Maia, I bought the ebook when it first launched, but hadn’t quite finished it (having a very ill family member pushed everything to one side for a long while). Reading your second chance message I (metaphorically) picked it up & found some wisdom I really needed to hear now. Had I read it sooner, the words would not have landed as they did. Thank you for all your writing, it is beautiful and you are inspirational.
I'm a fan! Loved meeting you at Carolina Lit Fest last fall and getting my signed copy - then taking that magical journey with you. Doubt is a killer - I fight with it daily in writing and in life. So, I just have to keep putting magic spells on myself - fear burning helps a lot! Thanks for inspiring me, Maia. Onward and upward...
Thanks, Anne! Funny thing is, by most measures it's a success... but publishers compare to my other books.... My agent tells me I'm a victim of my own success.
Letting Magic In was a wonderfully written book. You are brilliant and I felt a real connection in the book. It feels like the world is just not connecting anymore, maybe people do not know how to really sit and be still. When I picked up this book I just didn’t want to put it down. You didn’t do anything wrong. 💗💗
Melissa, thank you. Reading your comment helped me identify one of the tangled threads of feeling I’ve been living with: shame. I feel like I did something wrong and let the people at my publishing house down. Thank you for helping me figure that out…. and for the absolution.🙏💗
I love this book! It really helped me delve deeper into my own journey. I love all your books, please don't stop writing! I know I've said this before... your works have helped me immensely in piecing my own life and health back together. I wouldn't have made it without your work. Not as well as I did anyway. It would've been so messy! It was already messy enough.
We are at a crossroads too... everything is changing. Hubby and I decided we are going to put our mark in the change and rearrange our furniture 🤣. I'm going completely Feng Shui!
If it helps... I know in my own industry people have re-prioritized how they spend money. I lost my job over it. So it's possible these shifts are happening everywhere.
THIS BOOK is the first one I could binge-read after years of struggling with repeated brain injuries. So that counts for alot for me. Thank YOU! ❤️
I also rearrange the furniture when my life is in a state of rearrangement! I think it helps me move differently…. Which helps me find the way in which I need to shift. My husband hates it.🤣
And I’m so very glad my books have supported you through what sounds like an incredibly rough time. That’s why I wrote them. And don’t worry, I won’t stop writing. I might just need to get a job to support my writing habit.🤷🏻♀️😄
One of my favorite bits in the Night School book is the compass work. Learning how to orient myself back to the poles, the directions. It gave me a solid sense of being able to steer my ship when my mind was left adrift in open night time seas and oceans without wind and clouds covering the northern star. I had my compass. I was still okay. It seems horribly simple of an idea... but Oh! How well it worked 😊❤️ And when I could sleep through the night again... I used my compass to reconnect to the day. Brilliant work.
It's easy to see this also reflected in THIS book... how you had to re-orient to life changes. As long as we have our compasses... we are okay.
Mine came with a nifty little case and I've thought about how cool it would be to have it inscribed with something.
Hi Maia, I'm sorry that Letting Magic In isn't doing better. I really love the book! I think you're a fabulous author and I hope you don't decide to quit writing.
Crossroads can be scary, but they can also be an opportunity, as you've noted. The biggest challenge I'm facing has to do with my mother. Mom lives with me and she's losing her eyesight, due to macular degeneration. She tries to stay positive, but of course she sometimes gets depressed about it. I try to cheer her up and we go out a lot to eat and hit our favorite boutiques, but we both know that she's going to go blind and that is going to be a real challenge for both of us.
Thanks. It's hard to watch Mom age then realize I'm getting many of the same health issues she has, ugh. You're right that aging isn't for the faint of heart, but it beats the alternative! :) I'm very glad you're going to continue to write!
I am for sure coming to Asheville on August 8th. I have a teen granddaughter who has been gifted with all your books and I know she will love Night School for Young Mystics! I going to need one of everything please ❤️
I will be signing books at The Hop Ice Cream Parlor on Merrimon Avenue on August 10 from two until four. Come one over and introduce me to your grand daughter!
On this day, my life is at a crossroad waiting to move from the mainland to the Big Island of HI.
My partner is already there, clearing the land, putting up a solar system, catchment water and our starter tiny house. It is a big step but I believe a mystical adventure for the final years of my life on this planet. Letting Magic In was an inspiration for me and I enjoyed reading it immensely!
For what it's worth Maia in my opinion, Letting Magic In was my absolutely favorite book you have written. I resonated with all your adventures, introspections and vulnerability in sharing your journey. It was powerful for me.
I too am sitting at a crossroads with all signs pointing to changing my direction, crafting a new map and finding a new path to follow. Not easy, certainly anxiety filled and yet, somewhere I know this is the right way forward. May you find yours as well. Here's to another Capricorn ASC!!
Does it help if we purchase the paperback at Barnes and Noble?! It's been on my list to read...so it looks like now would be a great time to go grab a copy!
My daughter and I met you at your Malaprops book signing for The Illustrated Bestiary! We've since relocated to Orlando, but I'm always so happy when your newsletter and Asheville images come through! We miss the serenity of the mountains, so I'm grateful anytime I have a chance to see and read about them again through you! 💖✨
It ABSOLUTELY helps if you purchase at B&N and I would so appreciate it. But there is no paperback. My publisher doesn't do many paperbacks and only of the most successful books.
And I remember meeting you! I have actually wondered why I hadn't seen you at Malaprop's since! Orlando is a HUGE change form AVL. I'll keep posting little buts of mountain magic to keep you in the energetic loop. ;)
Maia, loving Letting Magic In! So beautifully written...I can see what's happening, as if I'm watching a movie, as I read your words!
Was wondering...on page 41 you mention herbs and memory...Rosemary, Yarrow, Frankincense. Would you consider them in essential oil form to be as effective as the living plant or dried version?!
When I was writing that particular bit, I wasn’t thinking about physiological memory. What I mean by that is I wouldn’t say that these are herbs for Alzheimer’s or dementia. Instead I was thinking more of nostalgia, of pulling memories to the surface of consciousness. And I definitely use the sense of smell for that— essential oil, fresh plant material, incense.
Yes, nostalgia memory was what I took from this passage!! It seemed the oils worked in this manner for us! But they are a newer study/experience for me so was curious to see what you thought! Thank you!! 🌸💖
I look forward to sinking in to the book...and truly appreciate you sharing that magical energetic loop!! 🙏🏻
And please keep writing, for yourself...for all of us...no matter the form! Your beautiful words and wisdom touch and heal us deeply...the world needs more of all you have to offer! Thank you! 🩷
A few months ago I made the decision to leave a decade-long career in academia to pursue a career in writing and a more magical life. A lot of people recommended academic memoirs to me, but I didn't feel seen until I read "Letting Magic In." (I'm also a practicing witch and had previously read "The Night School" and just loved your prose.) It is so heartening to have a window into someone else's emotional journey, the joy and the tumult and all of it, at a crossroads similar to where I am. Thank you so much for choosing vulnerability and sharing this story. It may not have had the commercial success you hoped for, but it has meant everything to me.
Anna, I have tears in my eyes. THIS is why I wrote it. When I went to Ireland, it felt like I was flying blind. If we can all plant some trail markers for each other, we can ease the way.
Natalie, THANK YOU for letting me know it's the first time you've seen it. I have had a graphic in the bottom of the newsletter for a year... because I didn't want to be pushy, I just tucked it at the bottom. This makes it clear to me that I need to be a little more upfront!
It's such a crapshoot with any book. I'm in the UK but this has prompted me to go and buy it anyway. (Still seems to be a lowered price, for any other UK readers.) It's interesting what you say about people not seeing themselves as readers of memoir. I read very little memoir but read and loved Vivianne Crowley's "Wild Once" this year, which is a memoir of course, but wasn't sold to me as one. It's not a genre I rule out at all but certainly not a go-to, but was an auto-buy because I love her work. Anyway I'm very much looking forward to reading yours!
(You shouldn't feel sheepish about your visions, surely you felt that way because you knew you'd written a book good enough for that to happen, and like you say, so much of it is luck. )
Obstacles and challenges... I'm trying to have more faith in my (fiction) writing. I know it's good, but some days it's so hard not to sit down feeling so dumb for thinking my own inner worlds and stories are worth trying to externalise.
Crossroads - I'm going to do some part-time study and trying to decide whether to build on the background I already have and do some more grad lit classes, or follow my heart and go back to the beginning and begin some Archaeology. I don't really have time for either but my brain needs new matter to chew and I can't decide!
I hope you get a big word-of-mouth boost from the sale, sounds like readers are loving the book.
I love the thought of you using this moon to give your fiction writing a second chance, in your own mind. As a huge fiction reader (I actually don't read non-fiction unless coerced!), I find my understanding of the humans in those inner-worlds others choose to share. And I share a love of archeology with you (done some digs). It would have been my major if I wasn't completely inept at languages (learning disability, unfortunately).
Meanwhile, thanks for buying, River.
And, yes, books are such a crapshoot. My sales track was sooo solid and I often got emails from people asking me to share my story so I thought this book would be a slam dunk. But I couldn't get the word out-- in the month's before the book launched, I got stuck in some back water Instagram algorithm (they were showing my posts to .02% of my readers), which didn't help.
I have never read Wild Once so I'm off the check that out (thank you!).
HA! My husband said the same thing... And I was like "it's Amazon. It's all the same link." Obviously I need to be more explicit and will go it and adjust.
Gosh. I resonated so hard with what you wrote. I thought my second business book which had a co-author was going to propel me into some sort of bestseller status. I juggle between writing what I want v’s what people need and still not always enough in the former. I constantly want to bring more feelings of fun, magic, creativity and inspiration to my work.
For you though, one thing I do always talk about it #alwqyslaunching
It took me four long years to smash a recent book milestone. Keep on hyping Maia! You never know who sees what you post and where that can lead.
Congratulations on milestone smashing! It took about that time for my first book to sell 100k copies. Nothing wrong with a slow burn (as long as the candle isn't guttering and your publisher isn't thinking about putting the book out of print). And I agree-- always, always launching. The trick is to do it in a way that's not obnoxious to devoted readers and I tend to err on the side of not enough.
And Lucy, I so so hear you on "I want v’s what people need." It's not that I don't want to give readers what they need... it's that I think there are ways of offering it (like Letting Magic In) that speak to the subconscious in a way that rewires your brain. Whereas my purely prescriptive books operate on a more conscious and obvious level. But... there's so little nuance in the places we market, it's hard to get that across.
In my experience (and some other author friends concur), the best thing you can do is write another book. Doesn’t matter where in your catalog someone starts, people who resonate with your work will often go back and read everything. A new book often expands the audience.
Maia, I bought the ebook when it first launched, but hadn’t quite finished it (having a very ill family member pushed everything to one side for a long while). Reading your second chance message I (metaphorically) picked it up & found some wisdom I really needed to hear now. Had I read it sooner, the words would not have landed as they did. Thank you for all your writing, it is beautiful and you are inspirational.
I am so glad the words found you at the right moment…. And so sorry you’ve had such a rough go-round with illness in your family.
Bless you - thank you!
Loved Letting Magic In!! Your story was so genuine and inspiring; good for the soul.💕
thank you, Sandi!
I'm a fan! Loved meeting you at Carolina Lit Fest last fall and getting my signed copy - then taking that magical journey with you. Doubt is a killer - I fight with it daily in writing and in life. So, I just have to keep putting magic spells on myself - fear burning helps a lot! Thanks for inspiring me, Maia. Onward and upward...
Thanks, Anne! Funny thing is, by most measures it's a success... but publishers compare to my other books.... My agent tells me I'm a victim of my own success.
If you are in AVL, let's have lunch. xx
We vibrate above the fray. YES, will return to beloved Avl next week and look fwd to reconnecting.
Letting Magic In was a wonderfully written book. You are brilliant and I felt a real connection in the book. It feels like the world is just not connecting anymore, maybe people do not know how to really sit and be still. When I picked up this book I just didn’t want to put it down. You didn’t do anything wrong. 💗💗
Melissa, thank you. Reading your comment helped me identify one of the tangled threads of feeling I’ve been living with: shame. I feel like I did something wrong and let the people at my publishing house down. Thank you for helping me figure that out…. and for the absolution.🙏💗
💗💗💗
I love this book! It really helped me delve deeper into my own journey. I love all your books, please don't stop writing! I know I've said this before... your works have helped me immensely in piecing my own life and health back together. I wouldn't have made it without your work. Not as well as I did anyway. It would've been so messy! It was already messy enough.
We are at a crossroads too... everything is changing. Hubby and I decided we are going to put our mark in the change and rearrange our furniture 🤣. I'm going completely Feng Shui!
If it helps... I know in my own industry people have re-prioritized how they spend money. I lost my job over it. So it's possible these shifts are happening everywhere.
THIS BOOK is the first one I could binge-read after years of struggling with repeated brain injuries. So that counts for alot for me. Thank YOU! ❤️
I also rearrange the furniture when my life is in a state of rearrangement! I think it helps me move differently…. Which helps me find the way in which I need to shift. My husband hates it.🤣
And I’m so very glad my books have supported you through what sounds like an incredibly rough time. That’s why I wrote them. And don’t worry, I won’t stop writing. I might just need to get a job to support my writing habit.🤷🏻♀️😄
One of my favorite bits in the Night School book is the compass work. Learning how to orient myself back to the poles, the directions. It gave me a solid sense of being able to steer my ship when my mind was left adrift in open night time seas and oceans without wind and clouds covering the northern star. I had my compass. I was still okay. It seems horribly simple of an idea... but Oh! How well it worked 😊❤️ And when I could sleep through the night again... I used my compass to reconnect to the day. Brilliant work.
It's easy to see this also reflected in THIS book... how you had to re-orient to life changes. As long as we have our compasses... we are okay.
Mine came with a nifty little case and I've thought about how cool it would be to have it inscribed with something.
Hi Maia, I'm sorry that Letting Magic In isn't doing better. I really love the book! I think you're a fabulous author and I hope you don't decide to quit writing.
Crossroads can be scary, but they can also be an opportunity, as you've noted. The biggest challenge I'm facing has to do with my mother. Mom lives with me and she's losing her eyesight, due to macular degeneration. She tries to stay positive, but of course she sometimes gets depressed about it. I try to cheer her up and we go out a lot to eat and hit our favorite boutiques, but we both know that she's going to go blind and that is going to be a real challenge for both of us.
That is a huge challenge, Linda. Getting old is not for the faint of heart.
And don’t worry: I will still be writing. but it looks like any future memoir will be self published.🤣
Thanks. It's hard to watch Mom age then realize I'm getting many of the same health issues she has, ugh. You're right that aging isn't for the faint of heart, but it beats the alternative! :) I'm very glad you're going to continue to write!
I am for sure coming to Asheville on August 8th. I have a teen granddaughter who has been gifted with all your books and I know she will love Night School for Young Mystics! I going to need one of everything please ❤️
I will be signing books at The Hop Ice Cream Parlor on Merrimon Avenue on August 10 from two until four. Come one over and introduce me to your grand daughter!
On this day, my life is at a crossroad waiting to move from the mainland to the Big Island of HI.
My partner is already there, clearing the land, putting up a solar system, catchment water and our starter tiny house. It is a big step but I believe a mystical adventure for the final years of my life on this planet. Letting Magic In was an inspiration for me and I enjoyed reading it immensely!
WOW! What an incredible adventure you’re about to embark upon. 💜💜💜
For what it's worth Maia in my opinion, Letting Magic In was my absolutely favorite book you have written. I resonated with all your adventures, introspections and vulnerability in sharing your journey. It was powerful for me.
I too am sitting at a crossroads with all signs pointing to changing my direction, crafting a new map and finding a new path to follow. Not easy, certainly anxiety filled and yet, somewhere I know this is the right way forward. May you find yours as well. Here's to another Capricorn ASC!!
Cheers to the crossroads! It’s actually one of my favorite places—so rich with possibilities.
Does it help if we purchase the paperback at Barnes and Noble?! It's been on my list to read...so it looks like now would be a great time to go grab a copy!
My daughter and I met you at your Malaprops book signing for The Illustrated Bestiary! We've since relocated to Orlando, but I'm always so happy when your newsletter and Asheville images come through! We miss the serenity of the mountains, so I'm grateful anytime I have a chance to see and read about them again through you! 💖✨
It ABSOLUTELY helps if you purchase at B&N and I would so appreciate it. But there is no paperback. My publisher doesn't do many paperbacks and only of the most successful books.
And I remember meeting you! I have actually wondered why I hadn't seen you at Malaprop's since! Orlando is a HUGE change form AVL. I'll keep posting little buts of mountain magic to keep you in the energetic loop. ;)
Maia, loving Letting Magic In! So beautifully written...I can see what's happening, as if I'm watching a movie, as I read your words!
Was wondering...on page 41 you mention herbs and memory...Rosemary, Yarrow, Frankincense. Would you consider them in essential oil form to be as effective as the living plant or dried version?!
I am so glad you are loving the book!
When I was writing that particular bit, I wasn’t thinking about physiological memory. What I mean by that is I wouldn’t say that these are herbs for Alzheimer’s or dementia. Instead I was thinking more of nostalgia, of pulling memories to the surface of consciousness. And I definitely use the sense of smell for that— essential oil, fresh plant material, incense.
Yes, nostalgia memory was what I took from this passage!! It seemed the oils worked in this manner for us! But they are a newer study/experience for me so was curious to see what you thought! Thank you!! 🌸💖
I look forward to sinking in to the book...and truly appreciate you sharing that magical energetic loop!! 🙏🏻
And please keep writing, for yourself...for all of us...no matter the form! Your beautiful words and wisdom touch and heal us deeply...the world needs more of all you have to offer! Thank you! 🩷
A few months ago I made the decision to leave a decade-long career in academia to pursue a career in writing and a more magical life. A lot of people recommended academic memoirs to me, but I didn't feel seen until I read "Letting Magic In." (I'm also a practicing witch and had previously read "The Night School" and just loved your prose.) It is so heartening to have a window into someone else's emotional journey, the joy and the tumult and all of it, at a crossroads similar to where I am. Thank you so much for choosing vulnerability and sharing this story. It may not have had the commercial success you hoped for, but it has meant everything to me.
Anna, I have tears in my eyes. THIS is why I wrote it. When I went to Ireland, it felt like I was flying blind. If we can all plant some trail markers for each other, we can ease the way.
I love memoir and this is the first time I’ve seen it. Purchased!!
And thank you so much for reading!
Natalie, THANK YOU for letting me know it's the first time you've seen it. I have had a graphic in the bottom of the newsletter for a year... because I didn't want to be pushy, I just tucked it at the bottom. This makes it clear to me that I need to be a little more upfront!
It’s not the cover. The cover is GORGEOUS.
“… when I’m willing to let it all go, change is easy and the crossroads is an adventure.”
...Love that. 🙌
🥂 to ease!!
Cheers to ease!
It's such a crapshoot with any book. I'm in the UK but this has prompted me to go and buy it anyway. (Still seems to be a lowered price, for any other UK readers.) It's interesting what you say about people not seeing themselves as readers of memoir. I read very little memoir but read and loved Vivianne Crowley's "Wild Once" this year, which is a memoir of course, but wasn't sold to me as one. It's not a genre I rule out at all but certainly not a go-to, but was an auto-buy because I love her work. Anyway I'm very much looking forward to reading yours!
(You shouldn't feel sheepish about your visions, surely you felt that way because you knew you'd written a book good enough for that to happen, and like you say, so much of it is luck. )
Obstacles and challenges... I'm trying to have more faith in my (fiction) writing. I know it's good, but some days it's so hard not to sit down feeling so dumb for thinking my own inner worlds and stories are worth trying to externalise.
Crossroads - I'm going to do some part-time study and trying to decide whether to build on the background I already have and do some more grad lit classes, or follow my heart and go back to the beginning and begin some Archaeology. I don't really have time for either but my brain needs new matter to chew and I can't decide!
I hope you get a big word-of-mouth boost from the sale, sounds like readers are loving the book.
I love the thought of you using this moon to give your fiction writing a second chance, in your own mind. As a huge fiction reader (I actually don't read non-fiction unless coerced!), I find my understanding of the humans in those inner-worlds others choose to share. And I share a love of archeology with you (done some digs). It would have been my major if I wasn't completely inept at languages (learning disability, unfortunately).
Meanwhile, thanks for buying, River.
And, yes, books are such a crapshoot. My sales track was sooo solid and I often got emails from people asking me to share my story so I thought this book would be a slam dunk. But I couldn't get the word out-- in the month's before the book launched, I got stuck in some back water Instagram algorithm (they were showing my posts to .02% of my readers), which didn't help.
I have never read Wild Once so I'm off the check that out (thank you!).
P.s. link more to the print copy of the book in the post! Make it easy for us to buy it if we don’t want the ebook promo x
HA! My husband said the same thing... And I was like "it's Amazon. It's all the same link." Obviously I need to be more explicit and will go it and adjust.
sorry 🫢 people are lazy so I always encourage my readers / authors to always share that link. Every time, multiple times.
No need to be sorry-- it was a good call! I went in and updated. (And let my husband say "told you so!")
Gosh. I resonated so hard with what you wrote. I thought my second business book which had a co-author was going to propel me into some sort of bestseller status. I juggle between writing what I want v’s what people need and still not always enough in the former. I constantly want to bring more feelings of fun, magic, creativity and inspiration to my work.
For you though, one thing I do always talk about it #alwqyslaunching
It took me four long years to smash a recent book milestone. Keep on hyping Maia! You never know who sees what you post and where that can lead.
Congratulations on milestone smashing! It took about that time for my first book to sell 100k copies. Nothing wrong with a slow burn (as long as the candle isn't guttering and your publisher isn't thinking about putting the book out of print). And I agree-- always, always launching. The trick is to do it in a way that's not obnoxious to devoted readers and I tend to err on the side of not enough.
And Lucy, I so so hear you on "I want v’s what people need." It's not that I don't want to give readers what they need... it's that I think there are ways of offering it (like Letting Magic In) that speak to the subconscious in a way that rewires your brain. Whereas my purely prescriptive books operate on a more conscious and obvious level. But... there's so little nuance in the places we market, it's hard to get that across.
Well you are x10 better than me, took me four years to hit 10,000 across two books. Maybe I need to be dreaming even bigger? 🤔
In my experience (and some other author friends concur), the best thing you can do is write another book. Doesn’t matter where in your catalog someone starts, people who resonate with your work will often go back and read everything. A new book often expands the audience.