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Mary Mackey

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Celebrate With Me Nov 9 at Time Tested Books

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party-animal-golden-retrieverDear Friends, Colleagues, Former Students, Poets, Writers, and Literary Party Animals, you’re invited to come to Time Tested Books on Wednesday, November 9th, at 7:00 pm for the Sacramento launch of the paperback edition of my new novel The Village of Bones.

Time Tested is hosting this event as a celebration of my many years as part of the Sacramento Literary Community, and some great local poets will be reading with me including Tim Kahl, Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Joshua McKinney, Trina L. Drotar and Mary Zeppa. Come celebrate with me even if you already have a copy of the novel, and at the same time celebrate one of Sacramento’s great independent bookstores. Bring your friends, your students, your family, your lovers, your Book Club members, and any cheerful-looking, literate strangers you may encounter on the way.

Date: Wednesday, November 9. Time: 7:00 to 8:30 pm
Address: Time Tested Books, 1114 21st St, Sacramento, CA 95811 (Between L and K)

Brenda Knight, WNBA President, On Novels of Life and Death

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brenda-knight-headshot-196x240Today I’m talking to Brenda Knight, the current president of the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA), San Francisco Chapter. WNBA was established in 1917, several years before American women had the right to vote. Brenda is a twenty-year publishing veteran who started out at HarperCollins, and the founding editor of Viva Editions, a division of Cleis Press. A writer as well as an editor, she has authored the American Book Award-winning Women of the Beat Generation, Rituals for Life and Wild Women and Books; and has worked with many bestselling authors including Mark Nepo, Phil Cousineau, Congresswoman Jackie Speier, and Paolo Coehlo. In her spare time (and it’s amazing she has any!), she volunteers for the American Cancer Society as a counselor for the newly diagnosed and leads writing workshops entitled “Putting Your Passion on Paper.”

Mary: Welcome to People Who Make Books Happen, Brenda. I understand that October is WNBA’s National Reading Group Month, and that on October 8th, the San Francisco Chapter is sponsoring an event at Books Inc, connected with San Francisco Litquake entitled Ghost, Bones, and Dust: Novels of Life and Death. That’s an intriguing title, but before we get to Ghost, Bones, and Dust, could you please tell us more about WNBA?

wnbasanfranciscoBrenda: WNBA is broad-based, non-profit organization with individual chapters in twelve cities plus individual members scattered across the country. There are  numerous corporate Sustaining Members plus Honorary Members drawn from the world of books and beyond. We give out three distinguished National Awards every year and sponsor major literary events in our chapter cities and elsewhere such as the WNBA National Reading Group Month event that is coming up on October 8 as part of San Francisco Litquake.

Mary: How is WNBA different from, say, PEN or The Authors Guild?

Brenda: Membership in PEN and The Authors Guild is limited to traditionally published writers Although most of our members are writers and editors, anyone who wants to help promote literacy on the international, national, and local level can become a member of WNBA.We not only celebrate women in the world of books, we’ve been dedicated to connecting, educating, advocating and leading in the literary community since 1917.

Mary: I was intrigued to learn that WNBA is a member of the United Nations.  Could you please tell us more about that?

Brenda: WNBA has been a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) member of the United Nations since 1959. We’re associated with the United Nations Department of Public Information, which means that among other things, we are committed to conducting effective information programs about UN Activities by publishing newsletters, bulletins, and pamphlets; organizing conferences, seminars and round tables; and enlisting the cooperation of the media.  In short, it’s our responsibility to support the United Nations in its goals and win support for those goals among members of the wider community.

Mary: What are some of the specific goals WNBA is trying to win support for?

Brenda: Our present goals include promoting gender equality, empowering women world-wide, and reducing child mortality rates. Plus, of course, we are always working to encourage reading and literacy.

Mary: Which brings us to WNBA National Reading Group Month. What is it?

Brenda: WNBA National Reading Group Month celebrates shared reading by promoting the formation of new reading groups and providing the members  of existing reading groups with suggestions for Great Group Reads. Great Group Reads are a key element in National Reading Group Month.

Mary: So, if I have this right, you’re putting out a list of great books that the members of the thousands of reading groups in this country will enjoy reading together?

Brenda: Exactly. In our opinion, these books are the best of the best for reading groups to read together.

Mary: How many books do you recommend each year?

Brenda: We recommend 20.

Mary: How are the books chosen?

Brenda: The great reads are chosen by a WNBA panel of writers, reviewers, booksellers, publicists, and committed readers. The titles cover timely and provocative topics, and always include under-represented gems from independent presses and less-known mid-list releases from larger houses. Authors are often surprised to hear that their book has been selected by the National Great Group Reads Panel.  

Mary: and pleased.

Brenda: We’ve never had any objections!

ghosts-bones-dustMary:  Now let’s talk about “Ghost, Bones, and Dust: Novels of Life and Death,” the National Reading Group Month panel WNBA is hosting on October 8th as the Kickoff Party for San Francisco Litquake. Where is it? When is it?

Brenda: The Great Group Reads panel Litquake Kickoff Party will be held on October 8th from 2:00 to 4:00 pm at Books Inc., the West’s oldest independent bookseller, which is located at 601 Van Ness in San Francisco (Opera Plaza). Lara King, an Edgar-winning mystery novelist, and five best-selling authors will discuss their books and the joys of shared reading. Refreshments will be catered by Max’s Opera Café.

Mary: Refreshments and good books. A great combination. Who are the five authors whom people will meet at this event? I believe I know one of them rather well.

Brenda: Cara Black, author of 14 books in the Private Investigator Aimee Leduc series, which is set in Paris; Patricia V. Davis, author of the bestselling Harlot’s Sauce: A Memoir of Food Family, Love, Loss, and Greece; Jessica Chiarella, author of the stunning debut novel And Again; Mary Volmer, author of Reliance Illinois; and Mary Mackey, New York Times bestselling author of 14 novels including The Village of Bones, the prequel to your Earthsong Series. The Panel will be moderated by Laurie R. King, New York Times bestselling author of the Mary Russell series of historical mysteries.

Mary: I’m honored to be one of the authors featured at this event. So, everyone, please come to Books Inc. on October 8th, celebrate WNBA National Reading Group Month, and buy books from the West’s oldest independent bookseller. We need to support literacy, reading groups, and our independent bookstores!

Sept 21 Mary Mackey at University Press Books in Berkeley

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University Press Books Berkeley, CAWednesday, September 21, 2016, Berkeley, CA: Celebration of the paperback edition of The Village of Bones. Mary will read selections from The Village of Bones and sign books. There will be time to have fun, browse the books in one of the West Coast’s finest bookstores, and talk to interesting people. TIME: 5:30 to 7:00 pm. PLACE: University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way, Berkeley CA

Women’s Visionary Fiction: Visions, Magic, Prophecy

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WHAT IS WOMEN’S VISIONARY FICTION (Part II)

cosmic dustLike all visionary fiction, Women’s Visionary Fiction gives us visions, magic, prophecy, spiritual experiences, the ability to see the future, to walk through the past, to hear the dead speak, and see other worlds that exist behind the thin veil that separates us from them. But Women’s Visionary Fiction gives us something more. That something, simply stated, is women.  Women write this fiction. In it, all the world, visible and invisible, mystical and real, is seen through female eyes.

In Part II of this series, I want to take you inside one novel written by a woman, and show you how the visionary aspects unfolded. The novel, which was only published a few weeks ago, is The Village of Bones: Sabalah’s Tale. I am the author, and I know it inside out, having researched it for three years and put it through at least twelve complete drafts.

As the subtitle suggests, The Village of Bones: Sabalah’s Tale is written from the viewpoint of a woman named Sabalah, a young priestess who lives six thousand years ago in a Europe inhabited by Goddess-worshiping people who are on the verge of being invaded by marauding nomads who are about to bring male gods, warfare, and genocide to lands that have known peace for thousands of years. It’s an epic adventure of magic, prophecy, and passion that involves a perilous journey, a deadly threat, and a lover who is more than human.

So what, you may ask, are the visionary elements that make The Village of Bones Women’s Visionary Fiction, as opposed to simply Visionary Fiction?  Well, first, as you can probably guess from my name (Mary), I am a woman. But more to the point, I wrote the first draft in a trance that produced a novel deeply saturated with female consciousness.
 
I didn’t write all of The Village of Bones in a trance, of course. You need your entire mind and all your rational facilities to structure and polish a novel, not to mention that I can’t type on my computer with my eyes closed. But the visions I describe in The Village of Bones are visions I saw as clearly as if someone had been running a movie inside my head, and the director of that movie was definitely a woman.

Was She me? That’s a good question. I developed this creative trance technique several decades ago, and I still  don’t know whether the someone who gives me visions is my Muse, a Goddess, a spirit, or simply my own imagination. All I know is that when I called up the story of The Village of Bones, I saw female things: A Sea Goddess, dressed in coral and foam, who told Sabalah she would give birth to a magical child. A Huge Snake Goddess floating in mid-air who warned Sabalah to take her newborn daughter Marrah and flee west to escape the nomads. A powerful Oracle, neither completely male nor completely female, who gave Sabalah a sacred text called the Mother Book, which contained all knowledge past and present, and which could destroy all humanity if it fell into the wrong hands.

As I entered this prehistoric world of visions and prophecies, I saw everything through Sabalah’s eyes. Dolphins that would let you ride on their backs. Great temples sacred to the Bird Goddess built in the shape of birds. Powerful beings with psychic powers who could shape-shift. And one of the most powerful of all these strange beings was a not-quite-human woman.  

I tell you all this to let you know that Women’s Visionary Fiction is not simply a category or a sign in a bookstore that tells you what kind of books you can find on the shelves below. Women’s Visionary fiction, in my case and in the case of other women writers I have spoken to, is not only ecstatically visionary. It is crafted from women’s lives and emerges from the deepest recesses of their unconscious. It is, in short, the stuff women’s dreams are made of.

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Resources:
Read Part I of “What Is Women’s Visionary Fiction?”
•    Syllabi for courses in Women’s Visionary Fiction, Women’s Visionary Poetry, and Women’s Visionary Film can be found on Mary Mackey’s Educators Page at https://marymackey.com
•    To get the latest news about Mary Mackey, Women’s Visionary Fiction and The Village of Bones, click here.
•    Mary Mackey, Ph.D. writes novels, poetry, and film scripts. A Professor Emeritus of English at California State University, Sacramento, she is the author of thirteen novels and seven collections of poetry including Sugar Zone, winner of the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Garrison Keillor has featured her poetry four times on The Writer’s Almanac. Her novels have made The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller Lists and been translated into twelve languages. Her visionary novel The Village of Bones: Sabalah’s Tale is a prequel to the three novels in her best-selling  Earthsong Series (The Year the Horses Came, The Horses at the Gate, and The Fires of Spring). Mary welcomes your questions and comments at marymackey.com  where, you can sample her work, read her interview series People Who Make Books Happen, and sign up to get the latest news about her visionary fiction and poetry. You can also Like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @MMackeyAuthor. Mary’s literary papers are archived at the Sophia Smith Special Collections Library at Smith College in Northampton, MA.

“What Is Women’s Visionary Fiction (Part II)” originally appeared on the Visionary Fiction Alliance Blog as a guest post by Mary Mackey.