Magic Musings

Speech from Witches Brew (Oct 18 2025)

Thank you to everyone for coming to celebrate magic, my birthday, Halloween, and this witchy novel that I’ve written. My birthday really falls at the perfect time of year for me. My whole life I’ve loved magic and I’m no stranger to Halloween birthday parties, but with the release of my new fantasy novel it just felt perfect to do a witch themed party. I’ve been very excited about this event all month and I’m glad you all could be here.

For those who don’t know, The Diviner Sisters is my debut novel. It is a young adult fantasy novel about three witch sisters who must come together to save their world from an evil empress after the Chosen One dies. As an avid fantasy reader I was familiar with these kinds of tropes, but there were a few which did not sit quite right with me. The chief of which being the idea that there the world of magic and then there were the normal, boring world.

I am quite convinced that our “mortal" world is full of magic. But because we’re so used to it, we don’t see it. And I didn’t want to write a novel that perpetuates the idea that our world is not magic. Hundreds of years ago humans used to acknowledge it as fact that the world was full of magic. But science has taken center stage, and we have created a culture which believes that nothing was ever magical, it could all be explained. But I think it is a mistake to believe the world is either rational and able to explained by the science or it is magical.

I believe wholeheartedly that our world is both. That the science we have benefited from is nothing more than the study of some of our world’s magic. The most obvious example is flying. For millennia humans dreamed of flying. There are stories of Helios who drove a chariot across the sky to raise up the sun. What is an airplane but a modern chariot?

Much of the modern world is powered by million year old dragon bones that have been compressed by the earth until it becomes the magical substance known as oil. Does it become less magical if we call those dragons dinosaurs?

Even our own bodies are magical. I recently learned I have a magnesium deficiency. And after taking my magnesium supplements, I’ve found my body functions much better. As a perpetually curious person, I wondered where does magnesium come from? When I looked it up I found the following explanation:

In the cosmos, magnesium is produced in large, aging stars… When such stars explode as supernovas, much of the magnesium is expelled…where it may recycle into new star systems.

So effectively this element which is essential to the functioning of the human body is star dust. We are creatures that run on stardust. If that is not magic, I’m not sure what is.

It really is the human element of magic that I’m most interested in. It’s the magic of our minds which dreams up the chariot to fly across the sky. It’s the magic of our bodies that turns stardust into a powerful remedy. It’s the magic of a song that can compel a person so deeply that they confess their love to someone, start a new career, or jump on a flying chariot and move across the world. I think that the ingenuity and creativity that exists in everybody is actually the truest form of spell work that exists in our world.

And I do believe it exists in everyone. Creativity is not something only the few can access, it is part of what it means to be human. We are all helplessly, perpetually, wonderfully and sometimes insufferably creative. Whether or not you identify as an artist, every single person creates their own way of speaking, their own way of moving, their own way of dressing, their own reality. There is no escaping creativity if you are human, and so there is no escaping magic.

As I’ve thought more and more about the fact that our world is truly bursting with magic, I’ve started to wonder why are we so determined to convince ourselves that it isn’t? Even before the scientific revolution, when most people readily believed in magic, most were also convinced that it was not for them to wield. And I’ve come to the conclusion that humans have a bad habit of diminishing our power and of believing the worst about ourselves. And I actually think that’s the worst thing that we can do for the rest of humanity. When we believe we are powerless, we’re reluctant to enact change. When we believe the worst of humanity, we lose drive to make the world a better place or worse, we bring about more suffering in the world because we believe it was already a lost cause. And I think this feeling of powerlessness can be valid. Even if we can believe that we’re magic it doesn’t make us all powerful. There are inevitably going to be things outside of our control. But I think there are those who benefit from us denying our inherent creativity and magic. And I think believing wholeheartedly in our own magic is an important act of resistance.

And I think this is why I think fantasy novels are a great reflection of life. Monsters and demons and evil empresses can be great metaphors for challenges, and the threats to our creativity and our souls, which are sure to come. In the novel, my main characters sometimes still fail even though they’re witches with all of these shiny new powers. But despite their limitations, it becomes undeniable to them that they are magical. They have no choice but to believe in their own capacity. They understand that there is much more to lose than a cute hobby when you relinquish your creativity, and they choose to not to give up. There’s not much difference to me between a witch who can summon fire to their fingertips and a person with a lighter. The how of the flame is not important. The more powerful one will always be the one who believes they could set the world ablaze.

Thank you all for coming. Thank you for celebrating my birthday and this book with me. There are signed copies of the book for sale if you’re interested. Thank you for celebrating this wonderful spooky season with me. And I hope you have lots of fun tonight.