Tell me more about the Selkie Book Club and how it’s centered on magic. What is your personal definition of magic?
I’m a big believer in the inherent magic in many things, be that nature, music, art, literature, etc etc. Selkie is really dedicated to the magic of storytelling, and often, the magic of stories that are only just now being told. Books like “Her Body and Other Parties” (our October read) tread the line between horror and truth and meditate on the inherent horror of modern womanhood, while also cultivating an apt homage to magical realism.
Most of the books we read show both the horrible and the wonderful in each story, and allow them to coexist in one space. I like to think that finding just the right book for someone is a little bit of magic in and of itself!
What’s your favorite part about working at a local independent bookstore?
The best feeling is when someone walks into the shop for the first time and does that little gasp of surprise, and you get the “Oh, I can’t believe a place like this exists!” and then my heart is full for the rest of the day.
Getting a huge say in what we stock is also wonderful, because we focus on a lot of queernormative, subversive literature and very apt political and sociological works as well as having our witchcraft and occult section and focus, and while we may not carry absolutely everything all at once, I do think our little personally curated selection is very vast, varied, and with only the slightest bit of bias, truly wonderful.
What horror-themed books would you recommend for our readers to dive into this season and beyond?I think horror encompasses so many things, for example, the inherent societal horror of the implications of womanhood or motherhood is a favorite recurring theme of mine.
This year I’ve really been loving “What Moves the Dead” by T. Kingfisher (horror novella loosely based on “The Fall of the House of the Usher”), “Things We Say in the Dark” by Kirsty Logan, and “Her Body and Other Parties” by Carmen Maria Machado (both unsettling feminine-centered short story collections.)
