The Middle-Initial Problem

Now that The Paganism Reader (see July 10th entry) is in production with Routledge (pub. date early 2004?), the odd little queries from the copy editor are starting to come in. The latest involved my middle initial. It is all right to have it on the cover, but must I be referred to as "Chas S. Clifton" inside?

That's an American preference, said my co-editor, the inestimable Graham Harvey.

It makes no difference to me, I responded, although I do want the "S." on the cover because all my other writing has it. Is it really an American preference? I have no idea. But, come to think of it, I cannot think of too many British authors using middle initials.

Actually, I've always thought that "Chas Clifton" was not a good combination for pronouncing out loud. But I'm stuck with it since I picked "Chas" as a nickname when I was 10 or 11, because I did not like being "Charlie."

'Sacred' but not 'Religious'

A school teacher in my former home of Cañon City, Colorado, is in trouble with a cowboy-hatted pastor (his photo not on the web version) over alleged 'pagan' practices at the school. See how she employs the language of public-education casuistry.

Solstice at the Stones

Archaeology magazine got around to noting the contemporary Pagan use of Stonehenge and Avebury circles. The link will give you an abstract of the article; the full version is print-only.

We're Covered

This looks to be the almost-final cover design for The Pomegranate, courtesy of Mark Lee of Hardcore Design.

Somewhere along the way the word 'international' was added to the subtitle. Perhaps that's Janet Joyce's doing. We're international, multicultural, transtemporal, and biodiversified.

And now a word from the competition: the Association for Esoteric Studies and the Society for the Academic Study of Magic.

African Religions Attracting Americans

This is not really new news, but the growth of religions of the African diaspora attracted the attention of this reporter.

From what I hear elsewhere, it is actually the new converts--not all of them necessarily of African descent--who are most insistent about purging Voudoun, etc., of syncretized Christian elements in order to make them purely Pagan.

The Pomegranate is reborn!

After a hiatus of nearly two years while we sought a new publisher (a process that began at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Denver in 2001), The Pomegranate: The Journal of Pagan Studies has a new publisher and will resume print publication in May 2004.

As the new editor, replacing Fritz Muntean, I have signed a contract with Equinox Publishing, a new firm started by Janet Joyce, formerly academic editorial director at Continuum's London office. The Equinox Web site is not fully put together yet; check it at the end of August.

--The Pagan Studies book series

--The daylong Pagan Studies conference at AAR-SBL in Atlanta

--And now the return of The Pomegranate, heir, in a roundabout way to Iron Mountain: A Journal of Magical Religion and to Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Esoteric Tradition.

This will be the year that Pagan Studies happens at AAR-SBL, a slow process that has been building since 1995, when Dennis Carpenter and Selena Fox organized (and then dropped out of) the first Pagan scholars' meeting there.