Briefly:
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Hello,
When I turned in my final draft of Enchantment in January this year, I must admit I was a little worried. After all, I’d written a book about how we might be sustained through dark times by wonder and fascination, creating a connection with the land around us that allows us to play and make meaning. What if, said my anxious lizard-author-brain, everything is completely fine by the time the book comes out? I mean, it will be good for society, but terrible for my book.
Well, let me just say this: ahaahhahhhaaaa! What an absurd little optimist I am!* The dark times just keep on coming, don’t they? Just when we think we’ve met the Level Boss, a new one comes along, bigger and more lethal. The world, it turns out, is consistently terrifying. What do we do?
In Enchantment, I argue that we should soften - not harden - against this brutal age. I wrote it because I’m tired of dystopias, and I want to sow the seeds of a more hopeful relationship with the world. There is still so much magic there, even if we don’t currently perceive it. The land is waiting to unpack its vast reserves of meaning and solace.
The book shows how we can enter into a fluid, questing relationship with our places - the ground beneath our feet, the tides that surge around us, and the skies above. There is potential energy there and I go out to find it, a journey that takes me from sacred wells to wild moors, from cradling seas to starfalls. Meanwhile, I try to understand how we can begin to live with the many losses that rolled in with the twenty-first century - the old certainties and identities that we’ve been forced to shed - and how we can find new ways to think about this fragile, confounded human life.
The question that you probably weren’t asking is: how do you design a cover that expresses all that? Well, thankfully I leave that to other, far more talented, people. You’ve already seen the stunning response from Riverhead in the US. Today, I’m very excited to share the UK cover, designed by Holly Ovenden at Faber & Faber.
So how do you create suspense in a newsletter format? I know: many birds…
I think it’s ravishing. I hope you agree. Let me know what you think in the comments!
Enchantment publishes in March 2023, but you can pre-order now to get your copy as soon as it publishes (it also helps me a great deal by boosting sales in that crucial first week).
UK: you can pre-order online here, or ask your local bookseller. I’ll be signing a limited number of copies at my local indie Harbour Books - they ship nationwide in the UK.
US and Canada: there are a range of pre-order options here.
*Footnote: it reminds me of being in a writing group in the early 2000s, and a fellow author complaining that mobile phones would ruin his career as a crime writer. ‘There’s no scenario that can’t be solved by getting out your phone now!’ he said. ‘No-one will get abducted anymore! Nobody will get murdered!’ That aged well, didn’t it?
Warmest wishes,
Katherine
i hang on every single word of your’s Katherine. thank you for bringing this book into the world. at times I really feel my heart cannot break anymore, and then this morning after sitting in awe of the racoon nestled against my neighbour’s chimney stack, I see your email and read your words - and even as the world falls apart around us we are still here in awe of it all.
Congratulations Katherine! I too am tired of dystopias, and I’m so excited to read your book!