Episode 128 - Elin Heron and Callum James - Magic, Landscape and the Dead

Joining me as my guests for this episode are Elin Heron and Callum James.

Elin is returning to Some Other Sphere, having first been interviewed by me in the very early days of the podcast. She is a writer and musician, a talented tarot reader and a speaker of Welsh. Callum is a poet, artist, bookseller and magical practitioner.

Both have long been close friends and 2024 saw them each publish new works - Jude by Elin, which is her debut novel and The South Downs: Paths of the Dead by Callum, which details his experience of completing the South Downs Way, an ancient walking route in Southern England.

In Jude, Fifteen-year-old Nick has just finished his GSCEs and is stuck at home in the seaside village of Brexenham. What starts as a boring summer quickly transforms, as he meets Jude Fletcher, a wild and otherworldly boy. Nick is pulled into another world, but the disappearance of local girl, Jemma Cox, hangs over the community, and is something that runs farther back than anybody realises.

The South Downs is partly a grimoire of the walk Callum undertook, partly a linear topography, and partly a treatise on necromancy. It recognises the folklore, spirits, and the magic of a place and Callum writes as one who does this magic, speaks to these spirits, and follows this lore.

In the interview I talk with Elin and Callum about their writing and their friendship, how the ideas for their recent publications came about and how their approach to writing them developed. This leads into a wide-ranging discussion, covering themes such as the role of the imagination and imaginal thinking in otherworldly encounters, the connections between the dead and the landscape, and the nature of otherworldly entities such as The Green Man, a character who features prominently in Jude. I also get to share a couple of my own unusual experiences with them as part of our conversation.

Further information about Elin can be found at her website https://www.elinheron.co.uk/ and you can order a copy of Jude from her publisher, Lucent Dreaming.

Callum's website is https://www.mercurysbrother.com/ and you can order a copy of The South Downs: Paths of the Dead from Broken Sleep Books. 

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The Some Other Sphere theme music is taken from 'Window Area', from the album 'Close Encounters of the Pennine Kind' by The Night Monitor. You can find out more about The Night Monitor's music at https://thenightmonitor.bandcamp.com/.