Archive for October, 2020

Call for Papers – TOIL & TROUBLE: Towards A Responsible Witchcraft

Tuesday, October 6th, 2020

October adventures (49)Toil & Trouble: Towards A Responsible Witchcraft, ed. Dr Alice Tarbuck & Dr Claire Askew
Call for Papers

In 2018, we (Drs Alice Tarbuck and Claire Askew) created the six-week short course Toil & Trouble: Towards A Responsible Witchcraft, in response to the explosion of witchcraft themes and aesthetics in fashion, popular culture and on social media. We welcomed this growing interest in witchcraft and magic, but were troubled by some of the unexamined witch-related content we were seeing. Too often, depictions of witches – and indeed some contemporary witchcraft practices – perpetuate harmful racist, colonialist and culturally appropriative narratives. Gender essentialism crops up often in witchcraft circles. The proliferation by large companies and mass media of witchcraft as a trend (“#witchgoals”) raises troubling questions about the relationship between witchcraft and capitalism, and the effects of witchcraft practices on our natural world. The Toil & Trouble course sought to contexualise the contemporary witch-aesthetic boom by examining the witch’s long, fraught history; and by teaching simple, ethical witchcraft practices to those interested in a more responsible witchcraft.

Two years on, we want to create an anthology of essays on the subject of responsible witchcraft in the contemporary world. We want to collate a broad, diverse and much-needed resource by gathering submissions from experts and long term practitioners. We will prioritise submissions from Black and Indigenous writers, writers of colour, LGBTQIA+ writers, disabled writers, working class writers, and anyone who lives and works at the intersections between these. We encourage you to interpret “witchcraft” broadly: it is intended as a catch-all term encompassing occult practices and magics of all kinds. You will find a non-exhaustive list of suggested topics below.

Publication and fees:

We are currently seeking a publisher for this anthology, and cannot at this stage guarantee a specific fee. However, we will not be asking anyone to contribute for free, and will not enter into a publishing contract unless a fee for contributors is guaranteed. We hope that the book will be produced in print by a traditional publisher – please note that this is not a crowdfunding project.

To submit:

Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words by 23rd October 2020 by email to asktoilandtrouble@gmail.com
Full essays will not be sought until such time as a publisher comes on board. We will ensure that selected contributors are given at least four weeks’ notice of the deadline for final submissions.

Suggested topics:

– Witchcraft and race
– Witchcraft and cultural appropriation / colonialism
– Witchcraft and class
– Witchcraft and disability
– Witchcraft and the environment
– Witchcraft and gender
– Witchcraft and mental health / self care
– Witchcraft and capitalism
– Witchcraft and bodies / the body / the Body Politic
– Witchcraft and social media

About the editors:

Dr Alice Tarbuck is the author of A Spell in the Wild: A Year and Six Centuries of Magic (Two Roads, 2020), the poetry collection Grid and an academic based in Edinburgh. Her work on witchcraft has been featured in 404 Ink’s Nasty Women, the Dangerous Women Project, and she runs Toil and Trouble, a witchcraft course. She has been invited to speak on witchcraft as feminist practice by the Magickal Women Conference, Scottish PEN and by Freedom TV. Additionally, she has taught workshops for the National Library of Scotland, the Scottish Poetry Library and further afield. When she was born, a white wizard came to her house to bless her, and this, she suspects, is where the trouble started.

Dr Claire Askew is a writer, teacher and solitary witch. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh, and has been a Jessie Kesson Fellow and the University of Edinburgh Writer in Residence. Her books include the poetry collection This changes things (Bloodaxe, 2016), creative writing guide Novelista (John Murray, 2020), and the award-winning novel All The Hidden Truths (Hodder & Stoughton, 2018). She has written about witchcraft and witchcraft history for The Dangerous Women Project, Amelia’s Magazine and The Herald, among others.