Peculiarities of the Pagan market: Ours is a developing field. So far as I know, SageWoman and PanGaia are the only two paying Pagan periodicals in the world right now. Moonbeams Journal and Keltria Journal used to pay, but both of these are now defunct. So we have a much narrower selection of worthwhile markets to which serious writers can submit material, even if you count the well-done nonpaying markets like CIRCLE Magazine and PagaNet News. Ironically, this is still the easiest field to break into, especially compared with tough ones like speculative fiction, where the top magazines buy about 1% (that is not a typo: ONE percent) of what they receive. As long as you have something interesting to say and your writing sounds reasonably coherent, you should have no trouble getting it published somewhere. In general, Paganism favors a less formal tone than most of the publishing world and the scholarly standards are, to my disappointment, also lower. Pagan markets are more receptive to electronic submissions, yes; some other fields (again, speculative fiction stands out) are also this far along, but most of the mainstream markets aren't. Take advantage of this -- it reduces turnaround time and lets you get more of your work in print faster.

7. Could you describe what happens in the submission process at SageWoman?

• First you obtain a copy of our submission guidelines, and a sample issue of our magazine if you don't already subscribe, and you read these carefully. This immediately puts you ahead of most of the competition. (Most magazines get a lot of submissions from people who have read neither the guidelines nor the magazine. At SageWoman most of our submissions come from subscribers or regular readers, who only sometimes read the guidelines.)
• Second, you write a really nifty article (or whatever -- we buy other kinds of writing too), putting it into an appropriate format.
• Third, you send it to us. When it arrives, it goes into a big stack (if hardcopy) or file (if electronic) called "the slushpile" which consists of all the unsolicited manuscripts we receive.
• Anne Newkirk Niven, editor of SageWoman, then reads the slushpile looking for the best submissions. If yours doesn't quite hold her interest, she'll send you a nice note thanking you for it and asking you to try again. (This is more than many editors will do: most use first readers, many are rude, and some never get around to telling you they don't want the darn thing so you don't know if it's okay to send it elsewhere.)
• If yours does make the cut, she'll send it to me. As the copyeditor, I make sure the formatting is correct, spellcheck, remove any extra spaces, fix minor grammatical problems, and otherwise tidy up the piece so it looks good. Sometimes if a piece is too long, she asks me to trim it down to size. (Since you clever folks read the guidelines, you've made this job a lot easier.)
• Then it goes back to Anne for content editing, during which she'll make any large-scale changes like reorganizing sections. If there are major edits required, don't worry, we'll check back with you; we won't carve up your baby and publish it without your permission. Sometimes we may send a piece back to you with suggestions and ask for a rewrite. That doesn't mean we don't want it -- that means we want you to tinker with it and make it better so we can buy it. (For minor edits like spellchecking, you're just gonna have to trust us; we do know what we're doing.)
• Anyway, when Anne has the manuscript in acceptable shape, she loads it into her awesome publishing software program and does the design/layout work necessary to fit your writing into the relevant issue of the magazine.
• Then the magazine goes to press, and you'll get a complimentary copy of the issue in which your work appears.
• Somewhere along in here, you'll receive two copies of our "Contributor Notice" which is basically a simple contract to publish your work. You sign both copies; send one back to us and keep the other for your own records. Finally, Anne writes you a nice check, which you deposit. And since we liked your work enough to buy it, we sure hope you sit down and start another piece for us.

The process for PanGaia is similar. Since I am the Managing Editor for this title, I get the first say on most manuscripts; that is, Anne forwards almost everything to me and I pick out my favorites to publish. Occasionally she'll flag something "love this" or "hate this" before forwarding. Unlike SageWoman, PanGaia relies strongly on solicited manuscripts. That means that after Anne and I decide on focus topics for the upcoming issues, I go through our list of favorite writers (read: people whose writing is reliably original, entertaining, and accurate; and who can be trusted to turn in assignments on time) and invite them to write specific articles for us. When a writer and I get on the same wavelength, we do a little brainstorming and sketch out the article's intended topic, angle of approach, length range, due date, and other details. Then I wait for the articles to come in, copyedit them as above, and send them to Anne for the design/layout phase. So far, we seem to be having pretty good luck with this. We do still use unsolicited material for the off-topic articles in each issue, and if you happen to submit something really spectacular that matches an upcoming theme, we just might buy it.

About You

1. How did you discover Paganism? Is there a specific tradition that you practice?

I have always been Pagan at heart. I discovered the contemporary Pagan movement in high school when a copy of The Spiral Dance leaped into my hands in a used book store. My primary traditions include Celtic, Native American, and African but I have a few that don't fit neatly into any standard category -- for an example of that, check out the "All Hail Hypatia" page elsewhere on my Website.

2. When and why did you decide to start writing about Pagan topics?

My writing has always had a certain Pagan edge to it, but I started doing more deliberate work in this field during high school, and started seriously pursuing it in college. Figure ten to twelve years ago for that. As for the "why" part, I write about everything that holds my interest. I decided to write for the contemporary Pagan field because I liked the general ideas I saw there but felt I could do better and add more.

3. You also write a great deal in speculative fiction and you have written articles about erotica. Have you written erotica? Could you tell a little about this and how that is similar to and different from writing for the Pagan market?

In the fields of Erotica/Gender Studies/Alternative Sexuality and Speculative Fiction, I write articles, essays, short stories, poetry, interviews, and miscellaneous other material. Anyone interested in sampling this side of my work can kill two birds with one stone by reading my short story "Did You Get Your Answers Questioned?" in the anthology Genderflex edited by Cecelia Tan. That one is fantasy erotica and introduces one of my favorite settings.

Each publishing field has its own flavor and customs. The speculative fiction field is much tougher than the Pagan field. At the top level, especially in science fiction, you have to get all your facts perfect -- otherwise the fans will eat you alive. Fantasy and horror are a little more lenient with artistic license. These markets are also harder to break into than Pagan markets; on average an editor may buy from the top 3-5% of what they receive. But this is the only other field I know of where writers really like to hang out with each other the way we do in Paganism. In most fields, including erotica and romance, the interpersonal competition is so fierce that the writers hardly talk to each other. Both erotica and speculative fiction have a high level of tolerance for personal differences, which the mainstream publishing world generally does not. Both also pay far better than Pagan periodicals do. Erotic writing sometimes takes on rather Pagan tones with its refreshing openness about sexuality. Speculative fiction is only just beginning to handle that topic with any degree of frequency and flair. Finding suitable venues for your work is easy in speculative fiction, where you can choose from several market guides like Speculations or Spicy Green Iguana; there is much less guidance available for erotic markets and exactly zero for Pagan ones. I'm involved in a project to establish at least an online guide to Pagan markets, but that's still in the planning stages. Being younger, the Pagan field is more forgiving of mistakes, but that tends to make people take it less seriously.

4. Are you a full time writer? If not, what's your "day job?"

I am a full-time writer and have been since graduating from college. I didn't plan it this way, though; I planned to have a day job, probably teaching at the college level. That fell through right about the time my lifepartner Doug decided he was willing to subsidize my work while I got my writing career started. At first, I made next to no money; then I picked up some regular gigs that paid professional rates; and over the last year things really took off and I started making quite a bit more. Our five-year plan is just winding up ... and right about the time we discussed renegotiating it, I landed first the SageWoman editing job and then the PanGaia one. While my career has taken some very unexpected turns, I'm really pleased with the way it's turning out.

5. Could you give some information about your background -- such as any education you obtained, etc. and how you feel you use it in your writing?

I grew up surrounded by words, and it made a big difference. My grandparents told me stories; my parents read me books, and not just kiddie books either -- Mom read me The Hobbit when I was four. Dad's family has a long tradition of journalism and other literary efforts, so I heard all about that too. And both my parents teach in the public school system. All that gave me a very solid grounding in handling words. I have to say that most of my school time was a real waste of time, because I was always way ahead of the class in anything to do with writing. I had a handful of good teachers and that's about it. In college, I took a one-on-one honors tutorial with Professor Kaufmann, in which we studied poetry and speculative fiction. That's the only writing-related class I ever took that I would call 100% useful. The others ... well, I had one Rhetoric professor who insisted that my "Dandelion Magic" article would never sell to SageWoman because it was "too chatty" and that was after I'd loaned him a sample issue. (The piece not only sold, it got me a solicitation to write something for the "Plant Magic" issue later on. I wish I could be a fly on the wall when he finds out that I now work for this magazine!) So while I have a bachelor's degree in Rhetoric with a Women's Studies minor, I have to say that my formal education is only somewhat useful in my career.

On the other hand, my family background got me interested in learning as a general concept -- reading science magazines, talking to experts in various fields, investigating the world on my own -- and I use some combination of those techniques every day. I read a LOT and I use that as inspiration for my own writing; often I'll take ideas from several sources and combine them into a new article, with citations pointing back to the original ones. Other times I take an e-mail conversation and turn part of that into an essay. I'm always ready to put my own experiences in writing, too, so I enjoy doing new things that may give me good ideas. I like the mongoose motto from "Rikki-Tikki-Tavvi" that says, "Run and find out!"

If you want to make a career as a writer, you will probably have to do a majority of the learning on your own time. Go ahead and take some writing classes -- but don't depend on them to teach you everything you need to know. Because the Pagan field is so different from the mainstream writing field, a lot of what you'll hear in a regular writing class simply won't apply, and some of it will be worse than useless. Writing workshops can offer better results if you get a good writer leading them; I found Mickey Zucker Reichert's workshop incredibly valuable. One reason I accepted Medea's invitation to do this workshop is because it's the first one I've heard of -- far as I know, nobody else has run a workshop for Pagan writers. I'd like to see this catch on.

6. What type of literature do you read in your free time?

Mostly speculative fiction -- fantasy, science fiction, a little horror. Favorite authors include David Eddings, Anne Bishop, Anne McCaffrey, Dennis L. McKiernan, Marion Zimmer Bradley, David Weber, Doranna Durgin, S.M. Stirling, Holly Lisle, Stephen Leigh, Sherri S. Tepper, Alan Dean Foster, Susan R. Matthews, and Laurell K. Hamilton. My favorite stories have a strong cultural background. Sometimes I read erotica but it's hard to find good stuff. I also enjoy mythology from around the world. My recreational reading includes a lot of nonfiction, though; I read dictionaries of unusual words, lots of Pagan texts, gardening books, and science magazines.

7. Thus far, what is the most challenging project you have worked on?

That would be the collection of essays on Paganism in the next millennium that I edited for PanGaia a while back, as a special project. It appeared in issue #22 Winter 1999-2000. I had to find notable people in North America to write essays, collect the essays, polish them, and turn them in by the deadline. I thought I'd never get the darn thing finished, but the end result was most satisfying.

The Pagan Market

1. What are the trends you see evolving in Pagan periodicals? How do those trends differ from the book publishing market?

One interesting trend is the move towards professional status. We now have two paying periodicals, SageWoman and PanGaia, and other people have made attempts in this direction. The old Circle Network News changed from pulp newspaper format to magazine format with a glossy, full-color cover. Green Egg and The Beltane Papers now put out more issues per year than they used to. As the field continues to mature, expect to see more paying markets with higher standards, better pay rates, and larger circulations. We should also see the rise of semi-pro magazines between the pros and the amateur zines. Another trend is the growing family focus, as evidenced by two newcomers to the field, LunaSol and The Blessed Bee. We may see more family-oriented titles appear, and possibly some other special-focus ones. Now that we have a lot of Pagan periodicals, some contributors are gaining recognition through that medium, rather than through books or organizational leadership. Paganism isn't strictly a fringe phenomenon anymore; it is beginning to have a real presence on the periodical shelves.

The book part is farther along than the periodical part of the Pagan publishing field. We have many established publishers and authors here, and there is real money to be made. Some books are excellent, but there is still a tendency to publish way too much fluff. As more readers demand high-level books with solid scholarship, though, publishers are beginning to respond. Hopefully this will continue. The Pagan field is caught up in some wider dynamics that affect the entire publishing industry -- much too complex to cover here -- and that makes it harder to decipher. The periodical field is generally more responsive to audience demands, because a magazine takes less time and money to produce than a book.

A trend I have seen just beginning, in both periodical and book format, is the rise of Pagan fiction. Not just speculative fiction with Pagan motifs, of which you can find some really splendid examples now, but stories that explore what it means to be Pagan in contemporary cultures. I did a whole article called "His Story, Her Story, Our Story" on this topic, which you can find elsewhere on my Website.

2. What magazine do you think best represents the totality of current Paganism?

Probably CIRCLE Magazine, which used to be Circle Network News, published by Circle Sanctuary in Wisconsin. It offers a nice mix of regular departments and then the special forum topic for each issue. You see many different traditions represented in these pages.

3. How is the market different now from when you first entered it? What improvements have you seen? What has gotten worse?

The Pagan periodical field is maturing, slowly but surely. I first encountered it about twelve years ago, and I've contributed regularly for about six years now. In a way, I just squeaked under the wire -- I got started when there were no paying markets at all. It was even easier to get published then than it is now. Since SageWoman and PanGaia have gone to paying publication, the field has gotten a bit more challenging. I saw two other Pagan periodicals try to make it at the professional level -- Moonbeams Journal and Keltria Journal -- both of which eventually closed. More people are starting to clamor for sophisticated articles with a solid scholarly background, rather than the fluff that so many periodicals publish. Also, the Pagan baby boom has driven up demand for family-oriented content. As a result, there are now two titles especially for Pagan families: the newsletter The Blessed Bee published by Blessed Bee, Inc. and the free newspaper LunaSol published by Paganet, Inc. Distribution of Pagan titles in general has grown a lot; you can find them almost everywhere now, including major bookstores, not just little specialty shops. More people thus have access.

On the downside, the field has been around long enough to develop some major clichés, which a lot of the smaller markets publish anyway. Another problems stems from technological rather than cultural advances -- because it is now much easier to write and submit material, more people do so, and the quality is not rising with the quantity. When a writer had to bang out an article on a typewriter and then mail the results at the post office, that was enough work to scare off a lot of the wannabes. Today, someone can type an article on a computer, spellcheck it automatically, and send the results through e-mail. So editors see a little more work that is publishable, and a lot more that is just junk. Related advances make desktop publishing a great deal easier than it used to be, too. Worst of all, these trends feed into each other, so that you see lot of small periodicals whose overall quality is downright wretched.

4. The Internet has definitely affected the Pagan writing market in terms of ease of distribution, low cost, and sometimes low quality. Do you perceive any less obvious changes brought on by the influence of Internet communications?

Some, yes. In order to be able to use the Internet, you have to be able to type and write at least a little bit. This means more people than ever are doing that, so we see more people getting the idea that maybe they should try to get their writing published. That has its ups and downs. Also, Pagans are more connected than before; they share ideas at a lively rate, which serious writers find very inspiring. I get many of my article ideas online. The World Wide Web makes it possible to archive cultural information, from poetry and articles to conversation threads and project records. You can see some examples of this on my Website and those of most major Pagan organizations. The Web is an unparalleled research tool, which makes it far easier to locate the kind of information necessary to write a really serious article on Paganism. Finally, writers and publishers now have much greater access to audience feedback, so magazines are becoming a lot more interactive. Some of the ones I work with regularly are setting up Websites as an integral part of the magazine.

5. One publisher of Pagan books is deliberately marketing to a teenage demographic. Do you think any professional magazines would ever follow suit?

Maybe not quite yet, but eventually, yes. We already have a couple for Pagan families, and of those two, LunaSol has a special page for teen readers. It stands to reason that as the Pagan movement grows, the teen subsection will grow enough to warrant a magazine of its own. We also get a lot of overlap as mainstream teens seek out Pagan religions; they may be just curious onlookers but some of them turn serious and all of them buy stuff. I just hope that whatever teen-Pagan magazine appears will be worth reading, and not a bunch of fluff.

6. Please give a listing of Pagan professional journals, and distinguish between those and amateur/non-professional ones. What's the difference? For example, Shadowzine, our ezine, is definitely non-professional.

As far as I know, there is nothing that I would call a Pagan professional journal: no market guides for Pagan writers, no practical newsletters for Pagan clergy, no academic journals for Pagan scholars. I don't think there is even a tradezine for the Pagan publishers, of whom there are many. The closest thing I can think of is New Age Retailer, a very spiffy technical "slick" (printed on full-color, glossy paper like TIME) aimed at people who run New Age stores; there is a fair bit of overlap for Pagan supply shops, and I once wrote them an "article" on how to satisfy Pagan customers. I know of some folks who are working to establish periodicals in the professional range, but so far none of that has taken root.

SageWoman and PanGaia are professional periodicals in some regards but not all. They do pay, they do have good standards when it comes to quality, and SageWoman has the highest circulation of any Pagan periodical. But they aren't slicks, they don't have the circulation or pay rates of a mainstream (or even a professional niche) magazine, and SageWoman's tone is very informal. Everything else is technically an amateur magazine, although some of the better-known ones like CIRCLE Magazine have a pretty high level of competence. Most of the Pagan field just isn't formal enough to be professional, and sometimes that's a very deliberate choice. Because SageWoman and PanGaia are the only two paying periodicals at this time, and because of their other features, they count as the top of our field even though they don't achieve the same level as professional magazines in other fields. For purposes of developing your career as a Pagan writer, consider these professional markets.

Just for comparison, a professional journal pays at least three cents (or even five cents, by some peoples' standards) per word for manuscripts. The staff are paid, not volunteer. The issues come out on a regular schedule, reliably. The journal has a full-color cover, and usually full-color glossy pages inside too. They buy only the best writing and artwork, and it usually addresses sophisticated topics rather than beginner-level stuff. They have a broad, solid reputation among readers. Some professional periodicals are for general audiences, like the magazine Realms of Fantasy which publishes stories and artwork with a fantasy theme. Some are tradezines aimed at professionals in a specific field, like Locus with its emphasis on science fiction publishing. Some are actual journals by and for experts, like The Astrophysical Journal devoted to theories and discoveries in astrophysics. Another category is the semi-pro market, which pays in cash but less than three cents per word; usually has a monochrome or colorpoint cover, with cheap pulp or regular pages done in B/W inside; and intermediate standards making it harder to break into than a 'zine but easier than a professional journal. Keltria Journal probably fit best in this category.

7. What are your thoughts about non-professional journals? Do you ever write for them? How is the experience different for you?

They serve their purpose. They got the field started, they introduce many people to Paganism, they make a great opportunity for beginning writers, and a few of them do have pretty good standards. Yes, I still write for a few non-paying periodicals -- most notably I submit poetry to PagaNet News and CIRCLE Magazine. I'm cutting way back on that, though, and recently closed my "Hypatia's Hoard" review columns in PagaNet News and LunaSol. My skills have advanced to a point where I can make real money from my writing, so it doesn't make sense to continue doing for free anything that I can get paid for elsewhere. Writing for non-professional markets is less challenging for me because in my experience, they accept almost everything I send them. When I send something to SageWoman, I know Anne Newkirk Niven will notice and tell me if the piece isn't up to her standards. I've also had problems with some markets being unreliable, sloppy with their typesetting, or otherwise such a pain to deal with that I just cross them off my list. Some are good places to send your writing; others are worse than useless. You just have to check around.

Material on this page is copyright 2000 Elizabeth Barrette, first appeared January 11, 2000, as an IRC Q&A session, revised for web publication July 2000.

Comments?

Art on this page is from the "Whiteflower" set, at Winter's Pages.

The URL for this page is http://www.worthlink.net/~ysabet/spirit/writing_wkshp.html and it was last updated on July 9, 2000 by Janet Miles.