The Phantomwise Tarot is finally out in the world and the wild today, available in places that sell both books and/or tarot decks. It has been a long, long time coming. If my file dates are correct the Fool was painted fifteen years ago, somehow? This evolution is not something I ever could have imagined then and I wish nothing but grand adventures and playful insights for these cards now as they find their way to their readers.
They are probably a suitable deck for beginners as I tried to keep most of the imagery straightforward. (A good time to mention the idea that you can’t buy your first tarot deck yourself and it has to be a gift is a myth. Do please feel free to buy them for yourself or gift them to someone else as you please.) The cards are also loosely Rider-Waite-Smith based so they can be used with any RWS guides if you are looking for more in-depth guidance.
My endless thanks to the team at Clarkson Potter for taking what just a year ago was a bunch of files on my hard drive and a stack of paintings in my basement and turning them into something magical. I hope when these decks find their new homes they will be shuffled and riffled and well-worn, kept as trusted companions.
The new Vintage UK paperback editions of The Night Circus & The Starless Sea have arrived and they are so beautiful, the cover inks are luminous and the new designs by Micaela Alcaino are simply stunning.
The Waterstones versions have new exclusive content: The Night Circus has a Q&A and The Starless Sea has an essay with thoughts on writing & video games that includes an extended metaphor about how my writing process is like playing Elden Ring. (Are there oblique hints about what I’m working on now in each of them? Maybe.)
We have tumbled into the 5pm darkness freezing cold version of November here, all of the leaves have fallen. We put the fairy-light trees up already but we haven’t taken down the bats or the ghosts yet so they are coexisting festively. I am writing something that is not yet book-shaped, it’s not even up to word soup stage because I tossed nearly all the words that were simmering out in May and I am still reassembling ingredients. But it will be something book-shaped eventually. It is slowly getting somewhere, here in the flopsy kitten cold.
