It’s Like Christmas...

... But without all the annoying relatives.

I just got back from DragonCon, which rocked in so many ways, I can barely express it. From geeking out with Dean Haglund about the Tibetan Book of the Dead to having the honor of appearing on panels with venerable vampire writers Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Suzy McKee Charnas to earning a respectful nod from Harry Turtledove, I had an amazing time. And I'm already planning some of my panels & presentations for next year.

As if all of that awesomeness were not enough, I came home to discover several packages waiting for me. One contained copies of the Spanish-language edition of Vampires in Their Own Words. The other contained the first few copies of Walking the Twilight Path. Before heading down to Atlanta for DragonCon, I had been hard at work with Jackie Williams on the Twilight Path website, so getting to finally hold the book itself seemed like perfect symmetry.

And then, because the gods are surely smiling upon me, I get a couple of texts from people who caught me on a commercial -- it seems the very intense case that I helped PRS investigate out in Pennsylvania will be airing this Monday on Paranormal State. Don't miss it -- there was some very weird stuff that happened on that case.

I'll have just enough time to catch the new episode and then pack and get my stuff ready for Univ-con Sept. 11-14. I hope to see at least a few of you there. If everything works out just right, I'll have some copies of Walking the Twilight Path for sale there (even though the book doesn't technically come out till Oct. 28).

Woohoo!

--M

5:31 AM - 9 Comments - 13 Kudos - Add Comment

Schedule for DragonCon

Only a few days away ... for those of you wishing to catch up with me at DragonCon, here's my final schedule:

**************************************************
Title: Dragon*AutoGraph
Time: Fri 01:00 pm Location: M301 - M304 (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: Comics and Philosophy
Description: Explore philosophical topics in four-color fictions, including issues of personal identity and postmodernism. Bring those thinking caps...
Time: Fri 05:30 pm Location: L508 (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: Blood of Angels
Description: Occultist Michelle Belanger reveals the mysteries and lore of the Nephilim - the fallen angels of antiquity.
Time: Fri 10:00 pm Location: Montreal / Vancouver (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: We Don't Need No Superheroes
Description: A look at the many alternatives to the traditional superhero comic available to fans. From humor and horror to romance and history, the creative imagination is the limit.
Time: Sat 11:30 am Location: L508 (Length: 1 Hour)

Saturday 1pm thru 3pm Borders Express (Exhibitor Hall) BOOK SIGNING

Title: Weaving the Vampire Tapestries
Description: An interview with Suzy McKee Charnas, author of the cult classic "The Vampire Tapestry" and other dark fantasies.
Time: Sat 07:00 pm Location: Montreal / Vancouver (Length: 1 Hour)
Moderator / MC for panel

Title: Writing Paranormal Non-Fiction
Description: Writing is hard. Writing paranormal non-fiction is even harder. Hear from published writers on what it takes to write the paranormal accurately, believably and in a way that the reader can understand.
Time: Sun 10:00 am Location: M106 - M107 (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: Looking Back at SF/Fantasy/Horror through the years
Description: Join these non-fiction experts as they examine the growth of these genres-and maybe predict new trends.
Time: Sun 11:30 am Location: Manila / Singapore / Hong Kong (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: The Riddle of the Comte de Saint-Germain
Description: A discussion about the real Saint-Germain - mystic, courtier, and historical enigma.
Time: Sun 04:00 pm Location: Cairo (Length: 1 Hour)

Title: Still Bleeding Into the Mainstream
Description: A look into the ways that Goth imagery is being used - some might say exploited - in the mainstream media.
Time: Sun 08:30 pm Location: Hanover C - E (Length: 1 Hour)
**************************************************

Whew! I'm getting tired just reading that. As you can see, there won't be much wiggle room in between panels and things, but I do believe there will be a dinner Friday with the AVA. I might have to jet out of that fairly quickly to make my 10pm presentation, but I *will* be there.

7:00 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Announcing the Twilight Path!

It's been a busy couple of weeks, as some of you may know. I've been working on a project (actually, a set of projects) with artist Jackie Williams. And we are both very please to announce the official launch of Twilight Path.com

This is an extensive site that explores and enlarges upon the material covered in my soon-to-be-released book, Walking the Twilight Path

Of special interest are the podcasts: downloadable recordings of conversations between Jackie & myself about the Twilight Path material, as well as recorded exercises & visualizations. Five are live right now, so head over to the site and take a listen!

--M

8:28 PM - 9 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

DragonCon

So who here is going to be at DragonCon?

I just got my preliminary schedule and I'm going to be a busy little vampire. They've got me appearing on a number of different tracks, so you'll see me in Dark Fantasy, Paranormal, and even the Comics track.

This year features a DragonCon first for me -- I actually have a scheduled time to do autographs in their autograph alley. I'll be parked in a booth Friday at 1pm. If you're at the con, come swing by to see me. I've designed and printed up some very special freebies just for the convention. Some of these you won't be able to get anywhere else, so write the time down on your schedule.

In other news, I'll be officiating at the Denessa Smith Memorial this Wednesday in Michigan. I hope I'll get a chance to see some of you there, honoring the memory of this great woman.

Finally, a little bird told me that portions of the Monsterquest episode I appeared on Aug. 6th have made it up on YouTube. If you're curious about the experiments performed with Dom Villella using a FLIR camera and Trifield Meter, check them out!

--M

11:09 PM - 17 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

Denessa’s Memorial Service Details

Memorial Service
Denessa Smith Memorial Celebration
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
7pm to 10 pm
7:30 pm Ritual
Bishop Park, Wyandotte, MI

Please join the Pagan community to honor Denessa's life and work. Come raise your voices with Michelle Belanger, Dorothy Morrison, Coventry Creations, Cov/42 Productions, FOCAS, MEC, Pagan Path Community Center, Pagan Pride Detroit, Undeniable Entertainment, Witches of Michigan and members of the Tempest Smith Foundation along with tributes from Christopher Penczak and Kerr Cuhulian.

Denessa was able to bring hope out of tragedy, and that will be our goal with this group ritual.

This ceremony is going to be a memorial, but it is also going to be a celebration. Denessa was a woman who drank deeply of wine and pleasure and flesh and joy, and, accordingly, we ask that people bring their best desserts and other favorite sweets and drinks to share (as it's a public park, no alcohol). Please also bring a chair. If you have not shared comments for the family at www.mec-mi.org, feel free to bring a single page with a blessing, comment, or prayer for Denessa that will be passed on to the family.

If you would like to make donations to the family or to continue Denessa's vision, you may bring a check made out to Annette Crossman or follow the instructions on the above website.

--M

9:50 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

The Dying of the Light

I want to tell you about a great woman who, after today, you'll never have the chance to meet: Denessa Smith.

In 2001, she became married to death. Not through choice, but through circumstance. Denessa had a daughter, Tempest Smith. Tempest was raised Pagan. This did not go over well at school, not here in the Midwest. Tempest got hazed and teased and bullied, and very little was done to solve the problem. As this continued, eventually Tempest lost faith in humanity and in her ability to deal with its meaner foibles. She killed herself.

Denessa had every right to be enraged at a system that failed to address the problem before it drove her daughter to such an extreme. She had every right to want to lash out and seek revenge. Instead, she sought to promote tolerance.

In memory of her daughter, Denessa founded the Tempest Smith Foundation. For the next several years, Denessa devoted herself tirelessly to the war against a system that cannot accept other peoples' differences. She toured the country, speaking at events and at schools, making certain that her daughter's story was told. She told that story through art, through tie-dye parties that brought people of many faiths, orientations, and races together in good (not always so clean) fun. She told that story with her heart, her soul, and all the strength she didn't realize that she had left after losing her daughter.

5:22 AM - 18 Comments - 25 Kudos - Add Comment

My Itinerary & Kheprian Open House!!!

Today: Writing
Tomorrow: New Yor
Friday: New York
Saturday: Home again, hopefully with more writing.
Sunday: See steps 1 and 4.

Next Week: Prep for the Kheprian Open House. People start arriving Wednesday. Event starts Friday afternoon, June 6th. I can't believe it's here already. We're in a new hotel, much nicer, much bigger & closer to the Cleveland airport.

See you there!

--M

9:30 PM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Twilight Path Contest

This September, I am releasing a book entitled Walking the Twilight Path. Here's a short blurb about the book so you can get a feel for the work:

Walking the Twilight Path not only introduces the reader to Death in all its many and varied aspects, but the book also provides the necessary tools for gaining power over the process of death, so it can be harnessed as a positive and potent force of change. Through meditations, exercises, and lyrically profound rituals, Walking the Twilight Path gives you the power to cross over to the Otherside – and return with all the wisdom that waits there for you.

Well, one of the challenges of writing a book on deathwork that is very ritual heavy lay in the use of incense and other scents for the rituals. I started out saying "find some appropriately death-attuned scent" and then realized that your average witchcraft store was not likely to carry  anything of that nature -- or, if they did, there wouldn't be much room for choice. (One lonely blend of stick incense labeled "Samhain" is not a choice!) So I set about to fix this problem.

One thing most of my readers don't know about me is that between the years of 1992 and 1996, I was the co-owner of a little traveling witchcraft shoppe that would vend at conventions. We sold herbs and oils and incenses and bath salts, and I hand made everything from my own recipes. Some of the scents were darker, but a lot were your standard witchy stuff. I really enjoyed the work of crafting these things, but the whole process was messy and time consuming and kind of a bitch to store in a tiny apartment. So I eventually quit. But I still had some of those recipes, and of course I had the knowledge that had gone into designing those recipes.

So, for Walking the Twilight Path, I pulled out all my old incense & herb books, along with my first printing of Cunningham's herbal, and I set out to make a variety of incenses, oils, and bath blends that would work for the energy of the Twilight Path.

The resulting collection of recipes appears in the back of the book as an appendix. Folks who try their hand at the Twilight Path are encouraged to blend their own supplies -- but -- once again, I remember how messy, cumbersome, and time-consuming this can be.

So, finally, we get to the real point of this post.

The Contest
I know many of you out there run little shoppes much like the one I was a part of. And I know at least some of you would be interested in selling blends appropriate to darker ritual work. So I am looking to essentially license the use of my blends and their names to half a dozen stores out there who can then sell them ready-made to the people who take up the work set forth in the new book. I suspect that a lot of folks who follow dark pagan paths will like the blends as well, so they'll hardly be limited to practitioners who are essaying the rituals in my book. Right now, I just want to make sure that these options are out there under the pretty names I've devised so they are recognizably connected with the Twilight Path.

If you are interested in producing this special line of blends, drop me an email at glenarvon -@- gmail -dot- com. Tell me a little about who you are, what type of shop you run, and why you would be a good choice for producing these blends. I also want to know a little about your clientèle -- I'm looking for shops that appeal to a wide variety of people, as the Twilight Path is a very eclectic system with those dark-yet-empowering overtones that most of you are probably familiar with from me.

I'll select six stores around the US and Canada -- real-time stores or web-based, it matters not to me. These winners of the contest will be licensed to produce and sell my recipes with their proper names and with a Twilight Path logo identifying them with the book. For these first six stores, the licensing is free of charge. I'll pass the recipes and a logo along to those selected, and we'll launch the blends in August, just before the book's release.

I'll announce the winners of the contest in June, right after the Kheprian Open House.

--M

4:38 AM - 8 Comments - 20 Kudos - Add Comment

See You in June?

HK Open House - everything's set:

June 6-8 in Cleveland, OH

Listing on Witchvox

Hope to see you there!

--M

6:45 AM - 9 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

Where in the World Is M ... ?

So a couple of you on the ol' friends list have been asking about classes and such. I've pared down my travel schedule this year, partly in anticipation of something that could potentially make it *really* crazy. But, I'm still going to be out and about.

My first big date: ConVocation.org. Feb. 21-24.
This is a great midwest Pagan convention held just outside of the Motor City, Detroit.
I'll be running workshops Thursday, Friday & Saturday. Depending on when you show, you can catch me doing any of the following: "Reading the Energy Body," "Magick and the Middle Sex," and a great two-parter: "Introduction to Kheprian Ritual I & II." I'll also be doing signings and such throughout the weekend.

Next up: Twilight, a little vampire shin-dig in Atlanta, the first full weekend in March. I'll be presenting here as well, and I will be dragging along the infamous Jay, my much-talked about best friend and head of House Kheperu's Warrior Caste. He will also be presenting.

The other big thing in March is not an event folks can attend, but it bears a mention. On March 15th, I'll be part of a roundtable discussion held at the annual meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice in Cincinnati, OH. We will be addressing school dress codes, freedom of expression, and law enforcement fears about the Goth and Vampire subcultures. I am honored to be a part of this, and just a wee little bit nervous. Keep me in your thoughts as I go to bat for teens' rights.

We are also finalizing the dates and hotel information for the annual Kheprian Gathering. We've moved to a bigger hotel to accommodate the growth this weekend intensive of workshops has experienced over the past few years. We have more programming than ever, and we'll actually be located close to the Cleveland Hopkins Airport, so the hotel will provide a courtesy shuttle to our out of town guests. This remains one of the best places to attend my workshops, as I always seem to get roped into doing two or three. Clear your calendars for the 6-8 of June ...

--M

12:32 AM - 19 Comments - 28 Kudos - Add Comment