call for submissions – New World Witchery – The Search for American Traditional Witchcraft

Blog Post 169 – A New Year, A New Contest!

Hi everyone!

If you’ve been following us on Twitter, you know we’ve passed some milestones recently and have been thinking of fun ways to celebrate. So what are we excited about?

We just passed 666 followers on Twitter. Who doesn’t get excited about nefarious numbers?
We’ve received over 100 reviews on iTunes, making us one of the top-reviewed magical/pagan shows there. Can we just say how much y’all rock for that?!?
We’re entering our 4^thseason, which means we’ve got three years of New World Witchery under our belts!
It’s a new year! Lucky 2013! What’s not to celebrate about that?!?
Laine recently taught my wife and I how to play Cards Against Humanity. It’s sort of the cherry on the sundae of celebration we’ve got going on.

With all that cause for excitement, we thought it would be high time for a contest. We’re going to have a somewhat broader focus this year, and hopefully spend some time looking at spiritual and magical paths from places across the country, so in order to do that, we want some of your lore and magic! We’ve done this before for holiday lore, but this time around we want lore related to the following categories:

Love (example: “When your nose itches, someone wants to kiss you”)
Luck (example: “Babies born at 12:12 on 12/12/12 are considered extra lucky”)
Money (example: “An itch in your left palm means money’s coming your way soon”)
Health & Healing (example: “Putting a wad of chewing tobacco on a bee sting will stop the pain and heal it faster”)
Fortune-telling/Predicting the Future (example: “Monday’s child is fair of face…”)
Protection from Harm: (example: “Putting a piece of lightning-struck wood in your rafters will prevent storm damage and fires”)

Now, obviously, don’t use any of the ones from that list, but otherwise, it’s pretty much fair game what you want to send in. Each bit of lore gets you an entry in the contest. Just make sure that if you send multiple entries in the same email, you number them separately (i.e. in a numbered list, if possible).

When you do send your entry in, please use the following format guide:

[Name – preferably one we can use in the show, but let us know if you’d rather us keep it anonymous]
[Region/Location – as localized as possible; we don’t need an address, but “Southern Illinois” or “Foothills of the Rockies” would be lovely]
[Ethnic/Cultural Association – if applicable; such as “Italian-American” or “based on something my Lakota Sioux grandmother told me”]
[Type of Lore – love, luck, money, etc.]
[Your bit of lore]

So a sample entry might look like this:

Nigel Aloysius Gimmelschtump (but call me “Smackdown” on the show, please)
Western Kentucky
Something from my German-English grandfather’s family
Money
“You should always hold on to the first dollar you make at any job. As long as you have it, you cannot be fired from that job.”

That might seem a little complicated, but it will be enormously helpful if you can follow that format. And, hey, free contest, right? Also, my apologies to Nigel Aloysius Gimmeschtump, wherever he may be. And to anyone calling themselves “Smackdown,” for any reason at all.

So what’s in it for you? Good question! Well, we’re putting together three prizes, based on three areas of North American folk magic:

The Braucher Basket – featuring a copy of Hex & Spellwork by Karl Herr, a copy of the new translation of The Long Lost Friend by Daniel Harms, a small folio of hand-written/painted charms, and a few other little goodies.
Granny’s Gunny-Sack – featuring a copy of Ozark Magic & Folklore, by Vance Randolph, a copy of The Candle & the Crossroads by Orion Foxwood, and a little sack full of curios, herbs, and magical charms from the Appalachians.
The Hoodoo Hamper – featuring Hoodoo Herb & Root Magic by Catherine Yronwode, The Master Book of Candle Burning by Henri Gamache, a candle or two, a lucky rabbit’s foot, and a selection of oils from our Compass & Key Apothecary.

See? Good stuff! Send us a couple of emails and you could win one of these awesome prizes! Just because I’m nitpicking, here are some other rules though:

You can only win one prize. If your name comes up after you’ve already won once, we’ll pull another name for the next prize. Let’s not get greedy.
No entering under multiple names/emails. If we catch you doing that, you get no prizes. Possibly we will also curse you. Or sell your name to telemarketers. Sort of the same thing.
While we are looking primarily for North American lore, we welcome lore from around the world as well.

This contest is going to have a deadline of March 31^st2013, so please get your entries in by then!

Thank you all so much for three great years of New World Witchery! We love y’all to bits and pieces, so good luck in the contest!

All the best, and thanks for reading & listening,

-Cory

Quick Update – Reminders, Thanks, Apologies

Hi everyone!

First of all, I just want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who’s written, posted, tweeted, or otherwise shown support and love during the past couple of weeks after the arrival of my new daughter. She’s doing well (other than a little cold which she got from her big brother), and we’re starting to normalize.

I also wanted to apologize very sincerely to anyone who is waiting on a response from me via email or comment. I always mark incoming emails and comments so that I can get back to them, but it is just taking me a while to get around to responding at this point. I will be writing to anyone who’s written to us as soon as possible, so thank you for your patience, and sorry again for the delay.

There will be more material up on the site soon (I’m working on a few articles now), and Laine and I are already planning more episodes and lining up more guests. So if your inbox has been a little light lately due to my absence, rest assured I’ll be burdening you with my insufferable prattle again soon.

Finally, I wanted to remind everyone, especially those of you who write, that there is an open call for submissions from Misanthrope Press right now. They’ve got a Pagan-themed short story anthology called “Etched Offerings: Voices from the Cauldron of Story” that they are putting together, and they will be accepting your work right through the end of this month. So if you’ve got a story you’d like to share, please do so! Complete submission guidelines are here.

Thanks again for all the support and patience! I’ll be in touch soon!

-Cory

Quick Update – Call for Submissions

Attention all writers!

I know there are at least a few folks who read the blog or listen to the podcast and who also enjoy wordsmithing in a fictive vein. In case you haven’t heard, Misanthrope Press is holding an open call for submissions of short fiction to be included in their upcoming Etched Offerings: Voices from the Cauldron of Story pagan fiction anthology. They’ve extended their submission deadline to the end of April, so I highly recommend you put together your best short story with touches of the magical, the mythical, and the metaphorical and send it over to them for consideration. Here are some of the details from their website:

“If you are reading this anywhere other than www.misanthropepress.com, we urge you to visit our website and view the full guidelines page. We have had to reject several submissions that did not fit our intended theme because people didn’t fully review the guidelines first; we don’t want you to waste your own time by being another one. Etched Offerings: Voices From the Cauldron of Story is a Pagan religion themed short fiction anthology. We are seeking stories about, or relevant to, contemporary Pagan paths and lifestyles, regardless of tradition. Stories about the gods and goddesses, about modern Wiccans, witches, shamans, and other magickal practitioners, as well as fantasy stories of myth and magick are all welcome…

Stories that retell existing myths and legends are acceptable, but there needs to be an original twist or fresh perspective in the telling…

Stories not strictly about Pagan topics, but featuring Pagan characters are very welcome…

We are not looking for stories that focus too heavily on how difficult it is to be Pagan in our society. It’s a valid issue, very much so in some geographic regions, but it’s not what we want to focus on in this anthology. We’re looking for stories that celebrate the joys and rewards of following a Pagan path, not ones that lament the challenges we face. If your character faces such a challenge and overcomes it, and your story focuses on the triumph of that, that’s acceptable. We won’t, however, accept many stories of this nature, so keep that in mind when submitting.

Along these same lines, while we will potentially accept a very small number of stories that deal with the clash of religious beliefs and/or groups, we won’t be accepting any stories that directly criticize or bash the beliefs of another group. It’s a fine line, we realize; if you’re not confident in your ability to walk it, pick another topic for your story.”

Full guidelines are available at the Misanthrope Press site, so please head over there and throw your ink-stained hat in the ring!

Good luck, and happy writing!

-Cory

Blog Post 68 – Be Our Guest?

So running with an idea (and a title lovingly borrowed) from Juniper over at Walking the Hedge and Standing Stone and Garden Gate, I’m putting out a call for submissions to our wonderful readers. I know we probably have at least a couple of writers out there as well, and we’d love to have you do a guest post for New World Witchery.

We’re going to have about 6-8 weeks of low posting from me, and we’d like to be able to post at least 3 articles per week if possible. So that means we need 18-24 well-written, proofread, researched, reasoned, resonant, and remarkable entries. Something tells me we’ve got a few folks who might just be up to the task, so if you’re interested, here’s the submissions guide:

1)      Each article should be no less than 300 words, and no more than 2000. 500-800 words is usually ideal length, but there is some flexibility.
2)      MS Word (.doc) attachments are ideal, with inline email text being a secondary preference.
3)      Please include all links with your submission. I may have to tweak them slightly to get them on the site, but I definitely can’t chase down links for you. Footnotes or endnotes should be similarly included.
4)      Any artwork must be in the public domain (try Wikimedia Commons to start) or your own original picture/art with authorization to use it on the site.
5)      All work must be your own. Citations are fine, along with short passages of material presented in a scholarly fashion, but please, no plagiarism.
6)      Please proofread your work. Excessive typos and grammar snafus will not be corrected or posted.
7)      You retain all publication rights to your material other than the first-time online publication rights. In other words, you’re free to submit this on a site like Witchvox or to a print publication, as long as you say that it was first published on this site. (I’ll also assume the right to reprint passages or references to your work in future publications, but I will not publish your article in its entirety without your permission).

Of course, I’m always happy to get nice, scholarly articles on the topics of hoodoo, pow-wow, curanderismo, witchcraft, etc. But what I’d really like is to get articles on the following topics, specifically:

Personal or family magical lore (such as magical practices, divinations, weather signs, etc.). Please include your family background (such as region or ethnic heritage), too, so we know where these things come from.
Regional magical lore, including things like witch stories, magical places, spells, famous witches, etc. Of course, please let us know which region you’re writing about (you don’t have to be too specific—“Appalachia” or “New England” would be sufficient).
Spell-work hits and misses. Tell us about spells you’ve done, ingredients you’ve used, charms you’ve said and what your results were.
Botanical or animal curios and your personal experiences with them. Are there ones you favor? Ones you shy away from?
Favorite spells and practices. Do you particularly like working with the dead? Do you have a favorite way to communicate with the Ancestors? Are you a sharp-shooter when it comes to love mojos? Tell us what you do and how you got so dang good at it!
Magical book reviews are also welcome, especially ones dealing with North American folk magic and witchcraft (not Wicca—there are lots of reviews on Wiccan books, so we don’t really want those here). History, folklore, and regionally specific spellbooks (like conjure or brujeria books) are all excellent candidates for review.

Other topics are welcome; just email and ask about them first. Not every article may get published on the site, so if we don’t select yours or if we suggest some revisions first, please don’t take it personally.

“Geez!” you say. “That’s an awful lot of work for not getting paid!” Ah, but there’s the twist in the plot! While we’re still a relatively poor blog and podcast, we’re gearing up for another contest. Anyone who writes a guest article that we post on New World Witchery will be entered for that contest. We’ve still got to work out just what we’re going to give out, but right now we’re looking at having three winners drawn at random. If you submit multiple posts and we publish them, you get an entry for every article we put up! Each winner will get a different, unique prize, so this could shape up to be a very interesting contest.

So, yes, technically you’re still not getting paid exactly, but you may wind up with something cool in the end. And you’ll be adding to the wealth of knowledge found here, so you are benefitting a whole wide world of witchy folk. Isn’t that a nice feeling?

So, if you’re interested in being a part of New World Witchery, email us your articles and maybe win a prize in the process! In case you can’t get the email from that link, it’s compassandkey@gmail.com.

Many thanks, and we look forward to hearing from you!

-Cory