This weekend I gave a talk on the great Patricia A. McKillip at Once and Future Fantasies conference in Glasgow.
You can watch it here:
Doing this was an honour for me, not just because of the calibre of people in attendance, but because ten weeks prior, Patricia McKillip, one of the field’s best writers, moved on from the world of the living.
I never got chance to meet her, but there were people at the talk who had, including Terri Windling – herself a huge inspiration – who was a friend of Patricia’s and editor for some of her work.
I feel a close affinity for those writers in the field who lean into, and draw from, the mythopoeic tradition. I see them as close cousins of poets and nature writers – those who are reaching for the numinous without depriving it of mystery and danger.