Power and Reality in the Midst of Fantasy: A Conversation with Novelist Kelly Braffet

But really, what would they teach in the college seminar about your life’s work? 

This was one of the “not exactly serious, but maybe” questions we pondered when novelist Kelly Braffet and I sat down for the latest episode of KnotWork Storytelling. 

Kelly is a fabulously talented writer and a damn good baker. Everyone who has picked up a copy of her latest book The Broken Tower, its prequel The Unwilling, or her previous novels knows the former statement is true. As a recipient of one of her holiday cookie packages, my family and I can attest to the latter.

The conversation you hear in “Power and Reality in the Midst of Fantasy” is a chat between friends. It’s also a conversation between two writers who love stories, the power of story in capital S sort of way, and tend to think deeply (overthink?) just about everything.

A Pandemic Novel that Never Mentions Viruses or Masks

When you  pick up The Broken Tower, I think you immediately realize it’s a pandemic novel, even though no one in this story world would understand virology or the sense of insecurity that comes with empty grocery store shelves. (They’d know that many diseases are deadly and some healers can help, though their powers tend to come at a price. And those who never worried about food supply never shopped for it and those who have worried about where their next meal is coming from couldn’t imagine the abundance of even the “emptiest” modern supermarket.)

So many of the hardest feelings we all came to know too well are part of these character’s everyday conversations:

”Why is everything horrible?” Ida said, and Korsa was shocked to see that her eyes were filled with tears. “The orphan house was horrible. The streets are horrible. This entire place is horrible, except for us. What's the point of living? So we can experience more horribleness?”

“The point is, Korsa said gently, “ to try to make it less horrible.”

Kelly’s response when I read this deeply difficult but immensely true passage was: “Oh, that is so pandemic.”

And yet, somehow, this book in which horrible things happen to people (none of whom are totally good or totally bad) is comforting somehow. Fiction has a way of doing that, of course.  

Tune into our conversation and read The Broken Tower

• Themes of “power” (not just the magical sort), and how this is central to all of Kelly’s work

• The dual meaning of “Work,” which describes the magic in this world and the factories that make the book “a capitalist dystopia”

• The question of whose stories get told and feeling haunted by all the people whose stories were never told

• The conscious inclusion of differently abled people as well as well as folks across gender identities and sexualities 

• The question “who am I writing for” and how the author’s choices can hurt certain readers, particularly those with marginalized identities. 

• Why Kelly chose to create a mythic world that does not replicate our own

More About Kelly Braffet

Kelly Braffet is the author of the Border Lands novels, including The Broken Tower and The Unwilling, as well as the novels Save Yourself, Josie and Jack and Last Seen Leaving. Her writing has been published in The Fairy Tale Review, Post Road, and several anthologies. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University and currently lives in upstate New York with her husband, the author Owen King.

The Selkie, the Seal Woman of Irish Legend, and You

Do you know the story of the selkie, the seal who transforms into a woman and lives on shore for a time?

She doesn’t choose this terrestrial life. In fact, she’s tricked into it in a cruel way. She is offered a kind of love and safety and is convinced to stay. The selkie decides she can compromise her freedom and marry a fisherman, at least for a little while.

And then, she gets swallowed up by this landlocked life. She is consumed by the expectations and responsibilities. She finds herself at the heart of a family, caught in the nets of a husband and children who depend on her for their comfort, routine, and perhaps their sense of identity, too. 

But, in the midst of this family, she’s barely able to survive. The selkie is a husk of her former self, and she has no more to give. If she stays in this world as it is, she’ll die. If she leaves, the world says that those who depend on her will suffer something even worse.  

Have you ever spied the selkie within you, your skin parched, your heart aching for your sisters and the sea? 

Has your soul cried, “Yes, that’s me!” as you’ve considered the story of a wild creature who lost herself to the structures and shoulds of family and a “civilized life”?

The Mythology of the Shape-Shifters

Across cultures, we find stories of shape-shifters.

There are the werewolves, the children who become swans, the old witches who become hares… It’s the story of the Irish selkie, the seal woman, that wraps round my heart and feels the most real for me. 

The selkie, and the fairy woman she becomes for a time, has appeared in well-known modern stories, including the gorgeous Irish films The Secret of Roan Inish and The Song of the Sea. You’ve likely heard the selkie story in one form or another, even if you don’t know the word, perhaps as a mermaid tale. You know the inversion of the story from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, which flips the script so the heroine longs to be shacked up on land and suffers a sense of alienation and dislocation in her own ocean.

In Episode 4 of KnotWork Storytelling, Jen Murphy comes to tell the tale of her own neighborhood selkies. Jen lives in Skerries in County Dublin and watches the Irish Sea from her home. Their harbor is home to colonies of seals, and inspires her version of this timeless story.

The selkie felt stifled and trapped in that fisherman’s cottage, but she also felt a bone-deep loneliness. As you’ll hear in the conversation that follows Jen’s story, I uncovered an old memory in the midst of our dialog, and long forgotten tears returned to the surface. 

As mythologist and author Sharon Blackie says when she tells her own version of the Selkie story, “these shapeshifing stories tap into a longing we often don’t even know we have and we feel that very deeply as sorrow.”

When we give ourselves full permission to feel the pull of the currents of the selkie story, we recover necessary parts of ourselves. You may know this cry deep in your heart. Or, it may be hard to reckon with the voice within that whispers, “This. This life. It’s a blessing. But sometimes… it’s a trap.”

Find a place where you can either snuggle in or root into the wildest part of nature where you can feel at home and tune into The Skerries Selkie.

I’m so excited to hear about what comes through for you when you seek out the selkie within you. Tell me more on Instagram or on in our Facebook community.  

Parenting Amidst the Ruins of Childhood’s Mythologies

“Mom, I know magic isn’t real.”

My just-turned-eight year old made this grave declaration at the bus stop the other day. As the cars ripped through the filthy slush on our back country road with a sound that tore the morning in two, I felt something rip in the fabric of this childhood we’d co-created with our girl.

I wasn’t ready. Lately, we’ve been going through a lot of emotional ups and downs with this daughter I have always called my “little mystic.” It’s impossible to know how much can be blamed on the disruptions and fears stirred up by two years of Covid and how much of this was always destined to be part of her path, but this child, the quintessential old soul, has access to the depths of the depths. And some of those depths are dark. 

We’re getting her the help she needs to regulate her own emotional terrain, but as we huddled together on a frigid February morning, I wondered where my help was to deal with “I know all magic is just made up.”

Living, Writing, and Parenting According to the Rules of Magic

Now, as you likely know, I am a woman who has built much of her creative life and work on this word, “magic.” I call myself a word witch because I know my superpowers lie in the weaving of language. I believe that we cast a spell when we craft well-made sentences. I believe stories are formulas for miraculous transformation.

I have never flown on a broomstick, watched sparks fly from my wand, or seen anyone turned into a toad. I don’t think burning just the right number of candles will attract a lover or help you get revenge. I know that tarot cards have nothing to do with predicting the future but have everything to do with reframing the current narrative.

And yet, I do believe in magic.

And in this moment of revelation, I wasn’t sure how I would relate to a child who didn’t want to speak the language of unicorns, dragons, and fairies.

The Stories We Make Up. The Stories We Make Real.

By bedtime that night, she knew that Daddy assembled the toys and Mom filled the wooden shoes with candy from Sinterklaas (and kept up with all of the global holiday traditions she learned about at school and wanted to make part of our tradition). She knew we tossed Rudolph’s carrots into the yard and put Santa’s cookies back in the tin because we were too full of sugary carbs by midnight on Christmas Eve to enjoy them.

The next morning, she was saying “I’m so sorry I realized magic wasn’t real.”

There was real sorrow there, but also a sense of pride, I think. We celebrated her curiosity and her wisdom. We told her that we were proud of her for being brave enough to ask questions. We showed her that we wouldn’t lie to her.

Her biggest fear, as we picked our way up the icy driveway for another school day, was that she might start telling other kids. ( I had asked her to promise not to share this revelation as it’s important that everyone come to their own realization about how magic works in the world). The believers in her second grade class are safe. I trust and admire her thoughtfulness, even as I wish I did have a functional magic wand to instantly restore her peace of mind.

I think we arrived at a good place. We discussed that, though she lost something in losing her belief in leprechauns who leave gold on March 17 and a sleigh that circumnavigates the earth in one night, she had gained something that was even more… magical.

Now she knows what the grown ups know:

Magic isn’t about watching wishes materialize in an instant. Magic isn’t about mythical beings creeping into your house in the middle of the night and leaving gifts in exchange for gingerbread. 

Magic is about the love that families have for their children. 

Magic is about the great collective stories that get made real.

On the Other Side of a Belief in Magic Is… More Magic

I still believe in what Dion Fortune says, “magic is the ability to change consciousness at will.” Someday, maybe my daughter will, too.

Despite the heartache that comes from realizing this chapter of mothering is closed and knowing we all must enter the stage when Easter baskets become ceremonial offerings of parental chocolate rather than the gifts of an egg laying bunny, I am breathing into the magic that is found in this change.

We get to talk about all the forms of magic that are in the world, from science to love, from the beauty of a sunset to the way a cardinal swoops by your window when you need it most. We’ll learn together how to court wonder in a non-magical universe and make room for those mysteries that still can’t quite be explained. 

And, we have a daughter who has learned that her mother and father will tell her the truth, even when the stories seem prettier. She gets to understand how devotion creates delight, and how well-loved she truly is.

So yeah, she may know magic isn’t “real.” But she also gets to find out that the real world can be magical in ways she never imagined before.

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What about your stories of magic, heartbreak, and realization?
Have you been giving yourself the time and space to consider them and put them on the page?

I think of our online writing community, he Sovereign Writers’ Knot, as a creative cauldron. Over our thirteen weeks together, you’re giving yourself a chance to explore, imagine, draft, and craft some of the stories you’ve longed to tell.

Do Ancient Stories Mean More To Us than Modern Life’s Luxuries?

The irony of launching a podcast when your power and internet are down is as deafening as a gas-powered generator.

This weekend, I continued to recite the new podcaster’s creed “please listen and subscribe to my new show, KnotWork Storytelling” while the power was out all over the Hudson Valley, and along much of the east coast.

As we waited for the electricity and WiFi to return, I wrangled with the strangeness of pouring so much time and passion into retelling ancient stories on a modern medium that is much more fragile than we care to imagine.

But then, we always create at the crossroads of disruption and daily life, don’t we?

Paradox is a key ingredient in the mix of modern existence.

And, if we’re aware of it, we can use those paradoxes to our creative advantage.

We were fortunate and made it through the “Great Icing of 2022” with only a twenty-four hour power outage. According to NPR, residents in twenty-five states were affected by this weather front, and many fared far worse than we did. I’m deeply grateful for a partner who is prepared for anything and for good friends with whom we could ride out the storm. 

The Mystery of Finding Comfort in the Midst of Catastrophe

On Saturday, after the skies cleared and the sun streamed through the ice-laden branches, we popped champagne, devoured take-out, and shared ice cream cake. We had a birthday and a creative milestone to celebrate. For a little while, we were carefree. Underneath, we were conscious of how the luxuries of modernity and friendship wrapped around us the way dangerous layers of ice wrapped around the outer world. 

As with all of the joys of life right now, this gathering felt decadent, necessary, impossible, and well-deserved. 

Has life always been this paradoxical?

Have delight, pleasure, and connection always taken place against a vast, frozen “out there” where the night is dangerous and lonely?

Of course they have.

These days, we know that the divisions between the “haves” and “have nots” isn’t an accident of destiny or the will of the gods. It’s got everything to do with institutional racism, classism, colonialism, sexism, and the structures inherent to the capitalist patriarchy.

It can be hard to have those conversations though. Those words can get stuck in the throat when everyone is supposed to be having a good time. Folks don’t want to bring down the mood by welcoming the worries and the inequities through the door. (I am grateful for friends who will “go there” with me, because any party at my house is bound to include several book recommendations, an eclectic playlist, and a curse upon myriad forms of social injustice). 

But, of course, this resistance to hard conversations is why we have stories. Stories help us explore the difficult emotional and intellectual territory that can be too hard to explore in its raw contemporary form. 

What If Stories of the Past Are More Familiar than Many of Modern Life’s Luxuries?

Back to the paradox I began with: the strangeness of launching a project about ancient mythology and folklore on a purely digital platform while marooned atop an icy hill with minimal access to the online realms.

As I’ve dedicated myself to the idea that ancient stories are medicine for our modern maladies, I have worried that I am looking in the wrong direction. Am I slipping into nostalgia when I should be finding ways to root into the present moment? Shouldn’t I use my skills and creativity to contribute to solutions to the problems that plague the future rather than lavishing all that attention on imagining the past?

I keeping asking myself whether I am burying my head in the “good old days” of my long ago academic career and the fantasy realms we call the Celtic world.

That inner conflict is largely resolved after this weekend.

When we couldn’t heat our homes or power our lives as usual, friends gathered together. We let the kids run wild as the adults raised a glass. We laughed and we lingered. We discussed the state of the environment, culture, and society. We made room for some tears when the difficult, intimate stuff came up. We listened. We created our own warmth and light on that long, dark night.

Our lives are ruled by the towers, satellites, and transoceanic cables that make up our global web of electricity and information. Very few of us actually understand how those work, however. (That well-prepared husband of mine, an electrical engineer, is an exception).

Mostly, we only think about how the tech stuff works when it doesn’t.

Digital creatures that we may be, we are actually a lot more like our ancestors from hundreds and thousands of years ago than we realize.

We might panic about getting through one night without central heating in a way that would make our foremothers and forefathers scoff, but the stuff we know in our bones–the importance of nourishment, companionship, and a powerful story–is a lot more immediate and intimate than our knowledge of electrons, waves, and particles. 

Even though we’re 21st century creatures, we could connect in the most human and important way without any of the modern trappings of life. 

When you look at it through this lens, really, what do you understand more readily: the innovations that makes our cellphones and power grids function or the experience of a 17th century Irish woman who lost her greatest love and then found a way to keep her home and children safe?

On the KnotWork Storytelling Podcast: A Most Ferocious Lady of the Castle

The newest episode of KnotWork Storytelling offers you the story of Máire Rua MacMahon O’Brien, an Irish noblewoman who was known for pushing at least one of her many husbands from the roof of her County Clare castle.

There is so much more to this story, of course, and my friend, the brilliant storyteller Maura McMahon, illuminates the nuances of this story in Episode 3 of our show. This woman’s story is really about love, loss, survival, and sovereignty. (And if there was a murder or two thrown into the mix, well, that part of the reason we’re still so fascinated with this story four hundred years later.)

I hope that you have access to all the modern conveniences to listen to this episode now.

My deeper prayer? You have good friends with whom to share it. 

Brigid: Goddess, Saint, and the First Heroine You'll Meet in the KnotWork Storytelling Podcast

Brigit, with all her guises (goddess, saint, a sacred Celtic blend of the two).

Brigit, with all her spellings (maybe she’s Brigid, or Bridget, or Bríd?).

Brigit, with all her power (fire, healing, hospitality, poetry, beer, smithcraft… and that’s just the short list). 

With all her names, faces, and skills she has spoken to the soul of the individual and the collective for millennia. 

Throughout my life, Brigid has been my soul’s guide. The first time I heard her name, I felt like I had found a companion, but it was only when I sat down with Kate Chadbourne for the first episode of my new podcast, KnotWork Storytelling that I fully connected with the idea, “Brigid is a friend.”

In Episode 1 of KnotWork Storytelling, Conspiring with Brigit, Kate tells two stories of Ireland’s matron goddess and saint.

A Story of Friendship: When Brigit and Mary were BFFs

Now, everyone knows that Mary and Jesus lived in Ireland for a time, right?

A cozy cottage with Brigit in the midst of a long Irish winter sounds like the perfect place to recover from childbirth. Brigit, after all, is the saint one calls upon for all matters of fertility, pregnancy, and birth.

At the start of February, when it was time for Mary to return to mass, to be “churched” after Jesus’s arrival, Mary didn’t want to be the center of attention. Brigit, always a mother of invention, had a solution.

Listen to the entire episode to hear the story of Brigit’s “flaming headdress” and how a grateful Mary decided that Brigit’s Day (February 1) would always be celebrated before her own feast on Candlemas (February 2).

 A Story of Resourcefulness and Kindness: When Brigit Saves a Fox and Outfoxes a King

A woodcutter killed a fox in defense of his chickens. Unfortunately, that fox was a favorite of the king. The king was heartbroken and threatened the woodcutter with death.

Brigit, in her goddess form, riding in her great chariot, hears the laments of the woodcutter’s daughters and offers her aid. This is a tale of power, both the foolish and the compassionate kind.

Is Brigid a Goddess or a Saint?

Brigid, of course, is both.

Irish and Scottish folklore are rich with tales of Brigid. Our greatest source for her stories, including what we know of Brigid as a goddess, are the weird, wild, and wonderful stories recorded by the Church in various volumes called the “Lives of Saint Brigit.”

These stories offer us the entire tapestry of Brigit’s traditions: Brigit as goddess, as saint, who we know through hagiography, and through the oral tradition. 

As Kate says, “If it sparks you, it belongs to you…. Stories are deeper than bloodlines.”

What is KnotWork Storytelling?

On this new podcast, we’re on a mission to untangle our myths and reweave our stories.

In each KnotWork Storytelling episode, you’ll hear a story from mythology, folklore, or history. Then, my guest and I will explore why these ideas and characters still resonate today.

I’m your host, Marisa Goudy. I created this show because I’m so passionate about Irish folklore, Celtic mythology, and heroines’ tales from around the world.

We'll explore sacred stories and traditions from around the world, particularly Ireland and the region known as "the Celtic fringe." Join us as we wander through these ancient storylines as we set out on a quest to learn from the past, better understand the present, and craft a sustainable future.

Every episode reminds us that ancient stories are medicine for our ancient maladies.