Inglenook Blog

Bright ideas, inspiring stories, and thought-provoking articles to spark your creativity and stoke your inner fire.

The Best Books About Magic for Adults - 2025

December 1, 2023
Do you love magic, but don’t typically read fantasy? Literature-lovers rejoice: there’s enchantment to be found in the everyday world (of fiction). Supernatural and mythic abilities, creatures, beasts, and fairies, and even magic portals. You’ll recognize the worlds the characters of these novels inhabit, but be charmed and enchanted out of your own. Here are […]
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According to the AWP 2023 Writer’s Conference, Magic is Real

November 7, 2023
Well, maybe that wasn't the Association of Writers & Writing Program's exact claim in their recent virtual panel discussion, but they did explore the connections between writing and divination (i.e. Tarot and other practices that seek to reveal the future. So...magic, essentially.) Magic and writing have a lot in common. They’re both acts of manifestation. […]
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What We Can Learn About Mental Health in Harry Potter

May 24, 2022
A teenage boy tosses and turns in bed. He can’t stop his racing thoughts, and it feels like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. A dark force looms over him, threatening everything he loves, but he feels isolated and afraid. No one believes his concerns, even as it’s plain to see the […]
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Mental Health for Writers: Redefining Creative Success

April 1, 2022
The cursor on the blank page blinks off and on, taunting the fingers sitting still against the keyboard. The phone beeps a cheery tone from across the room, reminding you, yet again, that your first draft is overdue by a week. To distract yourself from the words that just won't come, you click into your […]
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Ursula K. Le Guin’s Taoism: How “The Way” Inspired Some of Her Greatest Works of Fiction

March 1, 2022
The work of Ursula K. Le Guin resonates across time and cultures. From the rich traditions of the Hainish universe to the vast islands of Earthsea, Le Guin’s novels are some of the most detailed and transformative in the history of the genre. In her lifetime, Le Guin published nearly 50 novels, novellas, children’s books, […]
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Witch Stories: Why We Need Them and Where to Start with Some of the Most Magical Writers and Storytellers

February 14, 2022
Who says witches have to be villains? Some of the greatest modern storytellers certainly don’t think so. Authors like Pam Grossman and Madeline Miller are flipping the script on witch stories, offering empowering and nuanced alternatives to the stereotype of the old hag in the woods who curses princesses with spindles. It’s important to tell […]
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  • Craft Corner

    Stack of books

    Some favorite reads for honing manuscripts, magic(k), and minds

  • Take your imagination on a date with these translated mini-essays about children and storytelling. The Grammar of Fantasy by Gianni Rodari will loosen writer's block and cultivate child-like wonder and playfulness (with a healthy side of potty humor).
  • The Wonder Book Jeff VanderMeer
    Wacky and wonderful, this inspiring craft (comic? cabinet of curiosities? I Spy?) book will not only give you helpful tips for writing fabulist fiction, it will also give your weary brain a needed break from it.
  • Stories need not follow the pyramidal rise-and-fall of Freytag's story arc to be compelling. Jane Alison's Meander, Spiral, Explode opens minds and manuscripts with its survey of shapes found in both nature and literature.
  • New witches and witch-curious readers will appreciate this mind-body approach to magick. Its authentic tone and easy-to-follow guide will appeal to those looking to cultivate a witchy meditation practice and to see their magickal efforts manifest in the real world.
  • Six Ways by Aidan Wachter is an easy-to-read primer on "chaos magic:" tips and how-to's for building a magickal toolbox that doesn't ascribe to any particular school of thought. The book covers sigils, petitions, animism, trance, and more. Its likable narrator and magickal content will inspire writers and magicians alike.
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