Q&A with Susan Wands

 

 

 

Susan Wands is the author of the new novel High Priestess and Empress, the second in her Arcana Oracle series, which started with Magician and Fool. She lives in New York City.

 

Q: High Priestess and Empress is the second in your Arcana Oracle series--what inspired the plot of this new book?

 

A: In my Arcana Oracle Series, I use two tarot cards in sequence and pair them as muses to inspire and guide the tarot creator, Pamela Colman Smith.

 

The first book, Magician and Fool, featured Sir Henry Irving as the Magician muse and heartthrob actor William Terriss as the Fool.

 

In this second book, High Priestess and Empress, Florence Farr, actress, playwright and Golden Dawn leader, and Dame Ellen Terry, are the muses who guide Pamela.

 

As Pamela’s magical prowess grows in the series, so does the threat from other Golden Dawn magicians, notably Aleister Crowley, who do not want Pamela to become empowered by her tarot deck or her learned magic.

 

Q: The writer Faith Justice said of the book, “The research is stunning. Late-nineteenth-century London comes alive with theater performers, street urchins, suffragettes, and the Golden Dawn.” How did you research this new novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: Thank the gods for the internet! Doing research pre-internet was laborious and timely. Now you can find information on the Golden Dawn, magic history, the Carlists and social divide in Victorian London with just a subscription or a library card. I can have scholarly papers from JSTOR emailed to me at command and browse through library databases.

 

I also am fortunate that I follow the tarot authorities who have done decades of research on tarot history and development. I also read books featuring magic and tarot, most recently, The Cloisters by Katy Hays, and The Fortune Teller by Gwendolyn Womack.

 

What surprised me most was finding out the real magical spells that the Golden Dawn practiced, available to those who studied through their curriculum. For many, their aspiration in studying magic was to astral travel and communicate with entities in the invisible world. 

 

Q: Do you think your fictional version of artist and occultist Pamela Colman Smith (1878-1951) has changed from one book to the next?

 

A: Pamela finds new strength and challenges from book to book in this series. She has natural abilities to channel magic but magic is hard! And learning magic is different from practicing magic, as there is a cost for every magical spell or incantation.

 

The cost or effect of magic is not always apparent and the lessons of the tarot cards are sometimes not apparent at first look.

 

In the first book, Pamela becomes aware that she wants to create a deck; in the second book, she must fight against those who don’t want her to learn magic, much less practice its power.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: I want people to root for Pamela the underdog and feel empowered as she learns to come into her power. She’s helped by some people but she has to fight every step of the way, in her life as an artist and magician.

 

Pamela is fiercely attached to her muses but must learn how to develop nuanced relationships with those in her life. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on the last chapters of book three, Emperor and Hierophant, with my writing groups and developmental editor. The third book in the series will come out May 2025 with Sparkpress!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’ll be a guest speaker on April 20 at the Annual Taste of the Yeats Summer School in New York with the WB Yeats Society of NY. Pamela and W.B. had a close friendship for a time and I will be discussing their relationship in my presentation: “Yeats and Pamela Colman Smith: Golden Dawn Magicians and Artists.”

 

There is method to my madness as my fourth book, Lovers and Chariot, features W.B. Yeats, poet and author of some of the greatest love poetry in the English language. If you’re in NYC in April, come check us out at: https://www.yeatssociety.nyc/.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Susan Wands.