Writing as Ritual is a two hour masterclass for people are writing for publication as well as writers who are embarking on or renewing a writing journey.
In decades spent facing the blank page, sometimes I’ve been dormant and other times I’ve needed to jumpstart my practice, and that’s changed over time. I’m going to be sharing ideas about my journey, also things I’ve learned over the last 30 years about maintaining a practice. In this video up at my Substack, I talk about what this workshop is about and what you can expect,
We will be writing together for about 45 minutes. I will have some prompts to inspire you. You can also bring anything you are currently writing or would like to journal about. I will be writing with you and holding space for your work.
You might like to light a candle and set out any objects that want to be with you during the hour, but this is optional.
Allyson Shaw discussing Ashes and Stones at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, 2024 photo credit: Carolyn SuttonAlice Tarbuck,, Mairi Kidd, and Allyson Shaw at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2023. photo credit: Carolyn Sutton. Signing paperback copies of Ashes and Stones in the signing tent with Emma from Waterstones, Oban. Photo credit: Carolyn Sutton.
I was honoured to be a presenter at the 40th anniversary Edinburgh International Book Festival speaking about my debut book of creative nonfiction, Ashes and Stones. It was wonderful to be a part of an accessible, inclusive event. Pre-release paperback copies of the book were available in the signing tent–exciting to get an early peek!
Edinburgh friends! Join me at Edinburgh launch for Ashes and Stones at the wonderful Lighthouse Books. I’m overjoyed & honoured to be hosted by Edinburgh’s radical bookshop—an ally to so many communities. 15 February, 7pm. Ticketing information at the Lighthouse Books Website.
Toil, trouble and tomes: two witches in conversation about difficult history, custodianship, and magic.
Carolee Harrison and Allyson Shaw in conversation discussing what it’s like to be the keeper of difficult books, specifically an original 1490 copy of the infamous witch-hunting manual, Malleus Maleficarum, or the Hammer of Witches, in the Portland State University Library. We’ll talk about the fascinating history of this five hundred year old edition of this book on witch hunting and what it can tell us about the current ‘witch craze’, our responsibilities as custodians of the history of witch hunting, and how this history informs our identities as witches today.
Carolee holding the 1490 2nd Edition of Malleus Maleficarum
Carolee Harrison
Carloee Harrison is a steward and conservator of Portland State University’s rare book collection and a sister-witch. Her work with Malleus Malificium involves making it publicly available for research as well as preserving and protecting it.
Allyson Shaw
Allyson Shaw’s creative nonfiction book on the Scottish witch-hunts, Ashes and Stones: a Scottish journey in search of witches & witness, will be published by Sceptre, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, in January 2023. She’s a witch and independent researcher. Long ago and far away she worked in many libraries as a humble page, and her love of libraries is unbounded.
In this two hour workshop we will use the iconography of the tarot’s major arcana as prompts to memory and personal narrative.
You don’t need to know how to read tarot to participate, but those who do work with tarot will find a new way to use your insights with this divination tool to broaden and deepen your writing.
I have thirty years of experience working with tarot. As a child, my first conversations with the cards were as a mysterious game. In this workshop we will rekindle a bit of this wonder as we delve into our pasts on the page.
This workshop is a safe space for women, people of colour and LGBTQ+ people. While we may discuss our writing process, any sharing of our written work will be voluntary.
At the end of the workshop you will have sketched out a short piece of memoir writing with a plan for development and revision.
You will need paper and pen, or something to input text. The major arcana cards from a personal tarot deck is optional—an online deck is available here. https://randomtarotcard.com
Allyson Shaw brings ten years of experience teaching writing at University of California and city colleges in the USA. She has delivered numerous community based workshops throughout her career, including online workshops for the Taibhsear Collective. Recent publications include Fireside Quarterly, Rituals and Declarations, and Fiddlers Green. Her creative nonfiction book, Ashes and Stones: a Scottish journey in search for witches and witness, will be published by Sceptre, the literary imprint of Hodder & Stoughton, in January 2023.
Stefan Eggeler illustration for Gustav Meyrink’s Walpurgisnacht
My newest workshop, Reclaiming Our Monsters, pushes boundaries and clears space for subversive imagination. There are still some spaces left–tickets availableat Eventibrite. April 30th, 7pm GMT via Zoom.
This workshop is driven by feminist ideas, reworking the monstrous into new empowering guises. It’s also a way to explore folk horror as a wider genre with space for women and non-binary people.
April 30th is the second Halloween of the witches’ calendar. The veil is thin, the dead walk among us, werewolves are born and all good witches fly to the Brocken.
In films, TV and books I’ve always had sympathy with the demonised feminine. I drank up the power in these images, and it has served me well. Not that I’m older, I realise this was a kind of crone-medicine. The crone embraces a lived duality: she knows what she is, are even if the dominant culture and history says she’s extraneous, voiceless and grotesque.
There is a lot going on in the world right now that is truly monstrous. In times of upheaval and uncertainty, what messages do we amplify and share? What realities do we tend? Writing through disaster capitalism and the death throes of patriarchy isn’t a hobby or pastime, it’s a mode of survival and resistance.
How do we know who we are? Write must it—Write it out like the Cailleach on a night raid with her retinue of the dead. Writing it out like a spell, like a draught of blood.
From where I stand writing may be my only power against the forces of destruction that envelop us. It is the sword I have sharpened over decades in the forge of my own raging intellect, my furious imagination.
Teaching is my vocation. It’s a devotional work for me and something I’ve done in and outside of hallowed halls of academia and on the streets and in community centres. I’m thrilled that technology, though far from perfect, allows me to teach others online across the world.
In this two hour workshop we’ll explore the monstrous through an intimate, personal perspective. We’ll embrace the persona of the outsider, the not-quite-human, using subversive world-building, and writing through the eyes of the cursed, the spellbound, the exiled. You’ll need pen, paper and a six sided dice. Join us!
Online via Zoom, April 30th, 7pm gmt Tickets are £25 available from Eventbrite
In this two hour workshop we’ll explore the monstrous through an intimate, personal perspective. We’ll embrace the persona of the outsider, the not-quite-human, using subversive world-building, and writing through the eyes of the cursed, the spellbound, the exiled.
April 30th is the second Halloween of the witches’ calendar. The veil is thin, the dead walk among us, werewolves are born and all good witches fly to the Brocken.
Let’s celebrate and write stories together.
For this workshop you’ll need a pen, paper and a six sided die.
This workshop is driven by feminist ideas, reworking the monstrous into new empowering guises—but also a way to explore folk horror as a wider genre with space for women and non binary people. Every workshop I design is an offering of community, creative fuel and fire to the writers and makers around me. And this one is GONNA BE HELLA FUN.
Allyson Shaw, Author of Ashes and Stones 