a-wlw-reads:

Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women and Witchcraft edited by Jessica Spotswood and Tess Sharpe

Looking for some more Halloween reads? Boy, do I have a book for you! Like the title says, it’s a collection of short stories involving women and witchcraft (6 of which feature wlw!). That’s really all they have in common; each author took her own spin on what exactly a witch is, what kind of powers they have, what world they live in, and whether or not the world will allow them to be as they are. In a lot of them witches are persecuted; in Why They Watch Us Burn, which was definitely one of my favorites, women are branded witches for speaking the name of their abusers. It’s certainly a timely piece, and especially poignant given that many men tried to claim that the #metoo movement itself was a “witch hunt.” Death in the Sawtooths was another favorite of mine. The narrator is shamed for her affinity with the Lady Xosia, Lady of Slumber, until she’s needed by the very priests who bullied her in the Conservatory. It’s an interesting one that shows the dark side in magic used wrong. I loved this book in part because it’s so varied. Some of the stories clearly take place in a modern environment, even having a witch DM-ing a cute girl on Instagram, and some are placed in historical societies. And some are in purely fictional lands where magic is widespread and no cause for alarm. So all in all, if you’re looking for some Halloween fun, or just some women sticking it to society’s conventions, pick it up!

Stories with WLW:

• “Starsong” by Tehlor Kay Mejia
• “The Heart in her Hands” by Tess Sharpe
• “The Legend of Stone Mary” by Robin Talley
• “Beware of Girls with Crooked Mouths” by Jessica Spotswood
• “The Gherin Girls” by Emery Lord
• “Why They Watch Us Burn” by Elizabeth May

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