Magical literature is not only reserved for the genre of fiction; throughout history, it has been written from personal experience and retrieved from memory. Accounts of magical experiences are ubiquitous throughout history, but it is perhaps the memoirs of pious women in the Middle Ages that are best remembered for their "magical" experiences, which can […]

Over the years, many witches have told their tales of awakening in memoir form. While the backgrounds and settings of these narratives are all richly unique, what they share is a theme of reclaiming one's power by embarking on an underworld journey that ultimately releases them to eschew cultural pressures and tap into their own […]

Grief is a universal experience, but its ubiquity does not make it any easier. To cushion the blows of a loved one’s death, magical practices have had their own special place in grieving processes. Magical rites are enacted at the time of death, at funerals, at memorials, at graves. Some practice magic every day in […]

Holding a Mirror to the Mirror Hello to the inquiring minds of the Inglenook readers. I am bringing you an offering as your Transformation Features Writer. Just as in my last reading, I was drawn first to my box of magnetic words, a toy from the early 2000s used to make poetry or silly phrases […]

What makes a story a fairy tale retelling? Some faithfully recast characters that we know well in modern-day settings, like the characters in Helen Oyeyemi's Gingerbread, who live in present-day England and use toxic gingerbread to travel to a distant, mystical land. Other retellings are set in the past and use the fairy tale as […]

Within the umbrella of “creative nonfiction” there exists a subgenre known as “speculative nonfiction.” It’s not a widely-used term. You’re not likely to find it on Publisher’s Marketplace or the shelf labels of bookstores. But as the art of writing about life has become more popular, it’s an undeniable trend that memoirs are becoming less […]

As long as I can remember, I’ve been curious about fairies—faeries? Fae? (How do we address those tiny winged beings? Are they in fact winged? Tiny? Real?) Part of the draw for me is the mystery, which has followed fairies across the generations. As Jonny Dillon, archivist of the National Folklore Collection at the University […]

Beyond Phases: The Message in the Moon Hello to the inquiring minds of the Inglenook readers. I am bringing you an offering as your Transformation Features Writer. For this reading, I was discouraged from using my Enochian cards, which are normally the core source of my downloads. I felt this from the cards themselves, because […]

A good monster story is more than the sum of its body parts. A monster can mean so many things to the narrative that it lives within—a dark desire, a deep guilt, an unwanted urge—all of which makes the creature feature an endlessly fascinating genre. We’ve compiled eight excellent, innovative tales to send a shiver […]

As nonfiction writers, we know there is a certain magic in crafting what Lee Gutkind (the “father” of creative nonfiction) called “true stories, well told.” As readers, we know a similar magic exists in the reading experience of these tales, feeling the gap between our lives and the pages shorten until they feel one and […]

In the speculative fiction genre, everything is not what it seems. People shapeshift, time may or may not be real, and dystopia is ever near. Whether you read this genre for its creative commentary on modern systems or characters discovering magic in new forms, there’s plenty of recent and upcoming releases to choose from to […]

Have you been hearing that witchy call lately? Maybe the plethora of witch-themed paraphernalia and tchotchkes has been catching your eye more and more. Maybe you've started noticing witchy book titles and folklore when browsing stores and libraries. Or maybe you've been lingering outside longer, even in the cold, just to breathe with the wind. […]

Intimacy and Intuition Hello to the inquiring minds of the Inglenook readers. I am bringing you an offering as your Transformation Features Writer. If you want to know more about what that means, you can read my first Inglenook download for December 2025. My readings thus far have been speaking to the collective about collective […]

Magical acts have gone by many names: the devil’s work, voodoo, sorcery, trickery, dark arts, and illusory stage tricks. What is considered magic appears to be determined by an observer’s own biases—whether they believe in the supernatural, and if so, whether magic is a force for good or evil. To understand magic and the way […]

How Magical Realism Reveals Possibilities for the Future When looking at the effect of human dominion over the past five centuries, it seems there is no question that Earth’s plight is a crisis of self-destructive anthropocentrism. Philosopher Donna Haraway, in her book Staying with the Trouble, urges us to imagine a world without the human […]

For many practitioners of magic, divination requires some basic ingredients. Candles, prayer books, crystals, incense, spices, and tarot cards often serve as tools that help shape and alchemize thoughts and desires into meaningful changes in one’s life. But at what point do magical “materials” cross the line into “magical materialism”? It should come as no […]

Magical realism is when elements of the fantastic, the otherworldly, the "unreal" slip into day-to-day life. "Unreal" is in quotes because reality is subjective, and good literature's purpose is to present a variety of perspectives and challenge our notion of what's "normal" and "accepted." When used like a lens with a blurring effect, magical realism […]

In magical realism, otherworldly elements often highlight political tensions, injustice, and oppression. Protagonists (and authors, for that matter) lean on magic as a coping mechanism to escape or re-contextualize the brutalities and all-too-familiar discrimination of the past, doing away with romanticized notions of bygone eras. When authors dive into magical historical fiction, the real or […]

If you're a writer, you know that speculative or fabulist fiction can sometimes get a bad rap. The assumption is that a magic-centered story is all plot and no substance, or all strange and no literary merit. It's true that escapism and craft is a difficult balance to strike. At Inglenook Lit, we celebrate writers […]

In the mood for some stories that are short, sweet (OK, maybe not sweet), and leave you wondering about the very nature of reality? While magical realism can pull us into deeply dark, kaleidoscope-like versions of day-to-day life that change our perspective forever, the truth is that a mini dose of surrealism is sometimes all […]

Need to leave the real world for a bit? Ever dreamt of getting lost in a magical library? (Were you one of those kids who watched the lesser-known Macaulay Culkin movie from 1994, The Pagemaster?) In addition to being the ultimate fantasy of all bibliophiles, the magical library trope is essentially its own genre. One […]

Nothing tops a warm cup of tea and a little dystopia before bed (and no, we don't mean the nightly news). It can be weirdly soothing to read about another world's hot mess to either help contextualize or see loopholes in our own. Dystopian novels remind us of what's at stake. There are many dystopian […]

It's a powerful thing when a book opens your mind to questions about the human condition, the self, and the nature of existence. Novels that are philosophical in nature take us to fictional worlds that somehow reflect and comment on the human condition better than reality, making you question where you stand and what you […]

If there was any silver lining to 2020’s lockdowns, it was the rediscovery of nature. There's something uniquely rejuvenating about being outside, feeling bare feet on grass, touching bark, tasting ocean spray. Whatever your preferred landscape, the books in this list will inspire and reinvigorate, intertwining drama and self-discovery with the howling call of the […]

At the start of this tale, one Smoky Barnable sets off to marry Daily Alice—but first, he has to find her. Edgewood is off the beaten path, much like Little, Big itself—no ordinary dwelling place. The upstate New York mansion has three hundred and sixty-five stairs, seven chimneys, fifty-two doors, twelve (“twelve what? There must […]

Do you love epic stories about gods and goddesses, but want a contemporary twist to the telling? One glance at this lineup of modern mythological fiction, and you'll notice that most of them have a couple things in common: they're written by women, about women. Maybe that's because mythology needs a female-centric recasting, a feminine […]

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, […]