June's Teeth
Litha, a fabulous Fabulistic workshop, Victorian lady scientists and Deadbeat Druids in News from the Library, THREE new booktails for PRIDE month, and more!
Welcome back to The Cauldron! (Hiss, squish, pippity-pop!)
June is kind of a big month. It’s Pride month, a party rooted in revolt, and on the 19th we arrive at Juneteenth, commemorating the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans.
Then on the 21st comes Midsummer, or Litha to the pagans. (And it’s also Caraway’s birthday!)
Litha marks the longest day of the year, when the womb of the Goddess is full and the Sun is at its most potent. This is a joyful holiday, though the darkness promises its return. Soon the days will grow short again and the cold will creep back in. The Oak King will give way to the Holly King, and round and round The Wheel we go.
For now, we stay up all night, dancing around the bonfire scattered with fragrant herbs. We meditate on our successes, daydream, and eat summer foods: fruit, salad, and herbs. We also drink amazing cocktails designed by yours truly, like the Summer Fire, pictured below. (Stay tuned for The Wheel deck of recipe cards, with four recipes for each of the eight sabbats!)
8-Week Generative Fiction Workshop: Writing the Uncanny & Fabulistic
Join incredibly talented booktail-ized author and Pick Your Potions fan JD Scott for an 8-week online workshop via Catapult! Seriously, this class sounds freakin’ fantastic:
Freud once wrote of the uncanny—of fiction’s capacity to trouble that space between what is strange and what is familiar. It is the strangely familiar that can build mystery, can astound and surprise, can make us gasp from the magic and wonder that creative writing allows.
In this generative fiction workshop, we will be reading stories and responding to specific prompts connected to the work we’ve read to develop new writing. This class will include between 6-8 unique prompts, with students workshopping two of the favorite pieces they’ve produced within the class. The goal of this class is to animate our narratives to apply elements of the uncanny, strange, fabulistic, and/or fantastic. We will be engaging with both subtle degrees of strangeness as well as palpable representations of magic and fabulation.
Class meets virtually on Tuesdays, Jul. 12 - Aug. 30, 8-10 p.m. ET
News from the Library
Featuring news and updates on authors and their booktail-ized books!
If you liked David R. Slayton’s TRAILER PARK TRICKSTER, you’ll love the next book in the series! DEADBEAT DRUID is coming October 18!
But wait, there’s more! LAST SON OF THE NIGHT is due in October of 2023, with urban fantasy ROGUE COMMUNITY COLLEGE following in October of 2024.
Great news for fans of Elizabeth Everett’s A PERFECT EQUATION! The author is launching a spin-off series through Berkley Press with two sexy, hilarious tales of Victorian lady scientists already in the works! Stay tuned for those releases.
New Booktails! Just in time for Pride!
Andrea Lawlor’s PAUL TAKES THE FORM OF A MORTAL GIRL is a magical odyssey traversing the queer side of the 90’s. Set against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis, the story skips from Iowa City to the Michigan Womny’s Fest, P-Town, and the gayest city of all, San Francisco. Our guide is Paul, a loveably superficial sort-of intellectual and ethnically-ambiguous youth with penchants for fashion and sex of all kinds, with all types and genders: “Paul could make himself be attracted to anyone. This was one of his virtues. This was one of his virtues and one of his skills.” Haphazardly enrolled in college courses, Paul scrapes by with earnings from bars and bookstores, all the while hunting for potential sexual conquests. For Paul has a secret: he can change his physical appearance at will, altering his hair, muscles, breast tissue, and sex. When he falls for Diane, a gold star lesbian, his talents are put to the test. But the journey doesn’t end there.
An instant queer classic featuring a veritable lexicon of references to take you down the rainbow memory lane, this is THE book many of us longed to find on the library shelves in our early years. PAUL TAKES THE FORM OF A MORTAL GIRL is an absolutely delightful must-read for all.
This booktail is made with rye, preferably of the Michigan variety, for all the whiskey drunk throughout the novel. Campari is the key ingredient in the Negroni, Paul’s ex-boyfriend Tony Pinto’s signature drink: “Paul savored the Campari as if it were Tony’s blood, as if he were a vampire and could drink Tony to death.” It’s the same cocktail Paul’s best friend Jane orders just before Diane’s surprise visit. Honey is a nod to Greece and Türkiye and the sweetness of the gods’ ambrosia. Absinthe, which was Oscar Wilde’s favorite, has a licorice flavor similar to ouzo and adds a touch of mature mystery and magic. Presented against a unicorn backdrop with a liquid base distorting the book’s reflection, this booktail is served in a purple-sheened twisted glass, and garnished with a slice of peach for the “blinis” Tony Pinto is liable to break out on New Year’s Eve.
PAUL TAKES THE FORM OF A MORTAL GIRL
Ingredients
1.5 oz rye (preferably Traverse City Whiskey Co)
0.5 oz Campari
½ tablespoon honey dissolved in ½ tablespoon warm water
1 teaspoon absinthe
Garnish: a slice of fresh peach
Instructions
First, dissolve the honey in ½ teaspoon warm water. Then add the absinthe to the glass, rolling the vessel until it’s thoroughly coated. Discard the excess. Then add the rye, Campari, and honey water to a shaker, along with a large cube or chunk of ice. Agitate vigorously until the ice begins to break up, then strain into the absinthe-rinsed glass. Garnish with a slice of peach.
The next two booktails were commissioned by Grubstreet for April’s Muse and Marketplace all-conference reads! The authors are both Muse fellows, in fiction and non-fiction, respectively.
In adrienne maree brown’s resonant novel GRIEVERS, a strange illness descends on the city of Detroit, freezing residents in their tracks and suspending them in a zombie-like state of internal grief and sorrow, until they slowly succumb to death.
A predominantly Black community within a mostly-white state, Detroit soon faces a horrifying and bewildering truth: somehow this disease only affects those of African heritage, resulting in an infuriatingly indifferent response from the powers that be.
The first to lose a loved one to this strange plague, “cute boi” Dune cares for her un-afflicted yet likewise comatose grandmother and scours for food in the community gardens her now-deceased mother helped implement. Alone with only memories of her dead parents and unfaithful ex-girlfriend for company, Dune keeps vigil over the dying, creating tiny markers of their loss in the city model her late father built in the basement. But the burden of survival is a heavy one: “how was she supposed to survive? And how was she supposed to forgive herself for surviving?”
A smooth, lightly floral drink with citrus notes, this booktail is made with bourbon, for the “dizzy numbness” Dune feels when she pounds shots of whiskey. The bourbon brings out the jasmine, a reference to the old tin of jasmine tea full of slivers of paper Dune finds in her father’s basement workshop. The tangerine juice and zest reference the headwrap Dune’s mother was wearing when struck down by the mysterious plague. Likewise, community leader Elouise wears a “golden hued” headwrap when her time comes, and keeps oranges on her altar. The citrus also honors Mama Vivian’s extra strong Screwdrivers. Honey water adds a touch of sweetness and a nod to the jar of Michigan honey served at Big Lou and Elouise’s final breakfast. The drink is garnished with mint for Dune’s father and his scent of mint, leather, prayer incense, and sesame, as well as the fresh greens Dune forages for among the community gardens her mother helped found.
This booktail is presented against a highly textured backdrop, each element chosen to reflect Detroit’s exterior and vibe, both old and new, such as brick, distressed wood, and a mirrored surface that resembles ice and water, for a city on the edge of a river. The drink is served in a gorgeously twisted purple-sheened glass garnished with mint, which pops against the silver and browns of the setting. The mint stands in for Detroit’s greenery, community gardens, and spaces reclaimed by nature.
GRIEVERS
Cocktail Ingredients
2 oz jasmine green tea, preferably loose leaf, steeped with ¼-½ teaspoon tangerine zest
1.5 oz bourbon, preferably from a Detroit distillery like Detroit City Distillery or Two James Spirits
1 oz fresh tangerine juice, or other sweet citrus
Honey water: 1 Tablespoon honey dissolved in 2 Tablespoons warm water
Garnish: fresh mint
Instructions
First, prepare the jasmine tea, adding the citrus zest to the cup. Allow to steep until completely cool. Meanwhile, juice the citrus and set a rocks glass in the freezer or at the back of the fridge to chill. Once the tea is ready, add it to a shaker with a large cube or chunk of ice, along with the bourbon, juice, and honey water. Agitate vigorously until the shaker turns frosty. Strain into the chilled glass and garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.
Mocktail Ingredients
3 oz jasmine green tea, preferably loose leaf, steeped with ¼-½ teaspoon tangerine zest
1 oz Earl Grey tea
1 oz fresh tangerine juice, or other sweet citrus
Honey water: 1 Tablespoon honey dissolved in 2 Tablespoons warm water
Garnish: fresh mint
Instructions
First, prepare the teas, adding the citrus zest to the cup of jasmine. Allow both to steep until completely cool. Meanwhile, juice the citrus and set a rocks glass in the freezer or at the back of the fridge to chill. Once the teas are ready, add them to a shaker with a large cube or chunk of ice, along with the juice and honey water. Agitate vigorously until the shaker turns frosty. Strain into the chilled glass and garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.
THE NATURAL MOTHER OF THE CHILD: A MEMOIR OF NONBINARY PARENTHOOD by Krys Malcolm Belc is a beautifully-woven family tapestry exploring the nuances of love and connection between partners, parents and children, and the body and the self. Offering snapshots of his pregnancy with Samson, the second of three children he and his wife parent, Belc moves back and forth in time to recount definitive experiences like falling in love, transitioning, becoming a parent, losing a parent, births, and cross-country moves—not necessarily in that order.
Belc’s insights and meditations expose the painful burdens inherent in our society’s stubborn adherence to a false gender binary, which parses, rations, and limits the expression and representation of love.
Consequently, queer parents are forced to legally adopt their own children and eschew biological donors. Parents who give birth are forever pigeonholed as “natural mothers,” in turn narrowing the emotional breadth and depth of fatherhood: “There are things one gains by transitioning and things one loses. There is the new body, the confidence, there is the title Dad, the power granted to men. And there is what one loses: the assumption of connection.”
This booktail is creamy and lightly sweet, with almond notes and a touch of caramel. The natural florals in the gin pair well with the rooibos tea, included “for “someone who doesn’t drink the tea” and Belc’s fraught first trimester, during which he drank rooibos at his desk each morning. Amaretto conjures the layer of almond crunch in the bee sting cake Belc makes for himself after a 20-week ultrasound, plus snow days in Marquette, MI spent eating through the pantry, including little tins of almonds. Cream adds texture and buoyancy, a fitting representative of all the deliciously sweet things in this memoir, from shakes, popsicles, caramel, and cakes, many of which are enjoyed before and after milestone moments, like additional ultrasounds and adoption proceedings. Plus little Samson himself, “A human Tootsie Pop. Sweet, easy to love.” Garnished with berries—Samson’s favorite snack—the drink is also decorated with slivers of almonds and a dollop of whipped cream dusted with cinnamon for the cinnamon rolls served at the pinnacle of domesticity known as IKEA.
This booktail is presented against a rainbow backdrop softened with an overlay of light pink, a reference to binary-gendered thinking which permeates the perception of the world, including something as neutral as color. (Pink is also Samson’s favorite color.) The booktail at the center is designed to resemble a delectable pastry, complete with fruit and almond slivers, with three raspberries at its base for each of the children in the family, and two blackberries for their parents, Anna and Krys. The overall effect is cheerful, inviting, and infused with love.
THE NATURAL MOTHER OF THE CHILD
Cocktail Ingredients
2 oz rooibos tea
1.5 gin
1 oz amaretto
1 oz heavy cream (vegan non-dairy substitute: 1 oz almond milk and 1 oz aquafaba, aka the juice from a can of chickpeas)
Garnish: slivers of almond and fresh blackberries and/or raspberries and a dollop of whipped cream dusted with cinnamon
Instructions
Steep a cup of rooibos tea until completely cool. The tea should be a reddish color. Add it to a shaker with a large cube or chunk of ice, along with the gin, amaretto, and cream, or dairy substitutes. Shake till frothy, about one minute. Strain into a coupe or wide martini glass and garnish with berries, plus slivers of almonds arranged in a line atop the foam. For best results, set berries on the lip of the glass, or slice in half to lessen the weight and minimize sinking. Add a dollop of whipped cream and dust with cinnamon filtered through a sieve or mesh strainer.
Mocktail Ingredients
2.5 oz rooibos tea
1 oz heavy cream (vegan non-dairy substitute: 1 oz almond milk and 1 oz aquafaba, aka the juice from a can of chickpeas)
1 oz simple syrup
¼ teaspoon almond extract
Garnish: slivers of almond and fresh blackberries and/or raspberries and a dollop of whipped cream dusted with cinnamon
Instructions
Steep a cup of rooibos tea until completely cool. The tea should be a reddish color. Add it to a shaker with a large cube or chunk of ice, along with the simple syrup, cream, or dairy substitutes, and almond extract. Shake till frothy, about one minute. Strain into a coupe or wide martini glass and garnish with berries, plus slivers of almonds arranged in a line atop the foam. (Note: the vegan version is delicious but produces minimal foam. However, the almonds will still float.) For best results, set berries on the lip of the glass, or slice in half to lessen the weight and minimize sinking. Add a dollop of whipped cream and dust with cinnamon, filtered through a sieve or mesh strainer.
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