{"id":10938,"date":"2019-10-07T16:29:45","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T22:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10938"},"modified":"2019-10-08T08:14:01","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T14:14:01","slug":"how-do-you-write-to-a-pagan-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10938","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Write to a Pagan Author?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I got this email last week from a publishing firm that I had never heard of. I did my due diligence \u2014 I looked at their website and read an article about them from Publishers Weekly<\/em>. Apparently their nonfiction business model is to do deep data analysis and see what is trending, then commission books about those things.<\/p>\n

Apparently one of those trending things is Paganism. Yeah, I know, surprise surprise.<\/p>\n

So I got this letter, and I wonder who else got it too. I’m still chuckling at the first sentence:<\/p>\n

I hope this finds you in a joyously supernatural or naturalistic environment. My name is [redacted] and I help manage acquisitions for\u00a0 [name of company], a nonfiction book publisher that is the fastest growing in the world. Given your incredible passion for all that encompasses the pagan realm, with a strong background as a Pagan writer as well, I thought you would be interested in potentially authoring a new book we seek to publish.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am still trying to sort that out. If I were in a “supernatural environment,” would I be reading email? Wouldn’t I be feasting with the Fairie Queen or something? As for “naturalistic,” that usually a term in art criticism: “closely resembling the object imitated.”((“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”)) Maybe she meant that I was sitting with my Power Book under the pine trees\u2014 a nice image, but not how I work.<\/p>\n

Let’s leave aside my “incredible passion” (sweetie, you don’t know me that well) and the inconsistent capitalization of Pagan\/pagan. Also, “fastest growing” should be hyphenated. Anyhow, I bet she sent out a batch of these, don’t you?<\/p>\n

Thank you, [name redacted], for brightening my week. But I have too much on my plate to write another “Paganism 101” book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I got this email last week from a publishing firm that I had never heard of. I did my due diligence \u2014 I looked at their website and read an article about them from Publishers Weekly. Apparently their nonfiction business model is to do deep data analysis and see what is trending, then commission books […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,12],"class_list":["post-10938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-publishing","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2Qq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6506,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6506","url_meta":{"origin":10938,"position":0},"title":"What Does the New AP Stylebook Say?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Last December I reported on an effort spearheaded by Oberon Zell to get Pagan (in the religious sense) capitalized in both the Associated Press Stylebook and the University of Chicago Press's Manual of Style. The first is used mainly by journalists (when they remember), the second by writers and editors\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6128,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6128","url_meta":{"origin":10938,"position":1},"title":"Orthography and the Modern Pagan","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"One thing I did at the recent American Academy of Religion annual meeting was stop by the University of Chicago Press booth and get the name of the managing editor of the press's Manual of Style, which is the holy book, all 1,028 pages of it, for editors of academic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6691,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6691","url_meta":{"origin":10938,"position":2},"title":"‘Sacred Lands and Spiritual Landscapes’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Sacred Lands and Spiritual Landscapes, papers from the spring 2013 Cherry Hill Seminary symposium, edited by Wendy Griffin, is now available for purchase from CHS. Contents Preface, Holli Emore Introduction, Ronald Hutton The Land Within, Wendy Griffin Song of the Cattahoochee: On Being a Southern (Pagan) Witch in Atlanta's Urban\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"sacredlands","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/sacredlands.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8749,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8749","url_meta":{"origin":10938,"position":3},"title":"Let’s Have More Writing about Pagan Experience","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I used to complain about the dearth of American Pagan biography and autobiography. Michael Lloyd's Bull of Heaven: The Mythic Life of Eddie Buczynski and the Rise of the New York Pagan\u00a0and John Sulak's The Wizard and the Witch: Seven Decades of Counterculture, Magick & Paganism made a big dent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":533,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=533","url_meta":{"origin":10938,"position":4},"title":"Up and down in Pagan\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 12, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Up and down in Pagan publishingLawyer and Wiccan author Phyllis Curott has stirred up a lot of dust in the past couple of months with dark hints of a conspiracy to suppress Pagan books.Some see too many \"Wicca 101\" books or not enough editorial integrity.Elsewhere, Kensington\/Citadel laid off the editor\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10568,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10568","url_meta":{"origin":10938,"position":5},"title":"Pagan with a Capital P","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"In editing the current issue of The Pomegranate, one of my \"favorite\" issues came up again: whether or not Pagan is capitalized. American scholars and Pagan authors tend to say yes. There has been a small campaign to convince the editors of the Associated Press Stylebook, widely used in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Letter-P.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10938"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10957,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10938\/revisions\/10957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}