Astrology for Writers


Book Description

Enhance your storytelling with the cosmic drama of the stars The nighttime sky has inspired writers and astrologers alike to spin stories on the strands of starlight. Discover that inspiration for your own creative writing in Astrology for Writers, the essential guide to understanding the core concepts of astrology--the planets, signs, and houses--and discovering how they correspond to the elements of fiction. Unleash your creativity with a wide range of ideas that help you add astrology to your writing practice. Learn how to use the planets for characters, the signs of the zodiac for plot and themes, and the houses of the horoscope for settings. Develop unique characters based on mythic archetypes, use astrological imagery and symbolism for your descriptions and dialogue, and put theory into practice with writing prompts and examples. Invite the gods and goddesses of astrology to enter your writing and share their stories through you.




Heretic


Book Description

A memoir of leaving the evangelical church and the search for radical new ways to build community. Jeanna Kadlec knew what it meant to be faithful--in her marriage to a pastor’s son, in the comfortable life ahead of her, in her God--but there was no denying the truth that lived under that conviction: she was queer and, if she wanted to survive, she would need to leave behind the church and every foundational building block she knew. Heretic is a memoir of rebirth. Within, Kadlec reckons with religious trauma and Midwestern values, as a means of unveiling how evangelicalism directly impacts every American--religious or not--and has been a major force in driving our democracy towards fascism. From the story of Lilith to celebrity purity rings, Kadlec interrogates how her indoctrination and years of piety intersects with her Midwest working-class upbringing. As she navigated graduate school, a new home on the East Coast, and a new marriage, another insidious truth began to reveal itself --that conservative Christianity has both built and undermined our political power structures, poisoned our pop culture, and infected how we interact with one another in ways that the secular population couldn’t see. Weaving the personal with powerful critique, Heretic explores how we can radically abandon these painful systems by taking a sledgehammer to the comfortable. Whether searching for community in the face of millennial loneliness or wanting to reclaim a secular form of fellowship in everyday life, Kadlec envisions the brilliant possibilities that come with not only daring to want a different way but actually striking out and claiming it for ourselves.




Tarot for Writers


Book Description

Once reserved for mystics and seers, the tarot is one of the best tools for boosting your creativity and shifting your imagination into high gear. Famous authors such as John Steinbeck and Stephen King have used the tarot deck to tap into deep wells of inspiration, and you can enliven your own writing the same way--whether you craft short stories, novels, poetry, nonfiction, or even business proposals. This book on reading tarot cards and applying them to your writing will guide you through each stage of the creative process, from fleshing out a premise to promoting a finished work. Enhance your storytelling technique through over 500 enjoyable writing prompts, exploratory games for groups and individuals, tarot journaling, and other idea-stimulating activities that call upon the archetypal imagery and multi-layered symbolism in the tarot. Infuse flair and originality into your work as you learn to: Interpret symbols, myths, and learn to read all seventy-eight cards in the tarot card deck Use classic tarot layouts and spreads to structure your story Brainstorm story ideas and develop dialogue and plot Create detailed settings, powerful scenes, and dynamic characters Overcome writer's block and breathe new life into existing projects As a writer, you hold the power of creation in your hands. By exploring the tarot and incorporating it into your writing practice, you will set your creative potential soaring to new heights.




Ancestor Trouble


Book Description

“Extraordinary and wide-ranging . . . a literary feat that simultaneously builds and excavates identity.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club Pick • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize • An acclaimed writer goes searching for the truth about her complicated Southern family—and finds that our obsession with ancestors opens up new ways of seeing ourselves—in this “brilliant mix of personal memoir and cultural observation” (The Boston Globe). ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, NPR, Time, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Esquire, Garden & Gun Maud Newton’s ancestors have fascinated her since she was a girl. Her mother’s father was said to have married thirteen times. Her mother’s grandfather killed a man with a hay hook. Mental illness and religious fanaticism percolated Maud’s maternal lines back to an ancestor accused of being a witch in Puritan-era Massachusetts. Newton’s family inspired in her a desire to understand family patterns: what we are destined to replicate and what we can leave behind. She set out to research her genealogy—her grandfather’s marriages, the accused witch, her ancestors’ roles in slavery and other harms. Her journey took her into the realms of genetics, epigenetics, and debates over intergenerational trauma. She mulled over modernity’s dismissal of ancestors along with psychoanalytic and spiritual traditions that center them. Searching and inspiring, Ancestor Trouble is one writer’s attempt to use genealogy—a once-niche hobby that has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry—to make peace with the secrets and contradictions of her family's past and face its reverberations in the present, and to argue for the transformational possibilities that reckoning with our ancestors offers all of us.




Abandon Me


Book Description

Named One of the Best Books of the year by: Esquire, Refinery29, BookRiot, Medium, Electric Literature, The Brooklyn Rail, Largehearted Boy, The Coil and The Cut. Winner of the Lambda Literary Jeanne Cordova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction Finalist, Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir/Biography Finalist, Publishing Triangle's Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction An Indie Next Pick A fierce and dazzling personal narrative that explores the many ways identity and art are shaped by love and loss. In her critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart, Melissa Febos laid bare the intimate world of the professional dominatrix, turning an honest examination of her life into a lyrical study of power, desire, and fulfillment. In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection -- with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery. As Febos tentatively reconnects, she sees how both these lineages manifest in her own life, marked by compulsion and an instinct for self-erasure. Meanwhile, she remains closely tied to the sea captain who raised her, his parenting ardent but intermittent as his work took him away for months at a time. Woven throughout is the hypnotic story of an all-consuming, long-distance love affair with a woman, marked equally by worship and withdrawal. In visceral, erotic prose, Febos captures their mutual abandonment to passion and obsession -- and the terror and exhilaration of losing herself in another. At once a fearlessly vulnerable memoir and an incisive investigation of art, love, and identity, Abandon Me draws on childhood stories, religion, psychology, mythology, popular culture, and the intimacies of one writer's life to reveal intellectual and emotional truths that feel startlingly universal.




The 13th Sign


Book Description

What if there was a 13th zodiac sign? You're no longer Sagittarius, but Ophiuchus, the healer, the 13th sign. Your personality has changed. So has your mom's and your best friend's. What about the rest of the world? What if you were the one who accidentally unlocked the 13th sign, causing this world-altering change, and infuriating the other 12 signs? In this book by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, Jalen did it, and now she must use every ounce of her strength and cunning to send the signs back where they belong. Lives, including her own, depend upon it.




The Luminaries


Book Description

The winner of the Man Booker Prize, this "expertly written, perfectly constructed" bestseller (The Guardian) is now a Starz miniseries. It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to stake his claim in New Zealand's booming gold rush. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of 12 local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: a wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous cache of gold has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is at once a fiendishly clever ghost story, a gripping page-turner, and a thrilling novelistic achievement. It richly confirms that Eleanor Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international literary firmament.




Astrology Made Easy


Book Description

Unlock the secrets of your birth chart and learn how to use astrology to enhance your entire life, with this powerful astrology book. From Yasmin Boland, internationally renowned award-winning astrologer and Sunday Times bestselling author of Moonology Oracle Cards, Moonology, and Mercury Retrograde. This astrology book has everything you need to get started with astrology, including how to read your birth chart and use astrological insights to plan and predict your life. You’ll go on a journey through the different aspects of your birth chart, from your rising sign to your Moon sign and beyond. This book was previously published under the title Astrology (Hay House Basics series) and will teach you: Everything you need to know to understand and interpret your birth chart with a free personalized chart provided online for readers, and those of your friends, family members, lovers, potential lovers. How to interpret the revealing personal data a birth chart contains and gain invaluable insights into why you do the things you do. How to make simple predictions for yourself and others. This book is organized into three parts, built around the four pillars of astrology: the planets, the signs of the zodiac, the houses, and the aspects. Sections Include: Part I: The Basics of Astrology What is Astrology? Your Birth Chart - the Map to Your Life Understanding the Zodiac Signs Getting to Know the Planets Exploring the Zodiac Signs The Angles The Houses Part II: Going Deeper Degrees, Aspects, and Orbs Aspect and Chart Patterns Retrograde Planets The Moon's Nodes Part III: Putting It All Together An Introduction to Chart Reading Your Astrological Cookbook Love, Money, and Other Secrets in Your Chart Predictive Astrology Whether you're a complete astrology beginner or already at intermediate level but wanting a better, more solid grounding in natal astrology, Astrology Made Easy will help you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you, and will give you guidance for living a more fulfilling and authentic life.




Astrology for Living


Book Description

Astrology for Living shows how to maximize potential by using astrology in everyday life. It presents in-depth analyses for every sign of the zodiac for health, professional life, home and pastimes. It also includes charts, hints and tips.'




Astrology


Book Description

Meet fourteen ascending stars at the forefront of the current astrological revival. Each member of this celestial coalition has contributed an essay reflecting their area of expertise - from the traditional and mundane to the spiritual, psychological and evolutionary. 'Astrology: The New Generation' is an anthology of techniques and insights that will enhance your astrological skills and understanding. This first volume has essays from Nick Dagan Best, Gary Caton, Frank C. Clifford, Rebecca Crane, Benjamin Dykes, Maurice Fernandez, John Green, Tony Howard, Mark Jones, Keiron Le Grice, Eric Meyers, Moses Siregar III, Wendy Stacey, Branka Stamenkovic.