{"id":1284,"date":"2010-01-15T04:09:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T04:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1284"},"modified":"2010-01-15T04:09:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T04:09:00","slug":"too-much-pagan-writing-is-too-bland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1284","title":{"rendered":"Too Much Pagan Writing is Too Bland"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wish Pagan writers would stop giving advice and writing bland how-to articles. <\/p>\n

A lot of what makes Pagan magazine publishing is its bias towards advice-giving. That and poor graphic design, in some cases.<\/p>\n

Look at Circle<\/a><\/i> magazine, for example. Circle<\/i> reminds me too much of the bland publications of cookie-cutter financial advice that mutual-fund companies, credit unions, etc. send out.<\/p>\n

I feel as though I have read almost everything in it before. “How to use your cauldron.” “The Celtic legend of Whatever.”<\/p>\n

I tend to skim the “Passages” section and the “Lady Liberty League Report,” and then it goes on the shelf. <\/p>\n

Its graphic design, unfortunately, reflects its early 1980s incarnation as a tabloid newspaper.  Boring. When they shrank the size to 8 x 10, it did not get the makeover it desperately needed.<\/p>\n

Of course, there is a rule in commercial magazine publishing that after two years every topic is new again.<\/p>\n

But what is missing is personality. The Cauldron<\/i><\/a>, which is still more in the “zine” class (originally it was typed and reproduced by mimeograph on the cheapest paper) shows the personality of its editor, Mike Howard.<\/p>\n

American Pagan writers seem too afraid of being “personal.” Instead, they churn out bland how-to stuff.<\/p>\n

When I edited some books for Llewellyn in the 1990s, “too personal” was the kiss of death\u2014the term they used when they wanted to reject a piece of writing. They probably would have called the The Confessions of Aleister Crowley<\/a><\/i> “too personal.”<\/p>\n

The new Witches & Pagans <\/i> at least has columnists. I turn to Kenaz Finan or Judy Harrow or R.J. Stewart before tackling the main features. I want stories<\/i> and the “too personal” more than I want the how-to stuff. Sometimes I even get it.<\/p>\n

But their Web site<\/a> needs updating. Thanks to the Web, publishing a magazine is now twice as much work as before.<\/p>\n

I thought Thorn<\/a> was cool, so I subscribed and promoted it<\/a>, only to see it go “online only,” which most likely is the kiss of (slow) death.<\/p>\n

The nascent Pagan Newswire Collective<\/a> that Jason Pitzl-Waters is organizing has a worthwhile purpose: to make it easier for Pagans to define Paganism in the media marketplace. (Jason’s own blogging<\/a> is newsy, which makes it a daily read.) <\/p>\n

Where the PNC will find outlets I am not yet sure. All journalism is in turmoil right now, and journalism about religion<\/a> even more so\u2014even though so many news stories have unexplored or unexplained religious dimensions.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I go on looking for good writing that happens to be Pagan, rather than “Pagan writing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wish Pagan writers would stop giving advice and writing bland how-to articles. A lot of what makes Pagan magazine publishing is its bias towards advice-giving. That and poor graphic design, in some cases. Look at Circle magazine, for example. Circle reminds me too much of the bland publications of cookie-cutter financial advice that mutual-fund […]<\/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":[],"tags":[10,95,5,7],"class_list":["post-1284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-american-religion","tag-journalism","tag-paganism","tag-publishing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-kI","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1262,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1262","url_meta":{"origin":1284,"position":0},"title":"Pagan Social Media and the Parliament of the World’s Religions","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Jason Pitzl-Waters posts a round-up of blogs, video, and other social media from the Parliament of the World's Religions.I clicked the links, and so far what I have seen is pretty bland. Talking-heads video is bland even when they are our talking heads. But maybe we will see some more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":390,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=390","url_meta":{"origin":1284,"position":1},"title":"Some Pagan Publishing Gossip","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Sarah Pike's new book, New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, just landed on my desk with instructions to review it for Nova Religio. Given that many contemporary Pagans are ambivalent at best about the \"New Age\" movement, it will be interesting to see how she sorts out and categorizes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/03\/BARBIE.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1123,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1123","url_meta":{"origin":1284,"position":2},"title":"Thorn and Pagan Magazine Publishing","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I like magazines. I have worked for three, owned one (still going), and sold freelance articles to a bunch of others. I taught university classes in magazine-writing and production.So when Vol. 1, No. 1 of Thorn, subtitled Paganism in the Silicon Age, hit my mailbox, I was eager to read\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6280,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6280","url_meta":{"origin":1284,"position":3},"title":"Quick Review: The Wizard and the Witch","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my earliest entries on this blog, clear back in 2003, was a complaint about the lack of biographical and autobiographical writing in American Wicca \u2014 and I would extend that to all types of new Paganism generally. That entry did mention Margot Adler's Heretic's Heart (1997), but I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"wizard and witch","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/wizard-and-witch.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":180,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=180","url_meta":{"origin":1284,"position":4},"title":"Wicca and the Navajos Continuing\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 4, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Wicca and the Navajos Continuing my uploading of essays and papers to my web site, I have now added one of my favorite pieces of Pagan autobiographical writing, Malcolm Brenner's \"A Witch among the Navajos,\" which originally appeared in 1998 in Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions. Far\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1281,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1281","url_meta":{"origin":1284,"position":5},"title":"Some Newish Online Pagan-Related Magazines","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2022 The new Pagan Edge offers \"lifestyles and passions of the modern Pagan.\" The special subscription price is good until January 10th.\u2022 Penton has been published in South Africa for a while. They are up to issue 45 and have a nice, straightforward navigation system.\u2022 Sannion links to a possibly\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284","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=1284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}