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WORK TITLE: Tatterdemalion
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.sylvialinsteadt.com/
CITY: Point Reyes
STATE: CA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
Not found in LOC
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Brown University, B.A. (honors).
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, columnist, artist, and certified animal tracker. Ran a stories-in-the-mail business called Wild Talewort, 2013-16.
AWARDS:James D. Phelan Literary Award, San Francisco Foundation, 2014, for the short story “The Midwife of Temescal”; Northern California Book Award in General Nonfiction, 2018, for Lost Worlds of the San Francisco Bay Area.
WRITINGS
Also author of Our Lady of the Dark Country (short stories), Wild Talewort, 2017. Contributor to the anthologies New California Writing 2013 and Dark Mountain. Contributor to periodicals and online literary journals, including News from Native California magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and the Golden key website, as well as Deathless Press. Columnist for Earthlines magazine.
SIDELIGHTS
Sylvia V. Linsteadt is an author of fiction and nonfiction, an artist, and a certified animal tracker. Her writing draws from myth, ecology, feminism, and California bioregionalism to explore the tenets of deep ecology and wild myth, including myths, legends, and lore of the past, from Paleolithic creation myths to the fairy tales of Russia. She also gets her inspiration from animal tracking, bird language, and various California landscapes where she grew up and lives. Linsteadt’s interests include the textile arts, clay and the ceramics of Old Europe, and wildcrafted herbalism. Her nofiction books include Lost Worlds of the San Francisco Bay Area, which focuses on enterprises, communities, and activities that once flourished in the Bay Area but have disappeared without a trace. Wonderments of the East Bay explores the area’s wildlife, plants, geological formations, and history.
Tatterdmalion
In her novel titled Tatterdmalion, Linsteadt presents a post-apocalyptic novel about a boy named Poppy who can speak to wild things in their own languages. In a re-imagined Northern California, Poppy decides to head eastward into the Sierra Nevada mountains to discover the truth about his birth and the origins of a fallen world. Accompanied by Lyoobov, a a gigantic beast on wheels, Poppy encounters monks named Bells, Perches, and Books who are seeking the forms of the objects their names represent. Poppy also meets a girl who can transform herself int an owl.
Eventually, Juniper Tree brings Poppy deep into her roots where he discovers the true history of the people who created his world and whom he thought were only myths. The various people and creatures he meets tell tales that span 300 years, from the present day world to far in the future. Their stories include the fall of the world and the tale of Anja, whose siginifies a new beginning for the world. “The threads come together in a remarkable expression of the preciousness of … natural life,” wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor.
The Wild Folk
The Wild Folk features an orphan boy named Tin from the City who loves to invent things and a Country girl named Comfrey from the village of Alder and who is curious about almost everything. It turns out that people from the Country and those from the City, which is surrounding by forbidding walls, never move between the two places. Comfrey is attune with nature and lives with her mother. Her father has disappeared. Tin lives within the walls of the City with the Star-Priest Brothers of the Fifth Cloister of Grace and Progress, a fierce discipline that rules the City. Tin, who invents things in secret, has created a traveling machined he calls Fiddleback.
Tin and Comfrey eventually cross paths and then are visited by two a young hares, known as leverets. The hares have been sent by Myrtle and Mallow, the conjoined Greentwins of legend who know that the young children will need all the help they can get on the magical journey they are about to begin. The brotherhood needs energy for the City as supplies are dwindling. As a result they seek a new supply of stargold, which can only be found far outside the City’s bounds. As a result, the brothers plan on raiding the Country People, the Wild Folk, and all the creatures that live in the Country in order to get more stargold. Tin and Comfrey may be the Country’s only hope.
“Sylvia Linsteadt’s own prefatory letter to readers hopes that her story will inspire them to look at the natural world with renewed wonder, to recognize how everything is interconnected and to become increasingly sensitive to environmental destruction,” wrote Books for Keeps Online contributor Geoff Fox. Aditi Saha, writing for Book Stops Corner website, remarked: “The Wild Folk is a timeless adventure, weaving fantasy and folk lore into an enchanting tale that will fill you with wonder.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, April 30, 2018, review of Tatterdemalion, p. 44.
ONLINE
Book Stop Corner, https://bookstopcorner.blogspot.com/ (June 1, 2018), Aditi Saha, review of The Wild Folk.
Books For Keeps Online, http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/ (May 1, 2018), Geoff Fox, review of The Wild Folk.
Sylvia Linstead website, http://www.sylvialinsteadt.com (September 2, 2018).
TES, https://www.tes.com/ (Jun 24, 2018), Amy Yates, “The class book review: The Wild Folk by Sylvia V Linsteadt.”
Unbound, https://unbound.com/ (February 7, 2016), “A Studio Interview Between Rima & Sylvia,” video with brief introduction.
Woolgathering & Wildcrafting, https://woolgatheringwildcrafting.com/ (September 5, 2014), “Interview: Sylvia Linsteadt + Elk Lines.”
Sylvia Victor Linsteadt is a writer, artist, and certified animal tracker. Her work—both fiction and non-fiction—is rooted in myth, ecology, feminism & California bioregionalism, and is devoted to broadening our human stories to include the voices of the living land.
Her published fiction includes the middle grade children’s novel The Wild Folk (Usborne, June 2018), Our Lady of the Dark Country, a collection of short stories (January 2018) and Tatterdemalion (Unbound, Spring 2017); her works of nonfiction include The Wonderments of the East Bay (Heyday 2014), and Lost Worlds of the San Francisco Bay Area (Heyday, Spring 2017). Her short fiction has been published in New California Writing 2013, Dark Mountain, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Golden Key and Deathless Press. She has a regular column with Earthlines Magazine, and her creative nonfiction can also be found in Poecology, Dark Mountain, and News from Native California. For three years (from 2013 to 2016) Sylvia ran a stories-in-the-mail business called Wild Talewort, in which she sent out rewilded tellings of fairytales and myths to the physical-post boxes of hundreds of subscribers around the world.
Lost Worlds of the San Francisco Bay Area won the Northern California Book Award in General Nonfiction in 2018.
The short story “The Midwife of Temescal” won the James D. Phelan Literary Award from the San Francisco Foundation in Fall 2014. She has an Honors B.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University.
She is represented by Jessica Woollard at David Higham Associates, 7th Floor, Waverley House, 7-12 Noel Street, London W1F 8GQ
Sylvia can be contacted at grayfoxepistles
Sylvia V Linsteadt
Sylvia V Linsteadt
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Sylvia V. Linsteadt is a writer, artist, and certified animal tracker. Her work—both fiction and non-fiction—explores the tenets of deep ecology and wild myth, and is devoted to radically transforming and broadening our human stories to include the voices, perspectives and dreams of the more-than-human world.
Her books include Tatterdemalion, (Unbound, Spring 2017), a novel, and The Wonderments of the East Bay (Heyday 2014), and Lost Worlds of the San Francisco Bay Area (Heyday, Spring 2017), both works of nonfiction. Her short fiction has been published in New California Writing 2013, Dark Mountain, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Golden Key and Deathless Press. She has a regular column with Earthlines Magazine, and her creative nonfiction can also be found in Poecology, Dark Mountain, and News from Native California. For three years (from 2013 to 2016) Sylvia ran a stories-in-the-mail business called Wild Talewort, in which she sent out rewilded tellings of fairytales and myths to the physical-post boxes of hundreds of subscribers around the world.
Sylvia’s story “The Midwife of Temescal” won the James D. Phelan Literary Award from the San Francisco Foundation in Fall 2014. She has an Honors B.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University.
Cover of Tatterdemalion
Tatterdemalion
Sylvia Linsteadt and Rima Staines
Fiction In stock Christmas
A Studio Interview Between Rima & Sylvia
Sunday, 7 February 2016
00:00
Well, wonderful readers, what a fantastic five days it has been since Tatterdemalion made its first appearance! We are so grateful and filled up by all of your support. Quickly we are nearing 50% funded-- goodness!--so if there is anyone you know who you think would love this book, now would be a wonderful time to share it!
But more importantly, I have something very delightful to share with you — an interview between myself and Rima, filmed back in October when I visited her, and Dartmoor, for the first time. This interview was filmed in the truly fabulous studio of the inimitable Terri Windling--mythic artist, fantasy editor and writer extraordinaire, who keeps a treasured and much beloved blog full of mythic resources & reflections here. You will catch a glimpse of her bookshelves in the film; they are any writer's dream, full of everything from a complete clothbound Jane Austen collection to books of Navajo mythology, the Welsh Mabinogion, and the best of nature writing, from Barry Lopez to Terry Tempest Williams. Amidst books and tapestries, Terri's wonderful husband, Howard Gayton (Commedia dell' Arte dramatist, writer and musician) interviewed us about the creation of Tatterdemalion, its various strands of inspiration and unfolding.
So, without further ado, here is the whole uncut film--fifteen minutes of conversation! This is a private Shed posting; only you, dear supporters, have access to it. We hope you enjoy it, and all the windows it provides into the world of our beloved Tatterdemalion.
With love,
Sylvia & Rima
Interview: Sylvia Linsteadt + Elk Lines
05
Friday
Sep 2014
Posted by Asia in Earth Medicine, Inspirations ≈ 3 Comments
Tagsauthor, ecology, elk, fiction, inspiration, interview, mythology, poetry, Point Reyes, postal mail, song lines, stories, story lines, Sylvia Linsteadt, tales by mail, writer, writing
Processed with VSCOcam with c1 presetThe rugged and fog-softened beauty of the California coast. Myths, mysticism and re-wilding. Warm pots of tea and delightful trails through time-warn fables. This month I am delighted to be sharing an interview with one of my favorite authors alive– Sylvia Victor Linsteadt. Sylvia is both shamaness and wordsmith, a creator and collector of gorgeously spun tales and deeper states of mystery. Each one of Sylvia’s stories is as glitteringly unique as a songbird’s nest. Woven from ancient folklore, ecological exploration, land-based knowledge and the enduring webs of mythology, Sylvia’s tales are nurturing portals to a new world. Almost a year ago Sylvia and I stumbled across each other’s work at the same time (fated re-meetings seems to work like that, I find!).
Sylvia Linsteadt and Asia Suler
Sylvia and Asia
The first time I read one of Sylvia’s stories it felt like climbing back into the great tree of who I was… that ancient, standing, growing being who was intricately connected to the living world around me. I am forever grateful to Sylvia and her tales– not only for their sweeping vistas and sensuous detail, endless inspiration and intricacies– but for what they incite in me. Within her stories is the flicker of the ancient, the glimmer of a thoughtfully re-imagined destiny. Through her tales I can see, once more, the cradling mystery of everyday being, the endurance of this beautiful world existing, always, around me. I am so thankful for Sylvia and her story medicine, her Wild Talewort.
Drink deep from the following interview and enjoy. If you find you are thirsty (and I think you might just be) head over to Sylvia’s gorgeous blog and website to find out about how you can receive tidings from her brand new project, Elk Lines, hand-stamped and sent to your very own postbox.
Sylvia Linsteadt Point ReyesYour stories are such a jaw-droppingly vibrant mixture of ecology, naturalism, mysticism, and myth. You are, in my esteemed estimation, a truly exciting boundary bender! If you had to define your writing style (or that stories that most want to come through you) what would you say?
This question has always been a challenge for me, because in this world of ours we so enjoy making boxes around genres, severing the bonds between poetry and prose; we delight in calling a thing “Nature-writing” or “Romantic Poetry” or “Literary Fiction,” but have trouble when Literary Fiction becomes streaked with the fantastic, a lyric voice, and the wild lives of trees. Is it fantasy? Is it nature-writing? I’ve always felt that writing is the loom upon which I can weave the many strands of wonder, sorrow, beauty and story I see in the world—poetic, ecological, folkloric, downright magical, whatever it may be. So my writing style is all of it at once. Sometimes I think I’m really a poet wearing the patched and furred coat of a storyteller, so even “fiction” can be tricky for me as a category to place myself in. Anyhow, I’m rambling on here, but in a nutshell I’d say this style of mine is some wild country where poetry, magical realism, myth, animism and ecology meet.
Elk Lines Sylvia LinsteadtThe easiest. The hardest question… Why do you write?
Indeed. And it is a long and a short story. Writing is my way into the heart of the world—its wildness, its strange magic, its beauty, its terrors, its sadness, its joy. Metaphor (a favorite of mine) is an act of shape-shifting, of remembering that each thing is hitched to the next in the great cyclical transformation of energy, from sun to seed to doe to cougar and back to worm; the line between ourselves and the wild world is thin indeed. Writing (thick with metaphor) is the means through which I can praise the wild mystery of this world, and also explore its unseen realms—the realms inside the hearts of bears and granite stones and buckeye trees; the lands just the other side of the moon and the fog, the lives of men and women long ago or just around the corner. If I were buckeye tree, then writing would be the buckeyes that fruit at the ends of my limbs come late August. In other words, writing is the thing made in me from all the waters and winds and soils and stories that come through my five senses (or six), and it feels very inevitable, like the buckeyes at the end of summer.
Also, I have always been an avid reader; especially as a child I devoured books that told of magical worlds and lands, lady-knights and healers, the everyday peasant life of Old Europe (especially Scotland & Ireland), talking animals, caravans of camel nomads, druids, long adventures on horseback. Such books literally shaped and changed my life. They informed the way I see the world today—as a place much more mysterious and full of wild magics than we tend to believe, where everything is alive and everything speaks. So I write because writing is even better than reading in the sense that you really get to go to those places in your imagination, and give them to other people. The stories we tell ourselves and each other form the world in which we live, and so I write both selfishly—shaping my own way of seeing the world—and because if I can give single ember to another like the tales I have read have given to me, then I am happy.
Point reyes 1So many people dream of supporting themselves through their craft, but in our culture it’s assumed that making a living through ones arts is not only daunting, but entirely unattainable for all but an inspired few! What has been your relationship with such commonly culturally held beliefs? How have you been able to cast aside such (if any) doubts?
Stubbornness, a dreamer’s heart, fierce love. These are the three things that keep my feet on this path, this wild and difficult and beautiful way. I think that especially in the age of this great strange internet, it is much more possible for independent artists to make their way, because we can circumvent the usual channels and reach out ourselves to our readers, our listeners, our viewers. This also means that we have to be creator, secretary, office assistant, publicist and marketing specialist all in one, but when you are doing what you love, and the thing you love is touching the hearts of other people, somehow you can just manage it all, juggling five different work-hats. (Though sometimes this means that things like weekends or work hours stop existing, and you may find yourself working Sunday morning, Tuesday night at eleven, etc.) In the end, it is actually very simple, in the sense that you must simply decide for yourself that this is just what you’re going to do, and then stubbornly, doggedly, hold to that promise with all of your heart and soul, because it is what you love, because this is your life, your path, your chance to be here, and the world deserves what it is you are best able to give. This is not always an easy thing to believe, or to hold to, but it can be done. Personally, I’m simply stubborn as a mule. Once I got the taste of this path, I knew there was no going back. Oh—and that dreamer’s heart. You have to believe in it, despite all the voices; you have to believe in the way that dreamers and children believe, your heart a balloon of hope. It’s hard to believe like this all the time, but if your heart is a balloon of dreams and hopes at least once every day, it sure smoothes the way.
Sylvia & IrisesTell us a bit about your new project: Elk Lines!
Elk Lines, my newest Wild Tales By Mail project for adults, is a rewilding of the old Hungarian version of “The Handless Maiden” tale, set on the Point Reyes Peninsula of Northern California. Each of its eight installments make up one continuous novel, and are mailed to my subscribers—wax-sealed, in lovingly hand-stamped envelopes!— to arrive upon the eight seasonal festivals of the year, in the old Celtic tradition: the Autumn Equinox (September 21st); Samhain (November 1st); the Winter Solstice (December 21st); Imbolc (February 1st); the Spring Equinox (March 21st); Beltane (May 1st); the Summer Solstice (June 21st), and Lughnasadh (August 1st). My own hand-drawn “map” or “songline” of the season accompanies each installment, to further root readers into the landscape of Point Reyes and the lives of the plants and animals who dwell there.
Elk lines logo 2
Artwork by Sylvia Linsteadt
Elk Lines is a roving, ambling novel about the power of our walking feet and our story-making hands. At it’s core, it is the tale of Eda Crost and the re-growing of her lost hands, but it is also the tale of the mythic Elk People, who roam Point Reyes with herds of tule elk, emerging from the Peninsula’s sudden fogs, and who show Eda how to follow the songlines, the hooflines, the feral palmistry of the land: the way to dig a root, trail an elk, gather a bulb, tend a seed to blooming, and to laugh long and loud into the ragged, airplane plumed night. Elk Lines is set in the world we know, with its highways and telephone wires and lightbulbs and gas-stations, but it is also set in the mythtime that has always, and will always, interfuse our every moment: in the place bare-foot touches dirt, the place just the other side of the fog-bank, the place inside the eyes of elk, who have known us longer than we have known ourselves. And don’t worry—amidst all the elk and the foot-prints, the wandering and sparrow song and summer-gold dawns, there is a love story, there is the birth of a little boy, there is an orchard full of pears, there is a childhood, and violin music, and the ringing, laughing kindness of strangers.
As it happens, now is a perfect time to come and subscribe in time for the autumn equinox, September 21st, when the next mailing arrives in post boxes all around the world! Please sign-up by September 12th to receive your Elk Lines by the equinox. All subscriptions begin with the first installment, of course!
Elk cows in Pt Reyes
Photo by Sylvia Linsteadt
Elk Lines pile
Photo by Sylvia Linsteadt
What are five things/places/people that always inspire you?
Besides you, dear and wonderful Asia, Mistress of One Willow? (Seriously, you would be one of my five if you weren’t doing this interview!) Okay…
The Point Reyes Peninsula—I’ve been visiting this “Island In Time,” since I was a little girl, and it has thoroughly stolen my heart. Land of fir and alder, oak and bay, land of great wild beaches and coastal prairies, tule elk and pelican. If I could call one place my muse, it would undoubtedly be Point Reyes. It seems to have claimed me, in a sense; I find I must write about it. Nettle, mountain lion, bobcat, fence lizard, woodrat, coyotebrush, lupine, seal; muses, all. (That’s more than five right there!)
Point Reyes 2
Rima Staines— I blame Rima for inspiring me to leave the realm of office work two years ago in order to whole-heartedly pursue my own art. The first time I came across her work and her writings about her life and the world, my heart flipped up and then down and then up again with such relief, I think I might have cried—because she reminded me that yes, it can be done. Your feet can follow the wild path you most love. You simply have to start walking. Rima is an extraordinary artist of paint, wood, puppet, wheel, song. She lives in Devon, England, where she paints the most earthen and otherworldly beings—human, animal, outcast, wanderer, jester, tree. Of all wondrous things, we are at this very minute working to get a book we created together out into the world (my words “illustrating” Rima’s paintings)! Stay tuned!
Rima Staines The Alchemist
Artwork by Rima Staines
Nao Sims— beekeeper, dancer, tender of the wild homestead land of Honey Grove, on Vancouver Island, Nao is a very dear friend of mine and also one of the most extraordinary people I know. She was one of my early subscribers to the Gray Fox Epistles, but I had known of her previously because of a beautiful book she wrote called Moon Mysteries about reclaiming women’s menstrual wisdom, and because of a very wise and wonderful blog of hers called The Teatime Traveller, which lifted me up during a rough patch and reminded me of the bounty of beauty in every moment. So of course, when I found she was a subscriber, I was overjoyed! We got to emailing, and found a very old & uncanny sense of familiarity. I went to visit last fall, and the rest, as they say, is history. To me, Nao embodies the character of Juniper in Monica Furlong’s Wise Child, a favorite book of mine—keeper of the wisdom of land, woman, bee, flower. I am inspired by Nao every day! Oh, and as it happens, she and her husband Mark have a very wonderful vacation cottage on Honey Grove Farm, so if you are in need of a good steep in beauty, I recommend it highly!
Juliette de Bairacli-Levy— I daresay this wonderful woman needs little explanation from me, considered as she is the mother of modern herbalism. Born in the 1930s to a wealthy British family, she cast Veterinary School and aristocratic life aside in favor of learning from the gypsies and peasants of the world all they knew about the healing herbs. What an independent, joyous, wild spirit this woman was! For a taste of her voice, her knowledge, her adventures and her spirit, I recommend her book Traveller’s Joy. And it was a small and beautiful film about her called Juliette of the Herbs that inspired me a year ago to finally embark on a dream I’ve had since I was a small girl—to learn the medicine of plants. Oh, and as an aside, Juliette de Bairacli Levy is a partial model for the character of Eda Crost in Elk Lines.
juliette0-james Gary Snyder — the deep-rooted, muscular, wildly Californian poetry of Gary Snyder was the first true piece of inspiration in my adult life as an artist. When I found his work, I felt all of these little old locks and keys and wheels clicking and turning and what have you in my heart and my soul. I finally felt that my writing had found its voice. In particular, his philosophies about wildness, bioregionalism and rooting in a place—choosing a place and learning it deeply, deeply, as just as valuable a life pursuit as this incessant need for change we seem to have acquired as modern humans—changed my life. Somehow Gary Snyder led to animal-tracking, which to me has become my own “Practice of the Wild,” both spiritual and intellectual; I trace my writing “lineage” directly back to him. I’ve been known to call him “my hero,” which has garnered more than a few laughs, but I do mean it!
Bobcat paw
Photo by Sylvia Linsteadt
You’ve recently been sharing visual maps of the shifting seasons around you in your gorgeously hand-drawn “Feral Palm readings.” If you could draw us a palmistry map of your inner season right now, what would it look like?
I decided to go ahead and paint one for you! There is a rabbit and a grizzly bear and a mountain range at once Carpathian and Sierra Nevada, for I just visited the latter, and the former has been strong in my imagination and my writings these past weeks. There are hawthorn berries, ripe, and juniper berries, just turning dusty blue up in the mountains. There is a teapot the color of a hawthorn berry, because there is always a teapot in my inner season, I believe! There are aspen trunks, white-dusted, which grow up in the mountains to the east and bring me great calm, and a stag I dreamt of, with a buckeye tree growing like a third antler. The buckeyes are dropping their leaves now, at the end of summer, because our summers here are so dry— this is their defense against drought. All that’s left are the planets of their buckeyes. This is a sign of autumn to me—the bare buckeyes like planetariums. There seems to be a movement toward fall in my heart, though the sun is still strong, the days dry and long. My painting looks positively wintry! I love winter, so all the threads of its coming fill me with joy. The plants love winter here too—it means rain. It is, unlike the seasons of the East Coast, the time of flourishing.
Artwork by Sylvia Linsteadt
Artwork by Sylvia Linsteadt
What is one mystery you are aching to explore?
There are so many ways I would like to answer this question! But for some reason, one thing keeps floating to the top of my mind—nettle processing! I would love to really dive into the mystery of turning stinging nettle stalks into the flax-like material I know my Northern and Eastern European ancestors used for many millennia in place of linen. I’m a spinner, felter & knitter on the side, and ever since I wrote a story last spring called “Our Lady of Nettles,” a retelling of the Seven Swans fairytale, I’ve been itching to really delve into this process from start to finish. Nettle is my favorite medicinal plant (if I had to pick)—I drink her almost every day, and I love that she was also such an important textile plant for so many thousands of years. I think this qualifies as a mystery—because I am sure the process of retting and scutching and all the rest of those arcane words used to describe flax-processing (not to mention the spinning, the weaving, etc) would take me into a place of very deep connection with both the nettle and the ways of my ancestors long, long ago. I also believe that this process might be a very useful thing to know, down the line, when the world is no longer this crazy overseas network of sweatshop labor-commerce. (All empires must fall, after all…)
Sylvia Linsteadt walking point reyes
Stories have power, words create worlds. When I read your writing I often feel the burgeoning of a new earth underfoot. In your heart of hearts, hopes of hopes…what do you feel is being birthed through your work?
Above all things I hope that through my work a renewed sense of the tenets of deep ecology and animistic thought can be re-infused into the world of contemporary human literature. The stories we tell shape the world we see, and the world we see is one of terrible environmental and humanitarian catastrophe, degradation, and extinction, both of animals and plants, and of human cultures and languages. I hope for my writing to convey a sense of the animism of all beings; that elk and alder and lichen and stone, bear and lizard and fog and oatgrass, are all subjects, characters, integral players in the stories of our lives and this world, not the objects we have made them into with our cultural narratives. For when a deer or a tree is a subject and not an object, it is not as easy to destroy it without a care. I also hope to keep the old human magics and beliefs surrounding this wise old world of ours alive in my writing—the ways of weedwife and hunter, wandering jester and gypsy and shaman and witch. And if my tales can be wild woodrat nests which lead to the other worlds inside this world, all the better. If they can somehow gesture at the weedier, wilder, dustier footpath which leads us back into what it really means to be human (and not the big tar roads)—well, that would be grand indeed.
wild notebook
Photo by Sylvia Linsteadt
As someone who works for herself (doing what she loves!) what does a typical “work day” look like for you?
Rise early. Feed Hawthorn the rabbit. Gather flowers and leaves for a little wild art left in my garden patch to greet the day—its birds, its soils, its winds, its sun, its four-leggeds. Tea, breakfast, an hour of writing (often my favorite hour of the day). I go to a dance class almost every morning, and when I come back I write again until noon in my little loft office. A quick break for lunch, which often involves gathering Hawthorn various greens and herbs and letting him have an adventure through the garden. Then I write again until about 3, at which point I generally experience an afternoon slump (the hours of 3 to 5 are really not my strongpoint). I try to work on non-creative things during this time—emails, various social media updating, queries, etc. If I can’t stand to do so (or don’t need to), I like to spend some time making with my hands in a different way—felting, embroidering, gardening, medicine-making. Around 5, I may have a last surge of creativity and write a bit more, or I might spend the time until about 7 editing or reading for research. At 7 or thereabouts, my love returns home from work, and this is the signal that my own work-day is over, thank goodness. Having him home, I feel I have an excuse to stop and savor the evening. Otherwise, I will work off and on until bed! I try to spend every Wednesday out on the land of Point Reyes, tracking (alone or with friends) the lives of plant and animal, tracing the songlines of that beloved wild place, so that my work remains infused with its many voices. This isn’t a schedule I always hold to—sometimes it’s more fluid, for better or for worse, because things come up, sudden deadlines arise, the creativity just isn’t flowing. But I find that keeping a bare-bones schedule is a life-saver. We can flourish better, it seems to me, with a few boundaries, markers up to help us find the way.
Day in the field
Photo by Sylvia Linsteadt
The obligatory question: what books are on your night stand?
This is a bit embarrassing, as it shows how indecisive and eclectic my reading has been these past few weeks, on top of the fact that I tend to hoard books by my bed for a while. I think they must comfort me.
The Reindeer People- Piers Vitebsky
The Others: How Animals Made Us Human- Paul Shepherd
The Steppe & other stories- Anton Chekov
Marcovaldo- Italo Calvino
Momo- Michael Ende
The Short Works of Leo Tolstoy
Coastal fir hills
Photo by Sylvia Linsteadt
What is some advice you can give to anyone who is thinking about launching further into their creative flow/work?
This doesn’t sound immediately romantic, but the first thing that comes to my mind is—give yourself a schedule. I don’t mean this in a boring way; I like to think of it more like bones. An animal without bones cannot stand or walk. Similarly, it feels to me that the creative flow requires structure to flourish. So I love deadlines and scheduled tea-breaks and that sort of thing. At the same time, of course, too much structure can kill inspiration. One thing that really helps to start my own work in the morning is a sense of ritual, which is structured into my day. If you’re just starting out, make the time and space for your creative work sacred. I like to burn rosemary and light a candle when I start. Give yourself an hour every morning for a week, candle lit, tea at hand. It’s not so long as to intimidate, and not so short as to be useless. Get your computer and phone away from yourself, by god! (These can be the great killers of flow.) If you tell yourself, “I will write/paint/sing for this set amount of time every morning, for seven days, and see how it goes,” instead of “I am now a working artist and I must work 8 hours a day and be extraordinarily brilliant and productive for all eight hours, etc. etc.,” you will feel as though your goals are actually manageable. With the latter attitude, I daresay one might never begin. Another very important piece for me every day is to get out of my own way—don’t think of your reader, your viewer, your editor, as you let the work come out. This is why I am adamant about writing by hand. I hardly look back as I go. I just go. There is always time to edit, but you can destroy your flow by going back over too early with critical eyes. After all, it needs to come from a place of joy and passion, or it won’t really be your true voice.
Fennel stars
Photo by Sylvia Linsteadt
All of your words are such a blessing. Would you mind leaving us with a wee prayer?
For some reason, what immediately came to mind was the very first poem I was ever proud of, the first poem that really seemed to come from this place of flow — “Order of the Machine.” I wrote it when I was sixteen, sitting on the back steps in the garden of my childhood home. It came down through my pen as if from elsewhere. I’ve changed it to second person here, for it feels more prayer-like, thus. Here’s the very last stanza.
Even as our futures buckle straight
do not let the woods
relinquish your heart
nor the fog your soul.
Do not let the Order of the Machine
steal the waves, crush the wildflowers
starve the river stones.
There is yet hope
in the foam of the full moon
in the green of apple leaves
in the light between two palms.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
SylviaSylvia Victor Linsteadt is a writer and a student of local ecology and ancient myth. She likes to follow gray fox tracks through the brush, gather wild plants for dye and medicine, dream up and write down poems and stories, short and novel-length, all in one way or another concerned with the relationship between human beings and the more than human world (bay laurel, barn owl, bobcat). She is the creatrix of Elk Lines, the Gray Fox Epistles, the Leveret Letters, and all projects associated with Wild Talewort.
She is a wanderer of the wild spaces of the Bay Area (where she was born and raised at the base of Mt. Tamalpais), a spinner of yarns (literally and figuratively), a felter of felts, and an animal-tracker. Good strong black tea with milk and a little honey is her fuel. Pennywhistle music, a hearty fire in the hearth, fog, fairytales and myths, all the voices of the birds in the morning in the black walnut out her window bring her joy.
For her official blog of musings, scraps of tale, track, dye, myth and wander, please visit The Indigo Vat.
7/26/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Print Marked Items
Tatterdemalion
Publishers Weekly.
265.18 (Apr. 30, 2018): p44+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Tatterdemalion
Sylvia V. Linsteadt, illus. by Rima Staines.
Unbound, $26.95 (224) ISBN 978-1-78352-329-0
Linsteadt's ambitious, elegiac first novel is inspired by Staines's fanciful paintings. In northern California,
various forms of community and culture spring up after a mid-21st-century collapse, centered around magic
deeply tied to the ecology of the area. The young boy Poppy finds a massive, speaking creature with
wheels; monks called Bells, Perches, and Boots seek the ideal forms of the things they've taken as their
names; a bereft girl transforms into an owl. The threads come together in a remarkable expression of the
preciousness of the natural life of the Sierra Nevadas. The book has one major flaw: though the setting is
indisputably California, the illustrations are strongly influenced by European folk art, and major story
elements draw principally from European myths and fairy tales. The disjunction from the native history of
California undermines the theme of returning to roots and learning to cooperate with the repressed.
Nonetheless, this is a heartfelt and effective mix of old lore, current anxieties, and the possibilities of the
future. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Tatterdemalion." Publishers Weekly, 30 Apr. 2018, p. 44+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A537852263/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=5236e45d.
Accessed 26 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A537852263
The class book review: The Wild Folk by Sylvia V Linsteadt
Despite a slow start, our reviewers enjoyed Sylvia V Linsteadt's The Wild Folk: a modern folklore about the battle for resources
By The class book review: The Wild Folk by Sylvia V Linsteadt
24 June 2018
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The Wild Folk by Sylvia Lindsteadt
The Wild Folk
By Sylvia V Linsteadt
Usborne Publishing
416pp, £6.99, paperback
ISBN: 9781474934985
Sylvia Linsteadt takes the reader on a magical quest with two young hares, an orphan boy besotted with inventing, and an inquisitive country girl, who all band together to stop a dystopian city decimating the “Country” beyond its walls. The adventure resembles a Tolkien folklore, as the quartet face challenges, set by Country inhabitants the Wild Folk, to discover who holds the secret to saving their world.
Tin has grown up in the bleak Fifth Cloister of Grace and Progress, taught propaganda by the sinister Brothers that the world outside the city walls is dangerous, and that it’s blasphemous to even speak of the “contaminated” animal and insect kingdom. Country-girl Comfrey has had an equally difficult start to life, learning to survive from an early age on a meagre diet and sustained by the family crops. They both bring a brave and determined resilience to safeguard the future of the Country, meeting a miniscule ant and grumpy witch along the way.
Readers of Philip Pullman, CS Lewis or Ursula Le Guin will love this enchanting legend. This first instalment in The Stargold Chronicles tackles a topical issue about how industrialised societies need to live in harmony with nature, limit their greedy and destructive tendencies, and instead start valuing the fragility of the natural world.
Liz Dickinson is a higher-level teaching assistant at Rawlins Academy in Loughborough, and a freelance writer of poetry and prose
Pupil reviews: Plenty of smiles for countryphiles
‘Boring start but a great story that needs a trilogy’
When I started The Wild Folk, it was quite boring and confusing, owing to how it swapped viewpoints. However, from the moment the Fiddleback started to work until the end of the book, it was a rollercoaster of adventure.
I love the sense of mystery, carried throughout the book, being displayed in lots of different scenarios. Like when Mallow and Myrtle are dropped and the coyote-folk take the Fiddleback – you have absolutely no idea who they are or what has happened.
When you first encounter Thornton, you have a small little voice in the back of your head saying it is Comfrey’s dad, but until a little later in the story, it does not become clear.
It’s very sad when Seb leaves Tin, but it adds a lovely atmosphere to the plot.
In conclusion, it had a boring start, a great storyline, and needs at least a trilogy after it.
If Ms Linsteadt wrote another book, the reviewers would totally read it.
Grace Furie, aged 11
‘This great novel is bound to make you laugh’
The Wild Folk is a unique, imaginative and exceedingly gripping book, despite a slightly dull beginning.
In this fabulous tale, you can take a journey through Olima (the magical land in which it is set) with the four main characters: Mallow, Myrtle, Comfrey and Tin. All of these characters are distinctive and original.
This great novel is bound to make you laugh and enjoy the time you have reading it.
My favourite bit about this great book is the descriptive prose. Ms Linsteadt has done a truly amazing job to put her ideas in a gripping way that is just perfect for the story. Honestly, I would recommend this book to all my friends, as it includes a bunch of different genres, which makes it suitable for anybody.
If I had to rate this excellent book, I would definitely give it a well-earned 9.5/10! The only reason I have marked it down is because nothing is perfect – however, The Wild Folk has come very close.
Beatriz Weightman, aged 11
‘Not for those who give up on a book easily’
I think The Wild Folk was really interesting and enjoyable, but I thought it took a couple of chapters to get into.
For me, it got interesting after he finishes the Fiddleback spider and has to run away, so I think it would be better if something happened earlier on that made it a bit more exciting.
Other than that, I thought that it was a good book and I enjoyed the idea of the world being made by an elk, a bobcat, and a spider.
I would have liked if there had been more mention of the green twins than part of a chapter while they were looking after the leverets.
Also, I would have liked a bit more of an insight of the lives of normal people in the city, as I found it hard to imagine what the lives of normal people were like.
I would recommend The Wild Folk to people who like reading about fictional worlds and don’t mind it if it gets a bit strange and you have to think a bit about what is happening. However, if you are the sort of person who gives up on a book easily and likes to be able to understand what is going on, I don’t think this is the book for you.
My overall impression of it was that it was interesting and a good read. Ms Linsteadt, you should definitely write a sequel – I would be one of the first to read it!
Amy Yates, aged 12
If you or your class would like to write a review, please contact sarah.cunnane@tes.com
The Wild Folk
Sylvia Linsteadt
(Usborne Publishing Ltd)
416pp, FICTION, 978-1474934985, RRP £6.99, Paperback
10-14 Middle/Secondary
Buy "The Wild Folk (The Stargold Chronicles #1)" on Amazon
Usborne welcomes readers to Part One of a ‘duology’ with the claim that The Wild Folk has ‘a dash of Ursula Le Guin’ (as in Earthsea, Balance must be maintained in all things here in Farralone or catastrophe will follow) and ‘a generous helping from C.S. Lewis’ (resourceful children entrusted with saving the world, talking animals including two courageous leverets and an Aslan figure in the Creatrix, the Elk of Milk and Gold). Tolkien might also have been cited, for much of the adventure involves an intrepid group, each with particular skills, journeying across unknown terrain on a dangerous quest. There is also a debt to Eastern European folk-tale since the witch Baba Itha strongly echoes Baba Yaga, one moment threatening to chop up the leverets for her stew-pot, the next twinkling with good humour. Like Baba Yaga, she lives in an ambulatory hut supported on birds’ legs – this time those of an owl, ‘the talons each as wide as the bases of fir trees’. Sylvia Linsteadt’s own prefatory letter to readers hopes that her story will inspire them to look at the natural world with renewed wonder, to recognise how everything is interconnected and to become increasingly sensitive to environmental destruction.
So, you might say, there’s a fair amount for young readers to take in here. What’s more, those in the UK will not find the flora and fauna familiar. Linsteadt’s island of Farralone reflects her beloved Point Reyes Peninsula, north of San Francisco. Mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, elk and grizzlies wander through the redwoods and manzanitas.
Two twelve year olds are caught up in all of this. Comfrey is a girl from Alder, a village in the Country, some distance outside the forbidding walls of the City; ordinary people never move between the two. Her life is attuned to the rhythms of her rural world. She lives with her mother since the disappearance, several years earlier, of her much-loved father – though readers may well guess that she hasn’t seen the last of him. Then there’s Tin, an orphan boy, living in the City under the fierce disciplines of the Star-Priest Brothers of the Fifth Cloister of Grace and Progress. Tin is a secret inventor; from discarded junk, he has created a travelling machine with eight metal legs (on wheels) which he calls Fiddleback (after a variety of spider). Before long, the paths of Comfrey and Tin intertwine. Knowing of the challenges which lie ahead for the children, the far-seeing and legendary conjoined Greentwins send the two leverets, Myrtle and Mallow, to support them. The talkative young hares are perhaps the most engaging of the many creations in the Chronicle; at once brave and timid, comical yet wise beyond their years.
The Star-Priest Brotherhood is in desperate need of energy to sustain the City. Supplies are almost exhausted and that energy derives from stargold which can be found only beyond their Walls. Supplies in the City are almost exhausted, so the Brothers will have to raid the Country to secure new resources at whatever cost to the inhabitants - the Wild Folk, the Country People, talking and non-talking animals and their ghosts, the grizzly-witches and many more. The adventures triggered by the Brothers’ need for stargold are excitingly told in language which is consciously ‘poetic’, as Linsteadt herself confirms. There is no doubting the idealism and the storytelling energy of this first part of the Stargold Chronicles. The publishers suggest a reading age of 10+; those young readers will need to be alert and with a keen grasp of geography and time in Farallone. Without that, given the diverse plotlines, the digressions into history, the legion of characters and the tale’s implicit messages for our own world, the narrative recording the immediate crisis could well lose clarity. As for the secrets of the Psalterium and the question of whether the ancient arachnid, Old Mother Neeth, is still alive – well, that’s another story. Part Two is promised for Spring, 2019.
Reviewer: Geoff Fox
Review #717: The Wild Folk by Sylvia Linsteadt
BY ADITI SAHA 17:10 // NO COMMENTS
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.”
----Alan W. Watts
Sylvia Linsteadt, an American author, has penned an incredibly beguiling fantasy novel, The Wild Folk that centers around an enchanting land filled with the power of magical star-gold that can the divided city prosper with wealth and health, where two young kids accompanied by two young hares, must save their land and its dwellers from getting ruined by the Brothers from the city, who are hell-bound to destroy everything beyond the walls of the city that was once pulled up to save the humans from the wild folks and the diseases. Two kids and two hare embark upon a deadly journey through the villages and forests of the land of wild folk to save it.
Synopsis:
When the Star-Priest Brotherhood from the City threaten to ravage and destroy the land of the Wild Folk, their only hope rests with two young hares and their human companions – Tin, an orphan City boy with a passion for invention, and curious Country girl Comfrey. In this magical quest, to protect the precious stargold that runs through the land, Tin and Comfrey must complete seemingly impossible tasks set by the mysterious and terrifying Wild Folk - each stranger than the last - to find the one who holds the secret to saving their world.
The Wild Folk is a timeless adventure, weaving fantasy and folk lore into an enchanting tale that will fill you with wonder. The first in a duology, with a dash of Ursula Le Guin, a pinch of Frances Hardinge, and a generous helping from C.S. Lewis, this is a future classic, filled with unforgettable and diverse characters, and a story to be read time and again.
Tin longs to escape the city walls beyond which lies the magical land of Wild Folk, while Comfrey longs to walk and run beyond boundary of the forest in her village. Both of their wishes come true, when two young leverets are sent their way to guide them to save the land of Farallone which is in danger under the hands of the Brothers of the city of New Albion, from where Tin belongs. Together tin and Comfrey must make their own brave choices to save the land along with the guidance of the mysterious wild folk, among whom, some wants to help this unusual pair of children and leverets, while some want to distract the human kids from their mission. But ultimately can they save this land of magic and stargold which the Brothers from the city are desperate to get their hands into, even if that means destroying the lives of Wild folk?
A really fascinating tale spinning over a quest of two kids trying to save their homeland from being destroyed amidst of challenges and struggles through the village of Olima and many more with the help of strange wild folk and two young leverets. This story is filled with so many twists and turns and many layers and elements that will keep the readers constantly on their edges to find out more. With a perfect set of young voices, this is a must read book for every adventure loving soul, be it young or old. This book can be enjoyed by any age group of reader.
The writing style of the author is really coherent, laced with many layers to keep the readers engaged into the story line. The dialogues are interesting and the author have strikingly captured the voices of the young characters with enough realism to make the readers believe in their journey. The pacing is bit slow in the beginning, but gradually the story picks up pace, as the author unravels the story with a nail biting journey of two young kids through the forests and villages.
The characters in the book are very well developed with both flaws and strong aspects to make them look relatable in the eyes of the readers. The young heroes is the book has a solid voice, that will be often inspiring enough for the young readers of this book. Not only that, the young characters preach kindness, courage, wisdom and humbleness beside unity and harmony through their demeanor. Not only that, the supporting characters too are sketched out by the author in an interesting manner.
In a nutshell, this captivating, adventurous story is a must read for every young kid who dreams of saving the world with their wit and wisdom.
Verdict: An engrossing read filled with adventures and mystery.
Courtesy: Thanks to the publishers from Usborne for giving me an opportunity to read and review for this book.
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Author Info:
Sylvia V. Linsteadt is a writer, artist, and certified animal tracker. Her books include Tatterdemalion, (Unbound, Spring 2017), a novel, and The Wonderments of the East Bay (Heyday 2014), and Lost Worlds of the San Francisco Bay Area (Heyday, Spring 2017), both works of nonfiction.
For three years (from 2013 to 2016) Sylvia ran a stories-in-the-mail business called Wild Talewort, in which she sent out rewilded tellings of fairytales and myths to the physical-post boxes of hundreds of subscribers around the world.
Sylvia grew up reading and writing about old magics at the base of Mount Tamalpais, north of San Francisco. She currently lives on the Point Reyes Peninsula, a bit of the Pacific Plate temporarily riding alongside the North American, in the bishop pine wood.
Visit her here