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Elissa Washuta casts a spell in the alluring ‘White Magic’
The author and Ohio State creative writing professor will celebrate the release of her new memoir with a virtual event via Two Dollar Radio tonight
As
White Magic opens, Elissa Washuta recounts purchasing a mood ring at the mall, describing the way the cheap trinket would change from black to green to orange on her finger, and how the those mysterious color shifts instilled in her a desire to explore magic and “bring change to the world using unseen forces.”
As the memoir unfolds, though, what emerges is a picture of how unseen forces bring change to the author, with a pivotal, post-sobriety breakup serving as the catalyst for a wellspring of self-discovery.
Graphic: Natalie Peeples
You’d think that once someone committed to embodying an archetype of forbidden and mysterious power, they’d relax a little about the whole “black magic” thing. But anxiety about practicing the “wrong” kind of witchcraft permeates occult literature;
Of Blood And Bones, a book about using taboo materials like well, like blood and bones in spellcraft, opens with an extended introduction reassuring readers that it’s okay to engage with the dark and difficult as well as “love and light.” Elissa Washuta, on the other hand, spends little more than a page dismissing these dichotomies as nonsensical, and racist to boot. Titling her third book
White Magic | Tin House tinhouse.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tinhouse.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Although itâs explicitly structured in three actsâand around tarot cardsâElissa Washutaâs new book
White Magic (out April 27) feels shaped by a system altogether more immense and inconstant: the internet. Here, as online, the principal voice is a nonfictional first person. Here, as online, this âIâ quotes from sources as varied as Louise Erdrich, video games,
The Catholic Encyclopedia, old tweets, and a Stevie Nicks profile. Here, as online, some facts slip into a liminal space, presumed true but not precisely perceived so. Washuta cites âwitch internetâ for occult knowledge, one of the bookâs subjects. She cites Wikipedia. And here, as online, the whole experience is teeming, harrowing, funny, smart, contradictory, difficult to summarize. Jacket blurbs like to call any book that drifts and ponders âa meditation.â
ever is coming to Washington. Half a year after its theatrical release in Japan,
Demon Slayer: Mugen Train will tour American theaters. Yes! Movie theaters. We can go to those now. The movie is based on
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, the wildly popular anime and manga series that follows Tanjiro Kamado, a teen who turned to demon-slaying after a demon killed his entire family and turned his sister, Nezuko, into a demon.
In season one, Tanjiro and a pacified Nezuko comb Japan looking for a way to turn Nezuko human again, fighting a lot of demons along the way. The movie picks up where season 1 left off and acts as a canonical bridge between season 1 and the soon-to-be-released season 2. During just its opening weekend in Japan last year,