Silver RavenWolf

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[SunflowerP]

I am one of those kids who read Teen Witch and lied to her parents about practicing witchcraft. [-BIG SIGH-] It caused a great deal of family hurt. I was grounded and nearly kicked out of the house because I had been introduced to the concept of a bigger world beyond my little box, and also the fact that lying to my parents was the only way I'd learn more about it. Since my parents were unstable and controlling, I thought I had finally found the best advice. Oh man was I wrong!

And that's why I object so strongly to SRW giving that advice - it's not that the idea of kids keeping things from their parents, or even lying, offends me; IMO it's an entirely natural part of developing one's autonomy.  But it's equally much a part of that development that each kid needs to recognize for hirself that s/he can have things that are private, and to decide how best, for hir particular situation, to maintain that privacy - s/he may not make good decisions yet, but that's how s/he'll learn how to make better ones, and while hir judgement might not be all that good, s/he's still the best authority on hir own situation.  Concealing/evading/lying because some other adult told hir to do so isn't an exercise of hir growing autonomy, it's just a change of who s/he's being obedient to.

Sunflower

[Autumn Twilight]

Silver makes me giggle.
I think everyone pretty muich summed everything up.
I bought her BOS thing, last year.
I sold it back to half price bookstore.
She was talking about girlscouts not entering a church because they were wiccan.
Or how her daughter disrespected a christian, and how she was proud of it.
It made me giggle, put down the book, and giggle some more.
Silver's craaaazy.

I am a bit torn. I think that like anything, you have to consider the source. . . I like how she writes-enjoy reading it but I have seen a number of instances where she encourages the use of bad energy to "pay back" someone who has wronged you in some way. . .the statement about her being proud of her daughter disrespecting a christian is disturbing. . . I also feel like some of what she writes is directed toward the teenage group who often reads such things as "gospel".
We do not need any more prejudiced people in the world. 

[Paganwolf025]

I've heard of Silver Ravenwolf from various friends and doing searches on the internet. I don't know what it was but I've never been giddy to buy any of her books. I've been reading what others have said and I must admit it's put me in a odd position. If I were to buy her books it would be for basic reference material and try to take what she says with a grain of sand. I know I'm a beginner here So forgive me If I seem to be going in a loop.

[Autumn Twilight]

I've heard of Silver Ravenwolf from various friends and doing searches on the internet. I don't know what it was but I've never been giddy to buy any of her books. I've been reading what others have said and I must admit it's put me in a odd position. If I were to buy her books it would be for basic reference material and try to take what she says with a grain of sand. I know I'm a beginner here So forgive me If I seem to be going in a loop.

You make perfect sense.    I am a firm believer that we have to read with an open mind.

[Steamkitten]

She is often criticized for telling teens to lie to their parents, which is odd because her Teen Witch book has an introduction addressed to parents. She just has the (quite realistic) notion that not all parents will accept that their child is interested in Witchcraft, and states it is okay to be secretive about it. It's religion, after all, not drugs, and it's not like teenagers never hide things from their parents.

I remember reading teen witch when I was around 17. And tried one of the methods SRW suggests to keep the secret. Use figures of The virgin Mary as the Goddess, and various saints. Well I didn't count on my Irish catholic raised mother figuring it out by just glancing at the set up of these items. I got my ass kicked and tossed out of the house for not only lying, but for using those specific religious items for more "nefarious purposes". I'm curious how many 20 somethings had similar experiences of pissed off parents all because the author of this book told them to cover up and fib about what was really going on with another religion.

[PhantomQueen]

I remember reading teen witch when I was around 17. And tried one of the methods SRW suggests to keep the secret. Use figures of The virgin Mary as the Goddess, and various saints. Well I didn't count on my Irish catholic raised mother figuring it out by just glancing at the set up of these items. I got my ass kicked and tossed out of the house for not only lying, but for using those specific religious items for more "nefarious purposes". I'm curious how many 20 somethings had similar experiences of pissed off parents all because the author of this book told them to cover up and fib about what was really going on with another religion.

I read Broomstick as oneof my first books years ago.  I didn't finish it because I thought it fluffy.  The only reason I've kept it was because of the suggested reading lists sheincluded.  I was told that if one person tells you something, take it with a grain of salt.  If you see several people saying the same thing, there's more credibility...  Silver did have some decent books suggested (Adler's Drawing Down the Moon among others).  I'm not much for the book, but have to give her credit for the book lists.  It shows to me that she wants readers to not stop with her book and use it as 'gospel'.  She wants people to keep researching and learning. 


As for her facts being inaccurate, IMO I think it's also part of the publisher's duty to make sure that serial falsehoods/authors should be sorted out.  Not only is the author's reputation in question, but also the publisher's for actually publishing the material.  If not for the authors'/publishers' sake, then for the impressionable younger people buying the material.

[Darkhawk]

As for her facts being inaccurate, IMO I think it's also part of the publisher's duty to make sure that serial falsehoods/authors should be sorted out.  Not only is the author's reputation in question, but also the publisher's for actually publishing the material.  If not for the authors'/publishers' sake, then for the impressionable younger people buying the material.

No editor is going to be fully qualified to review and correct errors in every manuscript.  Every text contains things that are outside the editor's realm of expertise, including things that they don't know enough about to look up things up that someone more experienced would find suspicious.

One manuscript I copyedited for work incorrectly stated that a particular star was in a particular constellation, for example.  Now I, as a long-term astronomy hobbyist, immediately knew that it was incorrect and corrected the text (which had been given to me because of a completely different realm of expertise -- Egyptiana).  If I hadn't been assigned that manuscript, someone else would have read it, because the manuscript was going to get published, and that someone might not have known the constellations like I do.  It's not like one star mention in an entire book was going to bias the editorial assignment to someone who failed to get an astronomy degree, like me.   They'd more likely have picked someone else who had an Egyptian mythology background (like me) or a Reiki background (the other major subject of the book).

When something included in a book is a widespread piece of misinformation or a relatively obscure bit of information (was it SRW who suggested the bannik in the bathroom, or was that bit of lunacy Edain McCoy?), it's a matter of basic luck - like me and the constellations - as to whether you get an editor who knows enough to fix it.  It's flatly not reasonable to expect complete fact checks from a publisher, though a good one will have a competent copyeditorial staff who know enough about the relevant subjects to catch most large-scale errors; if the publishing staff knew as much about the subject matter of the book as the author does then there would be no benefit in publishing the book in the first place.

[Melamphoros]

No editor is going to be fully qualified to review and correct errors in every manuscript.  Every text contains things that are outside the editor's realm of expertise, including things that they don't know enough about to look up things up that someone more experienced would find suspicious.

One manuscript I copyedited for work incorrectly stated that a particular star was in a particular constellation, for example.  Now I, as a long-term astronomy hobbyist, immediately knew that it was incorrect and corrected the text (which had been given to me because of a completely different realm of expertise -- Egyptiana).  If I hadn't been assigned that manuscript, someone else would have read it, because the manuscript was going to get published, and that someone might not have known the constellations like I do.  It's not like one star mention in an entire book was going to bias the editorial assignment to someone who failed to get an astronomy degree, like me.   They'd more likely have picked someone else who had an Egyptian mythology background (like me) or a Reiki background (the other major subject of the book).

When something included in a book is a widespread piece of misinformation or a relatively obscure bit of information (was it SRW who suggested the bannik in the bathroom, or was that bit of lunacy Edain McCoy?), it's a matter of basic luck - like me and the constellations - as to whether you get an editor who knows enough to fix it.  It's flatly not reasonable to expect complete fact checks from a publisher, though a good one will have a competent copyeditorial staff who know enough about the relevant subjects to catch most large-scale errors; if the publishing staff knew as much about the subject matter of the book as the author does then there would be no benefit in publishing the book in the first place.

That may be true for any other publisher, but we're talking about Llewellyn here.  Given the content of most of their titles, I doubt they care about little things like factual accuracy.  And why should they if there are enough gullible people out here who would buy them?

[Jenett]

That may be true for any other publisher, but we're talking about Llewellyn here.  Given the content of most of their titles, I doubt they care about little things like factual accuracy.  And why should they if there are enough gullible people out here who would buy them?

Y'know, having spent a chunk of last weekend with a couple of people closely associated with Llewellyn - they seem to me to be much like any other publisher. They're a business: they need to publish stuff that's going to sell, so they can *stay* in business.

And like it or not, the fluffy stuff sells. And often *much* much better than the less fluffy stuff - for one thing, there's a larger market niche.

But they're also pretty regularly publishing a bunch of not-so-fluffy stuff. (John Michael Greer's Pagan and magical works, for example, which are So Not Fluffy. Their Tarot and Astrology lines, which have always been pretty strong.) And even their Neo-Wiccan stuff has had some really great titles in the last few years - Thea Sabine's _Wicca for Beginners_, and Dianne Sylvan's stuff, and Amber K's stuff.

I've also seen a serious uptick in the quality of even the fluffier stuff in the last 5 years or so. (Even the recent Ravenwolf stuff has been a good bit less problematic than the Teen Witch era.) Having met a couple of their editors and staff who've been hired within that time, I can see why: several of them have seriously impressed me with their tact and thoughtfulness, and understanding that it's a *broad* community out there, and that there are people who want all sorts of different stuff. (And this is me, and I'm not easily impressed in those areas.) But they're also looking for the best of the stuff they get that they think they can sell: they're definitely not settling for "Well, we need a book about X, and this one is sorta okay."

Are they perfect? Nope. But if you look at their *recent* track record (last 5-7 years), it's pretty comparable to New Page, or even to Weiser, once you adjust for the actual numbers of books they put out in the field (they put out substantially more titles each year than either of the above.) Yeah, some of them make me go "What were you *thinking*?" But that's true of every publisher.  (And it's just as true of academic presses, or mainstream publishing houses.)

The other reality is that *no* publisher these days is doing fact-checking for authors. Certainly, they'll catch stuff if they notice it - and copy editors will too - but so much of an editor's job is about marketing and advertising and working with the book designer to create a cover and copy that will market the book to the people it's best suited for. And the acquiring editor will be doing that with a *bunch* of books, not just one or two. There's simply not enough hours in the day, and that's gotten more and more so as publishers are trying to deal with a rapidly changing model of publishing. (Acquisitions editors traditionally do a bunch of their reading submissions for possible new authors on their own time, too.)

One thing I did pick up in conversation last weekend is that they're having a harder and harder time selling small niche-market books to the editorial committee (the people who make the decisions on what gets printed.)

That makes me think we're going to continue to see small Pagan presses (like Immanion, like any number of others) spring up, and those places have even *less* editorial time to spend on fact checking (which is an enormously time-consuming and thus expensive process if you're checking everything in a book, as opposed to finding an editor who's got a decent background in the subject, but might not know every detail.)

[Darkhawk]

The other reality is that *no* publisher these days is doing fact-checking for authors. Certainly, they'll catch stuff if they notice it - and copy editors will too - but so much of an editor's job is about marketing and advertising and working with the book designer to create a cover and copy that will market the book to the people it's best suited for. And the acquiring editor will be doing that with a *bunch* of books, not just one or two. There's simply not enough hours in the day, and that's gotten more and more so as publishers are trying to deal with a rapidly changing model of publishing. (Acquisitions editors traditionally do a bunch of their reading submissions for possible new authors on their own time, too.)

Which was basically my point, after all, as someone who works in the field.  I must admit to being nonplussed by the notion that my post noting that doing fact-checking is beyond the scope of editorial work was disagreed with with the notion that Llewellyn in particular was not doing this stuff that's beyond the scope of publication work.  Um ... yes?  Because it's ... not the job at Llewellyn either?

[RandallS]

But they're also pretty regularly publishing a bunch of not-so-fluffy stuff. (John Michael Greer's Pagan and magical works, for example, which are So Not Fluffy. Their Tarot and Astrology lines, which have always been pretty strong.) And even their Neo-Wiccan stuff has had some really great titles in the last few years - Thea Sabine's _Wicca for Beginners_, and Dianne Sylvan's stuff, and Amber K's stuff.

This is something a lot of people forget, even when most of their Wicca/Wiccish Pagan stuff was really fluffy/bad, they had other lines (Ceremonial Magic, Astrology, and Tarot for example) where they published a much greater percentage of good to excellent books. I strongly suspect Llewellyn published a lot of fluffy Wiccan stuff because it sold like hot cakes while fluffy CM, Tarot, and Astrology books did not sell as well.

[Melamphoros]

(John Michael Greer's Pagan and magical works, for example, which are So Not Fluffy.

(Acknowledging the good, thought out post but I think this one sentence needs to be addressed)

The only book of his that I've read was his book on monsters and it struck me about how poor the scholarship (or presenting it through his own unique ceremonial magic lens -- same thing really).

[Jenett]

(Acknowledging the good, thought out post but I think this one sentence needs to be addressed)

The only book of his that I've read was his book on monsters and it struck me about how poor the scholarship (or presenting it through his own unique ceremonial magic lens -- same thing really).

I've only glanced through the book on monsters (and I'll note that it falls in the period where their stuff was less good in general). But his stuff on ritual magic and theory is pretty well-done, and his research skills in general make me happy. (Which is to say: I don't expect stuff to be formal academic-speak, but he's clear about sourcing when it matters, and picks sources that are relevant and meaningful and reasonably solid.)

Really. People can write a not-so-great book, or a book that isn't academically rigorous (Which is not a sin. Not even in my librarian-world. Not all books need to be. They just need to be honest about what they're doing.)

[RandallS]

The only book of his that I've read was his book on monsters and it struck me about how poor the scholarship (or presenting it through his own unique ceremonial magic lens -- same thing really).

His books on magic are generally much better. Monsters was written from a CM POV (which wasn't made very clear to the causal reader), but is still is probably his worst book.

[catja6]

*nods*  yes, exactly.  Editors don't really "fact-check" even in an academic setting, unless they happen to have a particular expertise (I'm one of the editors at an academic journal, and anytime a writer mentions anything about folklore, it gets sent to me to look over).  Now, granted, most academic journals are edited by people in that particular field, but that doesn't mean that the editors are familiar with every single topic of every single manuscript that gets sent to them.  That's what peer reviewers are for, and it's the peer reviewers who make the really extensive comments on content, including whether or not it should be published.

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