books

Words and Witchery: Some References for Slavic Mythology

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A tall man in a Mother Christmas t-shirt stands beside a short woman in a Ukrainian embroidered blouse.
Stephen and Valya at Chicon8

Over Labor Day weekend, Stephen and I took the younger two teenagers to their second World Science Fiction Convention: Chicon 8 (San Jose was their first Worldcon in 2019).

Both of us were on panels (usually at the same time), and I was delighted to be on the Slavic Mythology panel with moderator Dr. Jeana Jorgensen, Alex Gurevich, and Alma Alexander. (Unfortunately Alex Shvartsman did not make it to the panel.)

We had a really wonderful and engaged audience, and at the end of our discussion, someone asked for additional references about Slavic Mythology. I agreed to post a list of resources published in English on my blog.

4 masked panelists seated at a table talking with a curtain behind them.
Slavic Mythology panel at Chicon 8.

I’ve done my best to collect them here. I will try to remember to update the post as I acquire new books, or as new media come to my attention.

A small disclaimer: Many books have been published recently about Slavic magic and Baba Yaga. I have not included anything as a nonfiction reference here that I have not personally read and reviewed. Some of the fiction and films, on the other hand, come from other panelists and audience members. I cannot speak to the accuracy of their portrayal or sources.

Nonfiction:

  • Slavic Folklore: A Handbook by Natalie Kononenko
  • Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend
    by Mike Dixon-Kennedy
  • The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia by W. F. Ryan
  • Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture by Joanna Hubbs
  • Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale by Andreas Johns
  • Fairy Tales of the Russians and Other Slavs: Sixty-Eight Stories Edited by Ace G. and Olga A. Pilkington
  • Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine, 1000–1900: A Sourcebook (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies) by Valerie A. Kivelson and Christine D. Worobec
  • Ukrainian Minstrels: Why the Blind Should Sing: And the Blind Shall Sing (Folklores and Folk Cultures of Eastern Europe)
    by Natalie O. Kononenko
  • The Paths of Folklore: Essays in Honor of Natalie Kononenko
    by Svitlana Kukharenko, Peter Holloway
  • The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe: 7000 to 3500 BC myths, legends and cult images by Marija Alseikaitė Gimbutas
  • The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern Europe by Stephen Wilson
  • Baba’s Kitchen Medicines: Folk Remedies of Ukrainian Settlers in Western Canada by Michael Mucz
  • Essential Russian Mythology by Pyotr Simonov

Folklorica: An open-access peer-reviewed journal produced by the Slavic, East European & Eurasian Folklore Association. The Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Folklore Association (SEEFA) is devoted to an exchange of knowledge among scholars interested in Slavic, East European and Eurasian folklore.

Fiction that draws from Slavic mythology:

  • Night Witches by L.J. Adlington
  • The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
  • Shadow and Bone series and Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo
  • Rusalka, Chernevog, and Yvgenie by C.J. Cherryh
  • The Age of Witches by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko
  • American Gods by Neil Gaiman
  • “Viy” by Nikolai Gogol (Mykola Hohol)
  • Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky (translated but difficult to find)
  • The Silence of Trees by Valya Dudycz Lupescu
  • Sticks & Bones: Home Is Where the Hearth Is (comic) by Valya Dudycz Lupescu & Madeline Carol Matz
  • Uprooted and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
  • The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia
  • Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
  • The Forest Song by Lesya Ukrainka (play, translated by Percival Cundy)
  • Mesopotamia by Serhiy Zhadan

Television & Film

  • American Gods (Starz)
  • Shadow and Bone (Netflix)
  • Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965 – Ukrainian: Тіні забутих предків, directed by Sergei Parajanov)
  • The Witcher (Netflix)

Articles:

A stack of books topped by a Baba Yaga figurine.

Ukrainian Connections

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I was delighted to be a part of the “Trapped” Reading last week at Trap Door Theatre in Chicago when the publisher Whiskey Tit arranged for two of its writers (who happened to be of Ukrainian descent) to fly into Chicago for a reading.

After a tasty dinner and lively conversation with Stefan O. Rak and Svetlana Lavochkina, we moved over to the theatre and welcomed guests.

The audience was enthusiastic, the musical accompaniment provided an unusual, creative twist, and both Stefan and Svetlana were wonderful and engaging readers.

I had broken my reading glasses an hour before, and one of the members of the audience was kind enough to lend me their glasses for the reading. It helped. 🙂

Jennifer B. Larson, another member of the audience shared her zine, Pulp Oddyssey, with me after the reading. It was fun to be handed a print zine. (I will always love the feel of paper and newsprint.) You can learn more at: www.disappearingmedia.comI don’t get to go to nearly as many readings as I would like to–one of the many challenges of being a parent of three and a working writer. I love getting the change to hear a writer read their own work live, especially when that writer is an excellent reader, as were both Stefan and Svetlana. I was caught up in both their stories, and I cannot wait to read their books! I’m also thrilled to have finally met Miette Gillette, who is doing an amazing job with Whiskey Tit. I look forward to following what her press and authors are doing in the future.

You can purchase their books direct from the Whiskey Tit website or on Amazon! 

The rest of the week was devoted to Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Fuller Award ceremony planning, spending time with friends in from the UK, and closing off the weekend by celebrating Liam’s performance at Thirsty Ears Music Festival, put on by his fabulous music school, ACM (Access Contemporary Music). I can not say enough about the instructors and staff at ACM. They are incredible musicians and generous, patient, and supportive teachers.

In the afternoon, Liam performed his original piano composition “Mist” on a gorgeous baby grand:

Then the evening closed out with ACM’s Sound of Silent Film Festival screening, where Liam’s Film Score class had the opportunity to watch a live ensemble perform their original musical score for the film, Hope by Michael Scherrer, performed by live musicians. It was remarkable. Each of the 5 students, ages 13-17, wrote a minute’s worth of the composition. The class was run by the incomparable Trevor Watkin, a talented musician, composer, and instructor.

AND our advance author copies of FORKING GOOD arrived! They’re beautiful, and we are so excited. We can’t wait until October!

If you want to get a copy in your hands before the release…during August, there is a Goodreads giveway to win 1 of 25 advance copies of the cookbook. The giveaway ends 8/30 and is U.S. only.

You can sign up here: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/295726-forking-good-a-cookbook-inspired-by-the-good-place

 

 

Night of the Deadlines

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Forking Good at the Quirk Books Booth at BookExpo!

A dear friend met me for coffee a month ago and gifted me with the mug pictured below; when I opened the box, I laughed long and hard in the cafe where we were enjoying breakfast–it was perfect.

When we started working on FORKING GOOD, I knew the deadline was going to be tight. I write pretty well under pressure, although it’s often at the expense of things like sleep, socialization, and self-care. What I was not prepared for was *cooking* under pressure—because this cookbook manuscript wasn’t just an exercise in writing clever philosophy lessons related to the sitcom The Good Place. It also required creating 30 tasty recipes that tied into those lessons.

As I have written before, I love to cook, and serving a meal to be enjoyed with people I love is one of my favorite things in the world. Most of the time, however, I’m a largely improvisational cook. I start with a recipe that’s new or familiar, and I adapt based on what’s in the pantry, what we have a taste for, who’s coming to dinner. I love that moment of adding new herbs and spices, and changing things up a little. I rarely note my changes, except in the general sense on a recipe card or page of a cookbook.

Playing with chives.

It will come as no surprise that this is not the way one creates a recipe to be shared in a cookbook. One must measure and record with precision and accuracy to be able to recreate a dish exactly. This was perhaps my greatest personal challenge in the process, making sure that I recorded and measured every pinch and dash and time change.

Most of the time we tried to make recipes in time for dinner to be shared with the kids (or a few guests) for taste-testing. They were amenable to the experiments; and for a few weeks, it solved the never-ending question of “What’s for dinner tonight, Mom?”  However, time constraints due to the dayjob and deadlines meant that we spent many nights making versions 2 or 3 (or 4) of a recipe at 1am (which then were frozen for future leftovers).

Long days of working, cooking, cleaning up, and writing meant that I was certainly grateful for the cocktail taste-testing required by Stephen’s drink recipe cultivation, and by the time we turned in the draft of the cookbook to our wonderful editor, Jhanteigh Kupihea, I was ready to order Thai takeaway and have a glass of wine. For a week.

Enough time has passed that I’m back to cooking enthusiastically, and we’re so excited about sharing the book when it comes out in October!  In the meantime, we’ve got photos and sneak-peeks to share along the way, and I’ll do that here and especially on our Instagram feed(s):

Follow Us on Instagram! 

Valya: https://www.instagram.com/valya_dl/

Stephen: https://www.instagram.com/stephenhsegal/

In the meantime, you can pre-order Forking Good or request it from your local indie bookshop!

Last week at Book Expo, our publisher had a table and was giving away promotional BLADs (stands for Book Layout and Design, these paperback excerpts from the book are given to publishers and readers to promote advance sales.) Danielle Zimmerman of Hypable was there and got a copy:

Forking Good at BookExpo!