Marie Waller is a freelance writer, editor and proofreader based in Northampton, UK. On her Substack, Ghost of a Smile, she writes about life as an elder millennial, but with the added complication of banshees in the background and poltergeists in the corner.

Previously, Marie was script editor and co-writer for the Haunted UK Podcast from seasons 3 to 7. She now writes articles about the supernatural, alongside fiction that explores the strange in the everyday - or the everyday in the strange.

Her article on the heart-ripping lore of King’s Lynn appears in the latest edition of Haunted magazine, available in selected shops and through TGJones nationwide.

Discover more at Ghost of a Smile

28/03/2026, 19:30 - Finbarre: Apologies for the late start - I just wolfed down a chippy tea and got distracted by Blackadder II as the kids were watching it. Have you got a tarot deck to hand, out of interest?

28/03/2026, 19:31 - Marie Waller: That sounds delightful!! What a great combination! Yep I have as it just so happens!

28/03/2026, 19:37 - Finbarre:

Welcome, welcome to Tarot DMs with Finbarre Snarey. Today I have the absolute pleasure of speaking to Marie Waller, someone who I’ve been following for some time on Substack, looking at their work Ghost of a Smile, which is about ghosts and folklore, haunted history, where every day meets the uncanny. And in this edition of Tarot DMs, we’ll start asking questions about that world. Hello Marie!

28/03/2026, 19:38 - Marie Waller:

Hello Finbarre, delighted to be on Tarot DMs and that was a lovely introduction.

28/03/2026, 19:41 - Finbarre:

Marie, before we open the tarot deck, I need to talk to you about my charity shop habit.

So in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, we have, well, we have countless charity shops. We have so many, and some of them are best for, I don’t know, if you want old DVDs, VHS, some of them are good for white goods, but there’s one particular one that has cursed items. When I step through the door, my eyes will lock upon something on one of the shelves across the shop, and it will say, buy me.

Now, previously, these have been things like, there’s a brass hourglass that’s so tarnished and covered in little kind of, that sort of patina effect that you get on an antique. Now, I don’t know what happens when the sand runs out on this, but on top of it, I have a angel figure. She’s all curled up into a kind of, almost into a ball with her wings spread wide out her back. It looks like she’s crying. I’ll pop a picture in the chat in a moment. So my question to you, before we start asking tarot questions, what’s the most cursed, evil, uncanny item you have in your house?

28/03/2026, 19:43 - Marie Waller: Love this question !!!

28/03/2026, 19:43 - Finbarre:

90% certain she won’t look up when you blink

28/03/2026, 19:45 - Finbarre:

Definitely no evil vibes here

28/03/2026, 19:46 - Marie Waller:

Oh the angel is beautiful I don’t feel she’s haunted I feel like she’s just just this beautiful sprite she’s lovely and the hourglass. I love it, oh my goodness this is just my cup of tea! I love this question so much, I do actually have is it a grandmother clock? It’s not quite a grandfather clock from 1911 and I absolutely love it and I’m not sure if it’s haunted but there’s somethingabout the area in my house where it is which kind of gives me the creeps I don’t know why but I love it.

I love how it chimes it creates a sort of eeriness in the hall, it takes me back in time and there’s something about clocks and ghosts and spirits too.

My grandmother used to keep a clock in a cupboard and especially for notifying her of a death so if it stopped she knew someone had died and it used to terrify my mum. So yeah clocks in particular really fascinate me.

28/03/2026, 19:47 - Marie Waller: The hourglass has Wizard of Oz vibes !

28/03/2026, 19:48 - Finbarre:

Oh, you’re too kind. I think it has more Return To Oz vibes.

28/03/2026, 19:48 - Marie Waller: Best film ever though !!

28/03/2026, 19:48 - Marie Waller: Return to Oz !

28/03/2026, 19:49 - Finbarre: Best film ever for cowering into the sofa cushions and wondering sweet dear lord why did you ever rent it from Blockbuster! I digress. So. Tarot.

28/03/2026, 19:49 - Marie Waller: 😂😂

28/03/2026, 19:49 - Finbarre:

Speaking of those early experiences, what was the first deck you ever owned?

What was the first time you ever encountered the tarot?

28/03/2026, 19:50 - Marie Waller:

The clock

28/03/2026, 19:52 - Marie Waller:

Okay, well it’s kind of checkered my history of the tarot. I was brought up a Catholic so I was sadly wary of the tarot. I kind of put it in the same space as the Ouija board which I was always warned of. So then it also had a bit of allure really I suppose.

So growing up I was to kind of counter this more into angel cards and me and my best friend would always read angel cards and it’s really not until probably lately in the past few years that I really got into tarot and I think the current deck that I have is my first deck.

Yeah and I always thought you had to go to someone to read tarot that you couldn’t just read it yourself which is what I do all the time now. So yeah I always thought someone else had to read your tarot.

28/03/2026, 19:54 - Marie Waller:

Trusty angel cards ! Diane Cooper. Do love them …

28/03/2026, 19:55 - Marie Waller:

Current and first deck ! I love them …

28/03/2026, 19:55 - Finbarre:

You know how suddenly out of the blue you can get an earworm, you can get a piece of a song.

As you were speaking there, you reminded me of the song Case of You by Joni Mitchell, where she says something like, I’m frightened by the devil, but I’m drawn to those who ain’t afraid.

And I had visions of this kind of this opening, this discovery that you must have when it comes to all things spooky. And then the spark of an interest becomes a fascination.

So I’ve got my deck here. Are you ready?

28/03/2026, 19:56 - Finbarre: Those are SINISTER

28/03/2026, 19:56 - Marie Waller:

That is so true. I had such contrasting forces in my life growing up. I had my English grandmother who was speaky as hell and loved ghosts and Ouija board and I had my Irish grandparents who were staunch Catholics and you couldn’t talk about ghosts. So yeah, it’s a funny one. But yes, I am ready to go. I’m very excited.

28/03/2026, 19:57 - Marie Waller:

And I love that song, Case of You.

28/03/2026, 19:58 - Finbarre:

The last Strength card of of March, from the marvellous Theatre Deli deck

28/03/2026, 19:58 - Marie Waller: What a striking design

28/03/2026, 19:59 - Marie Waller:

I have this book that I discovered in a charity shop as well. I don’t think it was a haunted charity shop, but it’s called The Secret Language of Birthdays.

It has a page for every birthday and it tells you about their personality. The tarot card for my birthday is the Strength card.

28/03/2026, 20:00 - Marie Waller:

This is such an engrossing book . As soon as I find out someone’s birthday , I dive in !

28/03/2026, 20:01 - Finbarre:

I do love that celestial art style that was very popular in about 1992 and has now come back. I have decorated my ceiling to that theme. What a wonderful card to have attributed to your birthday.

Okay. So thinking about strength and thinking about the writing of yours that I’ve seen, when you’re looking at witches and grief and strange histories that require tenderness and bravery, where do you get your power from?

28/03/2026, 20:02 - Marie Waller: Great question!

28/03/2026, 20:05 - Marie Waller:

That’s a really powerful question, actually. It’s really made me think.

Well, I’m an absolute introvert and I think finding time to be alone is where I recharge and find my power.

I think my sense of self can be easily diluted when I’m around more potent people, I suppose.

And I think it’s just important for me to find time alone, to listen to myself, what I really think and feel, and to give myself space to be creative. I think when I’m creative, that’s where I find my power.

If that’s restricted in any way or I don’t give myself enough time to do that, then I’m deeply unhappy then I don’t feel very powerful.

28/03/2026, 20:07 - Finbarre:

From that seed of solitude come great shoots. How does your creativity manifest?

Do you find yourself like me doodling on a desk, thinking up weird and wonderful things to do tomorrow, plans for next year that go in a notebook?

What does creativity look like to you?

28/03/2026, 20:10 - Marie Waller:

Yes, being by myself really, really helps, you know, my thoughts can’t be too crowded.

Creativity tends to strike at really inconvenient times, actually when I have nothing to write on.

But yeah, I have to get myself time sort of fill up my cup if you like, so tend to reading, tend to walks.

Inspiration tends to strike when I’m around water, weirdly, you know, in the bath in the shower, strangely, even by the dishwasher, is like it’s sort of weird portal. But yeah, I get this idea and I have to use your writing in the notes section of my phone, and it just sort of grows from there. If I write things straight on a computer, that seems way too scary.

I get a bit of stage fright, so I usually is, you know, standing by the dishwasher, and then writing something down in a notebook or on my notes app.

It just just grows from there. Sometimes, sometimes, I wake up with a sentence in my mind, and it’s like it’s been put there.

And that’s like a little green shoot, and from that, something tends to grow as well. That’s weird when I wake up with a sentence.

28/03/2026, 20:12 - Finbarre:

Marie, before we move on to the next card, and while you have the secret language of birthdays nearby, I’m going to have to ask you, would it be possible for you to look at my birthday and just read out a little bit of what’s there?

I’m incredibly curious. So my birthday is March the 19th. It’s been and gone. Had a great time. Got some wonderful presents. And pull no punches. Let me know what’s in there.

28/03/2026, 20:12 - Marie Waller: Of course ! 🖤

28/03/2026, 20:15 - Marie Waller:

28/03/2026, 20:16 - Marie Waller:

Okay, so March 19th, your strengths are that you’re persuasive, tireless, thorough. Your weaknesses are that you’re unaware, I’m awful saying this, stubborn and closed. Your tarot card is the sun. Yeah, so it says you need to achieve your ends and know how to use your charm and allure to help others, I think.

March 19th people possess very pure and childlike qualities. There are expansive types who sometimes give the impression that they are in another world, but they are in fact forceful and businesslike. Thus, they are a bit paradoxical in nature and can appear to others as being dreamy and fiery. Is that you, Finbarre?

28/03/2026, 20:17 - Finbarre:

I couldn’t possibly possibly comment. It seems here that I’m level-headed yet away with the pixies, which is probably fair. And I’m especially appreciating the fact that there is an otter as the illustration here. Yes to all of that, especially to being pure of heart.

28/03/2026, 20:17 - Marie Waller: Lovely tarot to have !

28/03/2026, 20:18 - Finbarre:

Thank you so much for doing that, Marie, and taking a cheeky peek into my soul there. Now, I’ve got cards in my hand for the wild card, which is card number two, and I’m shuffling them as we speak. So can I ask, where is it in the UK that you’re based?

28/03/2026, 20:19 - Marie Waller:

I’m based in Northampton, the land of the great Alan Moore, Bear House, and John Clare. So a lot of Gothic vibes going on there, although I don’t think John Clare was a goth. I don’t know, you might dispute that. Yeah, so Northampton.

28/03/2026, 20:19 - Finbarre:

Not too far away then. So the signal hopefully will be even more accurate. So here I am shuffling your cards away and say, stop when you feel the moment’s right.

28/03/2026, 20:20 - Marie Waller: Stop !

28/03/2026, 20:21 - Finbarre:

The Five of Pentacles (upside down)

28/03/2026, 20:22 - Marie Waller: I often get this card . That’s so strange !

28/03/2026, 20:23 - Finbarre:

This one is such a peculiar, contradictory card. It’s one of help being available, of returning to stability, of finding your footing again.

It’s a card where the crisis is now over, and this is a time of repair. So it’s a card that invites you to accept support and to learn that isolation and hardship do not define who you are.

Okay. With that in mind, let me conjure up a question for you. That is a deeply strange looking card. It’s quite fitting.

28/03/2026, 20:25 - Marie Waller: Yes it makes me think of perhaps outgrowing something and feeling trapped . It’s quite claustrophobic.

28/03/2026, 20:26 - Finbarre:

This is a potentially difficult one to answer as I need to delve into not when everything is fixed, but more about how rebuilding takes time.

Okay, your question is, what does recovery look like to you when it is partial, imperfect, but underway when it comes to your creative work?

28/03/2026, 20:30 - Marie Waller: I do have a bumpy road and relationship with confidence . So occasionally I’ll have a blip with my work and be riddled with self doubt and be a little stuck in how I can approach things .

I think it’s always taking baby steps with things such as my writing . It’s always finding humour . And …

28/03/2026, 20:32 - Marie Waller:

And also I look to other people to get inspired um Hilary Mantel if I have a real writing blip I will simply read a paragraph of her work and I’m just good to go. Not to copy her it’s just that to me her style of writing is like a shot of coffee. It just wakes me up something about the pattern of her sentences.

Kate Bush, just reading about her I’m reading her biography at the moment it’s just so inspiring but listening to her music songs as well music that gets me going so those kind of things help in my recovery… it’s baby steps doing taking things really slow.

It’s listening to music, being around people who inspire me, reading good writing and lots of nature walks and being around a lot of trees. Even hugging trees. I’d love to hug a tree.

28/03/2026, 20:34 - Finbarre:

I have a confession. I like this album so much I have it on vinyl, twice.

28/03/2026, 20:34 - Marie Waller: That was very searching question and I enjoyed the deep dive into my dark and rather odd psyche ! It was something maybe I needed to think about - so thank you !

28/03/2026, 20:36 - Marie Waller: Hounds of Love is her finest piece of work. It really is. It all just came together. I don’t blame you! I have a deep respect for this 😂

I do have a really soft spot for The Dreaming . The donkey eeyores, the madness of it all. Just inspired. And I love that EMI hated it but she pressed on anyway. Created regardless in her own way. That’s what really inspires me.

Yes she’s definitely part of my recovery !

28/03/2026, 20:39 - Finbarre:

Running Up That Hill has to be in my top favourite five songs of all time. Even the B-side, the B-side Under The Ivy is again one of her best songs. And it was just on there almost as an afterthought.

Okay, card number three. Before I start going into the entire Kate Bush back catalogue, of which I could probably have, that’s actually a good idea, a Kate Bush podcast… I’m sure it’s not been done.

We need to go into card three. Which is the Gift card that’s been donated to you.

It’s been handed to you by the last guest, Amy Twigg. She’s the author of Spoilt Creatures and a book coming out called Milk Bread Teeth.

Now, this card. I’m going to have to send you the exact picture she sent me, it is from the Labyrinth deck. Yeah, it’s the Page of Junk.

28/03/2026, 20:40 - Finbarre:

28/03/2026, 20:41 - Marie Waller: Please can we do a Kate Bush podcast 😂

28/03/2026, 20:42 - Marie Waller: Well I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying this conversation - ghosts, haunted objects, Kate Bush and now Labyrinth! One of my ultimate favourites.

What a day ! 😂

28/03/2026, 20:43 - Marie Waller: Is this the junk lady in the swamp scene ?

28/03/2026, 20:46 - Finbarre:

Great minds think alike or fools seldom differ because I thought exactly the same thing. When I first saw that I was immediately given a flashback of the Junk :ady who I think she makes Sarah forget her quest by plying her with her own possessions and there’s something just so unsettling… I mean I’ve got… I will take a picture of this. I’ve got goosebumps on my arm hang on one second.

There we go. Picture taken. Yeah even thinking about the memory of that woman gives me chills but I don’t think it’s her I think it’s a goblin. One of the many goblins running around with one of those little helmets on. Those silly little dudes. Okay I don’t know which suit this actually corresponds to. I think it’s Pentacles this isn’t my deck and I don’t have much experience of this one so I’m gonna apply the Page of Pentacles reading to this.

28/03/2026, 20:49 - Finbarre:

Thinking of “Don’t you like your toys” Argh!

28/03/2026, 20:51 - Marie Waller: It’s quite uncanny how I seem to get a lot of Pentacles in readings lately.

The Junk Lady used to unnerve me too. I’ve, worryingly, likened myself to her a few times - I tend to collect things … could it be hoarding? My husband might think so. I do worry I am the Junk Lady 😂

28/03/2026, 20:52 - Marie Waller: Wow !

A eighties childhood can linger … ( well for me anyway !)

28/03/2026, 20:52 - Finbarre:

I’m sure collecting things is a sign of discernment. At least that’s what I tell myself.

Right, your last question for, let’s call it the Page of Pentacles or Page of JJunk.

What is it you’re still learning about, with hunger, when it comes to writing?

28/03/2026, 20:55 - Marie Waller:

I think it’s making writing a priority in my life. And that’s something that I’ve really decided recently in the past year or so, is to make it a real priority.

That is really important to me because it did get sidelined and I’ve realised that it kind of gives me life.

And it’s just as important as, I don’t know, food shopping.

So, you know, it’s important for me to make time to write, make a sacred space in the week to write regularly.

And that’s something I have learnt and it’s still ongoing.

Yeah, it’s making time, making space for writing. I’m still learning that and getting the balance right with family life and everything else.

28/03/2026, 20:58 - Marie Waller: And also with fiction - I have been slightly apprehensive of revisiting fictional projects because it has an unknown structure and I’m really trying to get that back to that child-like quality of losing myself in a story and letting go .

28/03/2026, 21:00 - Finbarre:

Your wise words of shaping that creative space within which to find that spark of yourself is something that I very much need to do.

So thank you very much for the kick up the bum that I needed to plot that into my calendar.

Right.

We have just enough time for you, Marie, to pick up your cards, to shuffle, to select one.

However you want to pick the card for the next guest and take a picture, I would love to see what you get.

28/03/2026, 21:03 - Marie Waller:

Yes, the tarot pack I’m using is called the Tarot of the Unknown.

I got it last year for my birthday from my friend and I just love them. And it’s based on the animation series Over the Garden Wall, which I’ve never watched. I didn’t even realise until someone actually pointed it out to me.

It’s about two brothers, Wirt and Greg, who get lost in the unknown in a forest. And I think that’s how I feel about life quite a lot.

And maybe tarot is perhaps the breadcrumbs to find the way out of the forest, perhaps.

So, yeah, and tarot is a bit of a journey, isn’t it?

I think it’s there to sort of guide us through that journey. I will shuffle them and I would love to pick this card for your next guest.

28/03/2026, 21:04 - Marie Waller:

28/03/2026, 21:05 - Finbarre: Pentacles a-go-go! The Seven there! They really want to make an appearance and my post-birthday finances are here for it, quite frankly.

28/03/2026, 21:06 - Marie Waller: 😂😂 💰💰💰

28/03/2026, 21:06 - Marie Waller: Yes they really have made a strong appearance this evening . 🤔

28/03/2026, 21:08 - Finbarre:

Marie Waller from the substack, The Ghost of a Smile.

Thank you for revealing my birthdate secrets, for reminding me quite how good Kate Bush’s Get Out of My House is, a masterpiece, no notes, and for sharing your spooky clock with the tiny Aslans on the front.

It has been a lovely hop, skip and a jump through this tarot journey.

28/03/2026, 21:09 - Marie Waller: My favourite song IS Get Out Of My House in fact 😊

28/03/2026, 21:10 - Marie Waller:

Thank you so much, Finbarre. I really enjoyed this chat. It’s been everything. It’s been great. And I wish you well with finding your own creative space too. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a real spooky delight. Thank you. Bye bye.

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Amy Twigg is a writer born and raised in Kent. Her debut novel, Spoilt Creatures, won the BPA Pitch Prize and was longlisted for multiple awards, including the Mslexia Novel Competition. In 2024, she was selected as one of The Observer’s Best New Novelists. Her second novel, Milk, Bread, Teeth, is due in 2027.

Discover more on Amy Twigg’s Instagram

26/03/2026, 19:33 - Finbarre:

Welcome, one and all, back to Tarot DMs with Finbarre. Today, I’m talking to Amy Twigg, who writes fiction with mud on its wellies and with a beguiling smile.

She is the author of Spoilt Creatures, a debut that announced itself with real force, with prize recognition, major attention, and a place among the Observer’s best new novelists.

Hello Amy, welcome to Tarot DMs!

26/03/2026, 19:35 - Amy Twigg:

Hello. It’s so good to be here. And I’m a really big fan of tarot. I have a gorgeous Jim Henson’s labyrinth deck. So yeah, I’m really excited to see what pops up.

26/03/2026, 19:36 - Finbarre:

That sounds like such a gorgeous, magnificent deck. I am a big fan of Labyrinth. I showed it to my kids who wondered spellbound what the hell was going on. And I think that’s the effect that it’s probably had on everyone throughout the decades. It is marvellous. I’m really curious to know, before we get into your cards, just talk me through what the major arcana is like and the various suits.

26/03/2026, 19:39 - Amy Twigg:

26/03/2026, 19:39 - Finbarre: I love the idea that if an unwanted card comes up (looking at you TEN OF SWORDS) you could briskly say “You have no power over me”

26/03/2026, 19:41 - Amy Twigg:

It’s a really beautiful deck and you know with some licensed products you kind of feel like the IP’s just been slapped on top of it. But this is not the case here. There’s a lot of attention that’s been paid to it.

The art is gorgeous and they’ve really sort of, they’ve thought quite carefully about how to apply Labyrinth to tarot.

So some of my favourite major arcana is the hangman, which is Ludo, if you’re familiar with Ludo, hanging upside down.

Justice is the wall of hands, which is pretty striking.

What else have we got?

Judgment is those two goats that guard the two doors. And then we’ve got the Suit of Poles, which are wands. The Suit of Junk, which I think is Cups.

Oh gosh, yeah. I’m not sure what the others are, but it’s a really beautiful deck.

26/03/2026, 19:41 - Amy Twigg: I do exactly this

26/03/2026, 19:41 - Amy Twigg: It’s also never steered me wrong!

26/03/2026, 19:42 - Finbarre: Tomas Hijo has really captured the unsettling earthiness that veers on the grotesque here. Love them!

26/03/2026, 19:43 - Amy Twigg: My best friend bought me the deck for my birthday, and I’ve never felt the need to augment or replace it - the deck’s perfect!

26/03/2026, 19:44 - Finbarre:

I love it when you find a deck that just feels right in the hands. Apart from my Rider Waite Smith deck that I’ve been carrying with me since about 1993, every so often I do fall in love with the occasional one. And the one we’re using today is one of the special ones that I found this year. As soon as I saw them, I had to get them straight away.

The deck itself is by the Theatre Deli and the Theatre Deli have created a tarot deck, 78 different cards from 55 artists in their community. Not all of them started out as artists, but they’ve put together something quite beautiful. There is so much originality, so many interesting questions that these cards pose. I’ll show you the box and then we’ll get on to the questions.

26/03/2026, 19:45 - Finbarre:

26/03/2026, 19:46 - Amy Twigg: This is brilliant. I feel like giving artists free reign over their interpretation of the cards must imbue it with particularly good energy

26/03/2026, 19:47 - Finbarre: The full project can be found here - https://www.theatredeli.co.uk/tarot and is well worth checking out. OK, so we’re in March and the theme is...

26/03/2026, 19:47 - Finbarre:

26/03/2026, 19:48 - Amy Twigg:

That’s so interesting because I was just giving this deck a Google and was immediately drawn to the art on the Strength card. This is intriguing.

26/03/2026, 19:50 - Finbarre:

Not only is the card delightful, but it has particular resonance for me this month.

Because round about January, where I fell over on a piece of black ice in the middle of the street and accidentally broke my ankle. Completely broke. It was like a broken clock. It has been put back together. And this month, well, this fortnight, is the first time I have actually been walking around. So I feel like this has particular resonance for me personally.

It’s that card of inner steadiness. It’s also emotional balance and patience. And I’ve had to have so much patience. And morphine, but mainly patience. It’s that thing of realizing that you’re not being overwhelmed by intense feelings, but you are ruling them yourself. It’s often a card of courage.

How’s March been for you so far?

26/03/2026, 19:52 - Amy Twigg:

Oh, I’m so sorry to hear about your ankle. Oh, black ice, treacherous. But it’s really interesting because I feel in some ways that we’ve had very similar Marches. So earlier this month, I had surgery, I had a laparoscopy to check out some symptoms and it turned out that my endometriosis has gotten much worse. And so, yeah, I had my surgery for that. And so the past few weeks have actually been me recovering from that. So it has required a lot of mental fortitude.

And, you know, like with the Strength card, it sort of teaches us that you can’t brute force your way into resolving every situation. Sometimes you have to be, you know, more ponderous. And that has definitely been the theme for me this month. Quiet inner strength.

So, yes, in many ways, it sounds like we’ve had very similar Marches.

26/03/2026, 19:55 - Finbarre:

I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve had a time of it as well. While you were talking, I put my thoughts together about your creative journey. And here’s your Strength question.

Spoilt Creatures, your book, wrestles with rage without softening it. What kind of courage does it take to let women on the page be feral. Wounded. Difficult?

26/03/2026, 19:59 - Amy Twigg:

That’s a really interesting question. I’ve never heard someone phrase it quite like that before. Because I think it’s so easy to assume that writing rage is itself an easy practice or a gratifying practice. And in reality, that’s not always the case.

I’ve always said that Sport Creatures was written during a really difficult time. I started writing it properly in lockdown. And the landscape for women was changing rapidly. Domestic violence against women was on the rise. And, you know, the violence against the trans community and Roe v. Wade had just been rolled back.

I think the lesson that I was learning is that even if you protest, your voice can be suppressed. And so the act of rage itself didn’t quite feel as freeing as it once did. It sort of felt transgressive again.

In a way that I feel women my age sort of hadn’t quite experienced yet. Unfortunately, I think every woman probably lives through a period where they feel like they can’t rage.

And I think the reason that we’re seeing so many books now about women’s rage is that is our form of transgression at the minute, that this is our rebellion. So it certainly wasn’t an easy book to write. And it felt important to show that the women of Breach House, their rage manifests in ways you wouldn’t necessarily think.

It’s not that they’re violent or vulgar. They certainly can be both of those things. But they’re also extremely caring. They are all intelligent women. I think we see their rage manifest in positive ways as well. They’re very self-sustaining. That to me is more interesting than writing, you know, people just screaming at the top of their lungs, which is cathartic, don’t get me wrong, but not necessarily the rage that I wanted to explore.

I think in relation to the Strength card, it’s a really interesting topic because rage can look like many things.

26/03/2026, 20:04 - Finbarre:

Now, depending on the second card, the Wild card, and the third card, which is the Gift card, we may be coming back to the topic of rage, possibly, hopefully something sunnier and brighter.

Speaking of sunny and bright, as I’m looking at this Strength card, there’s one particular thing here that I completely missed.

It was straight in front of me, and that is the strength drawn from the creature that’s here. I mean, I don’t know if it’s an emotional support lion, but it has me thinking. As you were healing yourself, and you were like me, you were probably with your feet up, I hope! Did you get the chance to get any fuss from your trusty beast?

And, if I can ask, do you have a picture so you can introduce them?

26/03/2026, 20:05 - Amy Twigg: Yes! Any excuse to talk about my emotional support beast, Dexter

26/03/2026, 20:06 - Amy Twigg:

26/03/2026, 20:07 - Amy Twigg:

Those are my most recent pictures of him as he’s an old man now. He’s just 10, 13, but he has been with me throughout the entire writing journey.

In fact, when I started writing Spoilt Creatures, it was in our previous house and my writing room was actually the tiny boiler room, which could basically fit the boiler, a tumble dryer and a desk, what constitutes as a desk.

And that’s where I would write the novel every day. And without fail, Dexter would be at my feet the whole day while I was writing. And yeah, he’s a Spaniel, so he’s a nightmare, but he’s our nightmare.

26/03/2026, 20:08 - Finbarre:

Oh Amy, that is a snorglesome hound, especially as he’s in that sunbeam there!

He looks like a fluffy cuddle incarnate.

26/03/2026, 20:08 - Amy Twigg: Look at him, he’s an angel

26/03/2026, 20:09 - Finbarre: Give him a ruzzle and fuss from me! Adore!

26/03/2026, 20:09 - Amy Twigg: I shall!

26/03/2026, 20:09 - Amy Twigg: An exclusive from me, I’m dedicating my next book to him

26/03/2026, 20:10 - Finbarre:

Thank you, Amy. I think if I ever write a book, I’ll be dedicating it to Dexter as well. That jumper is, it’s precious.

This is almost distracting me from the fact that we have card number two to do. I have the Theatre Deli Tarot in my hands, and I’m currently shuffling the deck as we speak. There we go. You might be able to hear that.

And I’d like you to reach out from wherever you are in the UK and say, stop when the moment feels right, and we’ll see what we get. Hopefully it’s a good one, but we’ll see.

26/03/2026, 20:12 - Amy Twigg: Stopppp

26/03/2026, 20:12 - Finbarre: Huh. Haven’t seen this one for a good while. You have the… *drum roll*

26/03/2026, 20:13 - Finbarre:

26/03/2026, 20:13 - Amy Twigg:

Iiiiinteresting.

26/03/2026, 20:14 - Finbarre:

Now Amy, tell me about your first impressions of this card, your creeping dreads, your initial joys. What vibes do you get?

26/03/2026, 20:17 - Amy Twigg:

This is so interesting because whenever I do my own tarot pull, I very, very rarely pull any Wands.

So the fact that they’ve popped up now is really interesting.

I feel overwhelmingly positive about the card, but that may have something to do with the lovely blue sky on the card itself and my tarot knowledge isn’t nearly as in-depth as yours is. So yeah, I would love you to enlighten me.

26/03/2026, 20:20 - Finbarre:

You know, stumbling upon this card is a little bit like meeting an exciting friend at a party. I have recently got this deck, and this card has never come up yet. And I didn’t do the thing of looking through each card one by one. I only look at them when they appear within a spread.

So, now I’m meeting it for the first time. I mean, traditionally, the Three of Wands is a card of expansion and momentum, seeing what comes next. I mean, the whole looking across the sea is that essence and vision. It often leads into business growth or creative development or long-term planning, waiting for news.

It’s positive, but with just a little sprinkling of patience required.

26/03/2026, 20:20 - Finbarre:

If it carried a message, it would say something like “You have done the groundwork, lift your eyes, and think bigger”.

26/03/2026, 20:21 - Finbarre:

So to condense all that down into a tarot question, I would say, as you stand with your feet planted firmly in success, which direction feels most exciting to you?

26/03/2026, 20:24 - Amy Twigg:

I think the card has come at a really interesting time because, creatively speaking, I’ve just handed in my edits for my next book, Milk Bread Teeth, but I’m also sowing the seeds of book three.

And actually, for the first time ever as an author, the idea for this next book has come to me almost fully formed, which, I mean, every time I ever heard another writer say that, I always just assumed it was nonsense. But it has now happened to me, so I can confirm it can happen.

So I’ve really been thinking a lot about this next world and this next story that I want to immerse myself in.

But also, personally speaking, as I mentioned, I’m just coming out of surgery, recovering from surgery, and I’ve learned a lot of new things about my body and, you know, sort of what that journey is going to look like going forward. And although, you know, like living with chronic illness isn’t easy by any measure, I’m actually feeling like I’m in quite a hopeful place in my life where, you know, the work is ahead of you, but it’s work that you’ve done before.

You can do it again and you know, you can improve on it. And yeah, that’s kind of how I’m feeling at the minute in life.

I’m feeling like I’m standing on a precipice at the minute, but it doesn’t feel scary. It’s intimidating, but it feels challenging in all the right ways. So yeah, I’m very happy to see that card.

26/03/2026, 20:28 - Finbarre:

The minds of writers to me are endlessly fascinating, especially as my brain isn’t quite geared up that way. And I always imagine that when you are creating a world, it must be a cross between a labyrinth and a kaleidoscope.

How do you synthesize an entire book or an entire story? Do you visualize it like a film? Does it come to you in words? Is it like you live it yourself and you write about the experience? I’m really curious to know more.

26/03/2026, 20:32 - Amy Twigg:

I think every writer is different. And I think it’s directly impacted by how you think generally. So you know, this anecdote of if somebody says the word apple, are you able to visualize it? You know, or how do you visualize it? Can you just think of the word? Or can you see the image of an apple in your mind’s eye? And if you can, is it in color or is it in grayscale?

You know, when I think of an apple, I can visualize it. I can visualize the texture of it. I can visualize the flavor of it. It generally means that I think in quite cinematic terms. I mean, I love film. I specifically love horror films. And I think horror is a great way to really dig, delve into stories and approach them from really interesting angles.

And I actually find that I’m really inspired by a lot of horror films. But when it comes to actually, you know, getting words down on the page, yeah, I see it already in my mind’s eye, like a film is playing.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that the scene has finished filming. But it is there in my mind’s eye, which has its ups and downs. That can actually mean that you sort of force yourself into this rigidity that you then are afraid to deviate from because you see it in your mind’s eye and it makes you afraid to change it. You know, you can’t be afraid to kill your darlings.

But yes, I think some writers think cinematically, but others I know will just, you know, they’ll see the words on the page and those are the words on the page. And neither approach is, you know, is right or wrong. It’s just how your brain is wired. And that’s what makes it so interesting, I think.

26/03/2026, 20:37 - Finbarre:

As a fan of horror and the unconventional, you may like your third and final card.

This is the guest card that’s been given to you by Joanne Harris, the writer of Chocolat and Vianne. And she has given you this card, which is going to be interesting.

26/03/2026, 20:37 - Amy Twigg: Joanne Harris, how exciting!

26/03/2026, 20:38 - Finbarre:

26/03/2026, 20:38 - Amy Twigg: Now THAT’S a card

26/03/2026, 20:38 - Finbarre:

Isn’t it? Okay, how do we feel about the Queen of Swords?

26/03/2026, 20:39 - Finbarre: She’s IMPRESSIVE

26/03/2026, 20:40 - Amy Twigg:

First of all, this card is sensational. The art is beautiful. I want to be her. I want to imbue this energy going forward. I think it’s brilliant that Joanne Harris has chosen it because it feels like a gift. It feels, yes, this feels like a good gift to have. I feel like I need this energy going forward.

26/03/2026, 20:42 - Finbarre:

I think so many representations of the Queen of Swords aim, try, lean towards impressiveness, but this card delivers.

It has to have the energy of being self-possessed. It needs to be unobtainable, but it needs to be imbued with wisdom and boundaries above all and a refusal to indulge confusion. Somebody who does not suffer fools. I do love this one. That card of strategic thinking, of expertise.

26/03/2026, 20:44 - Finbarre:

At the moment for Bedtime Stories, I’m currently reading The Magician’s Nephew to my two children. And I’ve forgotten how good it is.

I mean, obviously C.S. Lewis is brilliant. Well, The Witch and the Wardrobe, an eternal classic.

But in some ways, I prefer The Magician’s Nephew, especially when a queen, Queen Jadis, spoilers galore if you’re about to read the book, goes on a rampage through Victorian London.

She, from what I can tell, knocks out a couple of policemen by wrenching off a bar off a lamppost, bops them on the head, steals a horse, somehow has a knife from somewhere, waving it in the air. And anyone she doesn’t like, she just throws across the room. She’s wonderful.

She has big Queen of Swords energy.

26/03/2026, 20:44 - Amy Twigg: I like to think I am reaching the era of my life where I suffer no fool, beside myself

26/03/2026, 20:44 - Finbarre:

Amy, your last tarot question is this:

How do you edit your work with precision whilst preserving the wilderness?

26/03/2026, 20:50 - Amy Twigg:

I haven’t revisited C.S. Lewis since I was a kid, but that sounds wonderful. You’re making me want to go back to those stories. And that’s an excellent question. I think as you become, I think as time passes and you become a more confident writer, your instincts and your reflexes, like with anything, your reflexes, you know, they gradually hone themselves and you learn to trust your guts a lot more.

I think when I was editing Spoilt Creatures, I was trying to think in very technical terms, you know, what was moving the plot along and what wasn’t. And for my second book, I sort of, I allowed my subconscious to guide me a lot more, knowing which instincts to follow and knowing which directions to allow yourself to be pulled in and which ones to pull away from.

It’s not helpful advice, unfortunately, but it is the honest advice that I can give is that, you know, hopefully with enough practice, you will develop that instinct. And I don’t think you can develop those instincts and those reflexes without practice, practice, practice, but it gets easier. It does get easier.

26/03/2026, 20:52 - Amy Twigg: I have also heard, with each novel, the writing gets easier whilst the editing gets harder - and that is also true!

26/03/2026, 20:53 - Finbarre:

Direct and frank advice. How like the Queen of Swords.

Amy we have now almost got to the end of your interview and this is the time where you get to get out your own tarot deck and show me some of the wonderful visions from Labyrinth so pick up your deck if the cards and shuffle if you wish to.

Alternatively if one jumps out, there’s one particular card that’s caught your attention whichever it is, however you select it take a picture of it and I’ll pass it to the next guest.

26/03/2026, 20:56 - Amy Twigg:

26/03/2026, 20:56 - Amy Twigg: That would be the Page of Pentacles, reversed!

26/03/2026, 20:59 - Finbarre:

Okay, so somehow out of all of the cards that you have there, you’ve managed to pull out one of my nightmares from watching that film.

I remember the first time I saw that, and when the Junk Lady says something like, “Everything you’ve ever cared about is all right here”.

And then the, “What’s the matter, my dear? Don’t you like your toys?” I won’t do her voice. Saying those words puts chills down my spine even now. It’s a powerful card.

Thank you so much for that Amy

26/03/2026, 21:00 - Amy Twigg: I truly appreciate your Labyrinth literacy. I feel in safe hands

26/03/2026, 21:02 - Finbarre:

Well, I think that’s the finest review I’ve ever had. I mean, of course, that particular card, looking at it closer, looks more like a silly little dude who’s probably part of the Junk Lady’s family or connection. Yeah, we’re going to get some interesting replies from that particular card.

26/03/2026, 21:03 - Amy Twigg: Thank you so much for having me, this has by far been the most dynamic interview I’ve ever done! Tarot has really helped order my thoughts, particularly with writing, so today’s draw was fascinating

26/03/2026, 21:06 - Finbarre:

Thank you so much, Amy, for sharing your thoughts, your process, and some of those deeper undercurrents behind spoiled creatures. And please give Dexter a big scritch from me.

Thank you for listening and you can find out more about Tarot DMs at tarotdms.com, where guests share stories by text message and see what the tarot has in store for them.

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Joanne Harris is the internationally bestselling author of more than twenty novels, including Chocolat, which was adapted into a Oscar nominated film. Her latest novel, Vianne, returns to the world of Chocolat and is published in paperback on 12 March 2026.

You can pre-order it here

Discover more about Joanne’s writing at joanne-harris.co.uk

03/03/2026, 11:02 - Finbarre:

My guest today was born in Barnsley, above a corner sweet shop, and went on to be one of Britain’s most distinctive storytellers. French was her first language. Her school nickname was The Frog. She used to teach French to grammar school boys and once accidentally lectured Ewan McGregor about letting his French get out of practice.

She has a green belt in jiu-jitsu, a cast-iron stomach, a weakness for red shoes, and owns every episode of Blake’s Seven. She’s been chased by an ostrich, is happiest by the sea, and her favourite colour is arterial red. Welcome to Tarot DMs, Joanne Harris!

03/03/2026, 11:02 - Joanne Harris:

Hello, Finbarre. It’s lovely to be with you.

03/03/2026, 11:03 - Finbarre:

Now we are recording this on March the 3rd, which will have the Night of the Blood Moon, which will be the perfect evening for me to try your very first book, Evil Seed, which I believe is based on pre-Raphaelite art. Just before we get into the tarot cards and all things gothic and spooky, can you tell me a little bit about that first book?

03/03/2026, 11:04 - Joanne Harris:

I think I wrote The Evil Seed mostly to annoy my mother, who had banned horror fiction from my life when I was growing up.

I was at Cambridge when I started it, and I was interested in local architecture. There was a cemetery in Grantchester nearby with a very intriguing grave and that started it off. The grave was a kind of Art Deco metal gate, and it was in the name of Esma Mary Cairns.

I made her the central character, who is effectively a vampire who lives in a university town, because the comings and goings and the youthful blood there is particularly attractive.

03/03/2026, 11:06 - Finbarre:

Was it those days in the early 90s, possibly listening to Shakespeare’s sisters “Stay” that drew you to tarot cards, or did they come later?

03/03/2026, 11:06 - Joanne Harris:

My great-grandmother introduced me to tarot cards. She had an old Marseille tarot pack and she used to teach me how to use them. She had a very particular way of using them. I don’t think that was everybody’s way, but I think she started me off on the idea of cards being both a game and also a magical sense of divination.

03/03/2026, 11:09 - Finbarre:

That sounds very reminiscent of the main character, Vianne, from your new book, and how she learns the more magical parts of life. But we’ll come to that very soon.

We’re going to use three tarot cards today. One is the Anchor card, one is the Wild card, and one is the Guest card. The first card will be the same one for every person I speak to this month, and that will be Strength.

These cards have been created by the Theatre Deli, and 55 artists from their community who were given completely free reign to create an interpretation of the cards in their own style.

So, are you ready for your first one?

03/03/2026, 11:10 - Joanne Harris:

Absolutely!

03/03/2026, 11:10 - Finbarre:

03/03/2026, 11:11 - Finbarre:

That’s a very spectacular interpretation of Strength there. What vibes do you get from that card?

03/03/2026, 11:12 - Joanne Harris:

What a very interesting pack and what an interesting company too. I’m so glad you introduced me to them. I’m a bit of a collector of tarot packs of one sort or another.

This one particularly seems interesting because there is embedded into it the idea of gender and the idea that Strength is not necessarily connected to one type of person. Yes, I like this card. I can see a lot in it. There’s the sun. There is eternity. There is a masculine coded creature and a feminine coded creature but may not be either of those things. I think this is actually one entity with several parts to it. I like it very much.

03/03/2026, 11:13 - Finbarre:

I absolutely love hearing other people’s interpretations of cards because everybody sees something in a card that’s utterly different to everyone else.

I mean, for me, this just reminds me of sunny afternoons in Barcelona, walking down a street you’ve never been down and seeing a piece of street art that gives you goosebumps.

And it would be something like this.

So the question I’m going to ask you based on this card is, as someone who speaks out about author’s rights, where does your determination come from?

03/03/2026, 11:15 - Joanne Harris:

I think creators generally need somebody to stand up for their rights.

They have often been seen as slightly magical creatures who exist outside of money and rent and groceries. They’re often taken advantage of because the passion that they have in their work.

I was chair of the Society of Authors, the Authors Union, for four years. I learned a lot about how that organization works and what it does on behalf of authors. And I realized that a lot of authors are not a member, even though they have a right to be a member. They don’t realize that perhaps they do need somebody on their side, particularly if they don’t have an agent, somebody to look at their contracts to find out if they’re exploitative, somebody to tell them that it’s all right to ask to be paid for the time that you spend and the work that you do. I think it makes sense.

I didn’t know any of those things when I was starting off. There was nobody to tell me.

I think that because I have a bit of a platform now, it’s important that I get out and tell people who are perhaps in that situation themselves now.

03/03/2026, 11:18 - Finbarre:

Out of interest has modern technology in 2026 made it easier or more difficult for writers.

03/03/2026, 11:19 - Joanne Harris:

In many ways, both. I think in some ways, the existence of digital technology has helped writers because given the state of trad publishing and its increasing risk aversion, it’s more and more difficult for young, enterprising, diverse authors to find a place for themselves. It’s much easier to self-publish. It’s much easier to get a market self-publishing, which is a great thing. But it’s also much easier to pirate books, to steal work. And of course, now with the advent of generative AI, it’s much easier to steal work and then to create and monetize work around it, which has nothing to do with the author anymore. But it’s seen by various people who don’t really understand art as the future.

03/03/2026, 11:21 - Finbarre:

Now, just before we move on to the next card on the subject of technology and the creative process, I spotted that you have a preference for using a particular laptop and a particular font.

Now, as a typography nerd, I love my fonts. I had never heard of the one that you choose. It’s the Aparajita font. Is that correct? Which I thought was mainly for the Hindi characters. Just tell me a little bit about that. How did you discover it and what’s it like using it?

03/03/2026, 11:22 - Joanne Harris:

Well, I used to use that one because it was on my first laptop. It’s not available anymore. So now I use Calibri when I’m creating something and I use Times New Roman when I’m editing because I find that changing the font is a vital part of the re-education of the brain to try and allow you to see things with new eyes. But yes, like you, I find fonts very interesting and very important.

The old Aparajita font, I really liked it just because I hadn’t seen anything quite like it before. It was striking. I didn’t want to use something that I already saw in books because that would be for later down the line. So that’s when I used it. But unfortunately, it just seems to have disappeared from all of the font packages that you get nowadays.

03/03/2026, 11:25 - Finbarre:

I think you may have sent me on a side quest today. I’ll be seeing if I can track that one down myself to add to my rather excessive collection, which is silly even though I just write pretty much exclusively in Atkinson Hyperlegible. Okay, time for card two. This is the wild card. This is one that I will be shuffling as we speak.

I’m in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, and whereabouts are you today?

03/03/2026, 11:26 - Joanne Harris:

I am in Almondbury near Huddersfield in Yorkshire.

03/03/2026, 11:27 - Finbarre:

An absolutely splendid part of the country. I’m a little bit biased because my parents live just up the road over in Hebden Bridge. And after watching the recent TV series of Riot Women, I’m going to have to come down and just re-enjoy the countryside there.

I mean, it’s not too far away being here in Nottinghamshire, but the countryside up there is better. I hate to say.

Right, I’m shuffling these cards.

I either say stop or write stop and we’ll see what we get.

03/03/2026, 11:28 - Joanne Harris: 👍

03/03/2026, 11:29 - Finbarre:

My cat Bexley disapproves of this one it seems

03/03/2026, 11:29 - Joanne Harris: Oh. 🤣

03/03/2026, 11:29 - Joanne Harris:

He may disapprove, but he is the most excellent cat.

03/03/2026, 11:30 - Finbarre:

Thank you so much. He’s a very distinguished, learned-looking gentleman in his little tuxedo fur there. He’s an old chap. He’s, I want to say about 16, maybe about 17, something like that. But, you know, he’s still living his cat life, bouncing around like a little rubber ball in the garden and flipping himself with his little paws in the air and his tummy exposed when he wants some fuss.

Otherwise, he’ll just stay well away from humans. And this card, it seems. I’ll send you the picture.

03/03/2026, 11:30 - Finbarre:

03/03/2026, 11:31 - Joanne Harris:

Oh, I like this one. This is a good one, The Ace of Swords. To me, it’s about power and breakthrough and action, which is great because I’m feeling much more inclined to action having been pretty much in hibernation of the whole of winter. So to me, this is a call to arms. And yes, and I’m in the mood to answer it.

03/03/2026, 11:32 - Joanne Harris:

I’m assuming Bexley dislikes it because he’s just ready for another full month’s hibernation!

03/03/2026, 11:34 - Finbarre:

He’s quite a judgmental creature in that he endures my company, but he’s very much my wife’s cat. He is an absolute kitten for her. Now for me, I have a ginger nonsense called Beigli. Like all ginger cats, he just sleeps all day and night and any other time that he can find.

He is the most fluffy, lovable creature. I don’t think he’s ever gone for me in his life. I don’t know if he has any brain cells at all, but he has many purrs.

03/03/2026, 11:35 - Joanne Harris:

I had cats for a long time, but I don’t have any now. So I have a time sharing my son’s cats instead. My son has three cats, a blind one, a deaf one, and a very anxious, hyperactive one. So they’re basically a children’s book waiting to happen.

03/03/2026, 11:36 - Joanne Harris:

03/03/2026, 11:36 - Joanne Harris: Phobos, Deimos and Alecto.

03/03/2026, 11:37 - Finbarre: Three wonderful voidfloofs!

03/03/2026, 11:37 - Joanne Harris: 💕

03/03/2026, 11:37 - Finbarre:

I had to delve into the cobwebs of my knowledge of Greek mythology there, because I was going Phobos. Yeah, that’s one of Mars’ moons. Deimos, again, you’ve got your fear and your terror there. And I was thinking, who’s the third one? Who’s Alecto? Of course, that’s one of the furies, isn’t it? Do you know what? I’m completely digressing. We need to get back to your card. One moment.

03/03/2026, 11:39 - Finbarre:

You know, I could talk about cats all day. Okay, your question regarding the Ace of Swords is, and because it’s a card about truth and clarity, and often new beginnings, I’d like to talk about Vianne your new book and how it returns you to the world of Chocolat. And it sounds like from a fresh angle, but what truths did you want to state in Vianne that you weren’t ready or able to express in your previous work?

03/03/2026, 11:41 - Joanne Harris:

The thing is, when you have created a character like Vianne and shared a life with her, shared adventures in motherhood and shared time, and we have shaped each other in important ways.

When I created her with Chocolat, I was the mother of a young child and so was she, and it was the only thing that we had in common.

When I revisited her later, she was the mother of an adolescent and then an older adolescent and then a child who had left home because those were the stages of motherhood that I’d been through.

Having left her at the end of The Strawberry Thief with really nowhere to go, she’s found her place, but her children have left home and she no longer has the identity that she thought she had.

I thought maybe this is the time to look back on her origin story.

And because I’m in a similar situation, I thought, yes, maybe this is the time for looking back. I think you’ve had to have had a certain amount of life experience to be able to do that.

And so I took her back in time to a previous iteration of herself and tried to understand her seeking identity and her finding herself as a mother so that eventually I can write about her moving on in later life.

03/03/2026, 11:44 - Finbarre:

Your new story features sunny Marseille, one of the most sun-kissed parts of France.

Was there a temptation to set the book there and maybe research one of the loveliest parts of France, possibly away from the gloom of Yorkshire?

I mean, it would be the perfect cure of SAD, the seasonal affective disorder, which I know you and many people suffer from, especially these gloomy months.

So it was a temptation to place it somewhere so you could have some nice holidays away.

03/03/2026, 11:45 - Joanne Harris:

That would have been very nice. But I was writing about the past. I was writing about the late 80s and early 90s. And so I was writing about a version of Marseille, which isn’t quite there anymore. So I had to more or less do it from memory. I’ve not quite managed to master the technique of taking tax-deductible holidays in far-flung places. Perhaps I should have done, but it’s not something that I generally do. I find it most easy to write about things where I’m not seeing them, where I have to look into memory and imagination to conjure what’s going on. Because otherwise, the temptation just to go outside and enjoy the sunshine is just overwhelming.

03/03/2026, 11:47 - Finbarre:

Going back to the spirit of the Ace of Swords, what techniques did you use to strip away the experience that you’ve now accumulated over the years to be a previous self?

03/03/2026, 11:49 - Joanne Harris:

I think a lot of it has to do with memory. It helped enormously that I was recording the audiobook of Chocolat as I was writing Vianne because it meant that I could go back in time 25 years to that version of her and of my own voice, which is slightly different. It has evolved over the years.

But remembering what it’s like to be 21, to be abrasive and at the same time cocksure, but also painfully insecure about everything. I tried to give her a little of that experience and the experience of being pregnant and not knowing what kind of parent you’re going to be and the experience of not quite fitting into your environment.

I think it’s a little bit like method acting. It’s important to look at things that you might have in common, experiences that you might share with the protagonist, and try to bring as much authenticity to the role as possible.

And of course, I used perfume. I always do when I’m writing a book. I select a perfume to go with the book, as much as Stanislavski said that actors should do when looking at a role.

So I went back to the perfume that I had used when I was writing Chocolat, and I found another iteration. That was Chanel No. 5. I found another iteration of it, Coromandel by Chanel, which I thought would about suit the time and also the general vibe. And I used that to have a sort of emotional trigger and an entry into the process.

03/03/2026, 11:53 - Finbarre:

As you’re describing how evocative smells can be as part of your process, you’ve got me thinking that, and this is something that people think that I’m a weirdo for doing, is using certain smells to be almost like emotional signposts.

So I will say, for example, if I’m going to work and I hear some good news or I receive a message that I like, or I see some baby bunnies frolicking the field or whatever it is that I’m doing as I’m walking to the office.

If I see something that makes me happy, I will either reach for a piece of lavender that I have in my pocket or a piece of dill. And both of those are ways of me marking the moment with a sense of smell.

So when I’m in a place where I’m feeling a bit blue, I can just take it out, smell whatever it is, and be taken to a happier place, a happier emotional state.

And it’s incredible the power that smell has. Did I read correctly that you’re synesthetic?

03/03/2026, 11:54 - Finbarre: (My extremely neurotypical confessions!)

03/03/2026, 11:55 - Joanne Harris:

Yes, basically I have a kind of synesthesia where I smell colours, particularly bright colours in sunlight. So at the moment everything just smells a lot happier than it did in winter. I think this is probably why I write so much about colour and scent and taste because those are the ways in which I tend to approach the world primarily.

I think you’re right. Scent is an amazing overlooked emotional trigger and we should all be more conscious of it. And I’m surprised that more people aren’t using it in writing where there’s so much emphasis on the visual and on sounds, but much less so on taste and scent.

03/03/2026, 11:57 - Finbarre:

Joanne, we’re now on card three, and this is the gift card. This is the one that’s been given to you by my previous guest, and that person was CJ DeBarra, and they’re the writer of Neuroqueer and Queer Nottingham, Volumes 1 and 2, looking at the night scene and the community, historically, that’s been here in Nottingham. It was a wonderful read.

Okay, they have left you this card, and it could be better. It is one of my favorite cards, possibly in a way that you might not like.

03/03/2026, 11:58 - Finbarre: *drum roll*

03/03/2026, 11:58 - Joanne Harris: 🥺

03/03/2026, 11:58 - Finbarre:

03/03/2026, 11:59 - Finbarre: The Hanged Man (reversed)

03/03/2026, 12:00 - Joanne Harris:

Oh, that’s a complicated one. I mean, I tend to like the Hanged Man. And for a start, he looks quite happy where he is and especially reversed. I can see his face. I’ve always associated the hanged man with Odin, who was hanged for knowledge. Maybe this is less about knowledge and more about self-knowledge if it’s reversed.

Perhaps it means making difficult scrutinies of oneself and of one’s motivations. Either way, I shall think about this one for a long time. I do like the card, though. I like its design very much. Usually the hanged man looks quite sinister, but this one looks as if he’s got something to impart.

03/03/2026, 12:03 - Finbarre:

I’m absolutely with you on the Odin symbolism, the idea of the Allfather reaching down, I believe hanging on the Yggdrasil, the world tree, reaching down to try and grab the runes that have been left there by the Norns.

For some reason, the image of that always blurs into the painting by William Blake for me as well, of God reaching down, which has almost a very similar pose.

Okay. Of course, we’re flipping that a little.

03/03/2026, 12:03 - Finbarre:

03/03/2026, 12:03 - Finbarre:

03/03/2026, 12:03 - Joanne Harris: Absolutely.

03/03/2026, 12:03 - Joanne Harris:

Yes, I think that’s absolutely right. Knowledge is never comfortable, and it always comes with choices and a price.

03/03/2026, 12:04 - Finbarre:

For your third question on that price, have you ever felt creatively trapped by other people’s expectations?

03/03/2026, 12:05 - Joanne Harris:

I try very hard not to be. I generally tell myself that I’m not here to live up to people’s expectations, but to try to do the best I can at the time. And so generally, that hasn’t served me very well professionally, because instead of going down the formulaic route and making a lot of money, I have generally followed what needed to be written or what I felt needed to be written.

And sometimes that’s caused problems. Publishers haven’t always understood it, particularly not American publishers who would, I think, like things to be much more linear and predictable. But I never said I was going to be that. And if that’s what they think I am, then they probably don’t know me at all.

03/03/2026, 12:07 - Finbarre:

On that, I’m curious about the ideas that you become motivated to follow. Do you have piles of notebooks brimming with ideas and when you have enough, you put them into a story? Is there something else, some other muse that guides you?

03/03/2026, 12:08 - Joanne Harris:

I do have notebooks, but just so that I don’t forget things, and I tend actually to forget where the notebooks are most of the time. But generally, it’s not a very linear process. I have a sort of rattlebag of ideas, and I find that the most persistent ones have traction, and they follow me around until they find the germ of a story, and then they attach themselves to other ideas.

And it grows in a much more organic way than working out what it’s going to be in the book, having a synopsis, and then working in a kind of structural way from there. That’s not generally the process that works best for me.

03/03/2026, 12:11 - Finbarre:

Thank you for that peep behind the curtain. And if I may ask you how tarot has influenced your writing. So as the Hanged Person reaches down for divine intervention, the cards that you mentioned, your grandmother teaching you how to read, I understand of, or the symbolism at least, is featured in your work. I’d love to know a little bit more about how they guide you. Do you pull a card as you’re writing? Do you have particular archetypes in mind? Do tell.

03/03/2026, 12:13 - Joanne Harris:

I think my approach has changed over time as I’ve learned more about the cards and what they’ve meant to different people.

I was very much influenced by Jung’s ideas on the tarot and on the archetypes there because I studied him at university.

I still use them, not daily, but fairly regularly.

And with certain books, I use the imagery a lot, particularly with Vianne’s books,

because her mother uses the tarot as a kind of means of determining their course through the world as they travel. And I also find the images useful because they can be so meaningful in so many different ways to so many different people.

So I’ve used it as a way of a kind of means of insight into Vianne’s character to show what she sees and to try to imagine why she sees it.

I think that as with all really good forms of divination, as with the runes, as with the I Ching, it’s really very much about finding information that you already know and finding ways to decode it. So to me, it’s a psychological tool as well as a tool of divination.

03/03/2026, 12:15 - Finbarre:

Excellent. Well, Joanne, if you have a deck there, I’d like you to give the cards a little bit of a shuffle, maybe introduce the deck and then pull one of the cards that feels right for the next person I’ll speak to. And I’ll say it’s from you.

03/03/2026, 12:16 - Joanne Harris:

Okay, well, this deck is the Alistair Crowley, Frida Harris deck, the Thoth tarot, which I like very much. I like its imagery and I always find interesting, different things every time. So that’s what I’m shuffling right now. And this is the one I’m pulling out.

03/03/2026, 12:16 - Joanne Harris:

03/03/2026, 12:17 - Joanne Harris:

I really like this one. It’s the Queen of Swords. I love the perspectives of it. I love the construction, the pyramidical construction of the card itself. And it’s a really interesting one in terms of the different kinds of meanings you can find in it depending on where you happen to be in life.

03/03/2026, 12:19 - Finbarre:

I had the rare privilege of seeing Lady Frieda Harris’s original artwork at the Warburg Institute last year, actually for a birthday present. My wife took me down. And seeing these in person is electrifying. This is a wonderful card and whoever it is will very much appreciate it, Joanne.

Thank you so much for appearing on Tarot DMs today. It has been, it’s been wonderful. It’s been a exploration of author’s rights. We’ve talked about your previous work and of course, cats as well!

03/03/2026, 12:20 - Joanne Harris:

I’m so jealous that you got to see the original artwork of that. I would love to see it.

I’ve so enjoyed our conversation. Thank you so much, Finbarre. It’s been lovely meeting you, and I hope whoever the next guest is enjoys the card. Bye-bye.

03/03/2026, 12:21 - Finbarre:

As we close, don’t forget, dear listener, that Joanne Harris’ new book, Vianne, is out now, and it’s a return to a much-loved character and a story that so many readers have been waiting for.

Thank you for listening to Tarot DMs. Until next time.

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

CJ DeBarra (they/them) is queer, non-binary journalist, author and historian from Cork, Ireland residing in Nottingham, UK. They are the author of Neuroqueer (Global Words Press, 2023) and Queer Nottingham volumes one and two (Five Leaves, 2025).CJ is also the founder of the NQHA, an oral history campaign recording queer stories from Nottingham spanning from 1790 to 2025.

Find CJ online at cjdebarra.com

17/02/2026, 15:03 - Finbarre:

Welcome to Tarot DMs with Finbarre Snarey, and today I’m speaking to CJ, who is a queer non-binary journalist, author, and historian from Cork, Ireland, residing in Nottingham.

They are the author of Neuroqueer and Queer Nottingham Volumes 1 and 2, and CJ is the founder of the NQHA, which is an oral history campaign recording queer stories from Nottingham, I believe from 1790 to 2025.

17/02/2026, 15:03 - CJ DeBarra:

Yes, believe it or not, there is a queer history in Nottingham that spans a huge amount of decades.

And I was very lucky to be able to find a newspaper article from 1770 that talks about what we would call queer men today, not the terminology used in 1770, in a barn and workshop, believe it or not.

17/02/2026, 15:06 - Finbarre:

When you peer back through the mists of time into Worksop, were there any words or phrases that jumped out at you? Things that you might never have heard before, maybe bits of slang or terminology, which we really need to bring back?

17/02/2026, 15:08 - CJ DeBarra:

Surprisingly not. A lot of when you go back over, you know, the decades with regards LGBT history, a lot of the time, some of the terminology by what we have today is maybe not what we would consider.

You know, it would probably be a little bit offensive. That said, some of the words of Polari, which was a sort of early queer language, you know, in the 60s in London, is quite fabulous and still with us today, actually.

Things like the word slap for makeup. That’s a really good example. You know, I’m trying to think of some of the other ones now, but a lot of it has been lost with the Sands of Time.

So, for example, Betty Bracelets was slang for police. Irish was slang for a wig.

You know, so I’d love to see us bring back some of the Polari words, but I think maybe the 1770s stuff might need to be skipped!

17/02/2026, 15:11 - Finbarre:

Understood we’ll lose the vocab but we’ll most definitely keep the dress sense! Unfortunately you don’t get the 18th century style frock coats on Vinted no matter how much I look.

Okay we have tarot cards to look at today now I need to ask, CJ, what is your experience with tarot… is it something that you dabbled with in your teenage years, do you have a deck with you now?

17/02/2026, 15:13 - CJ DeBarra:

Yes, so I have a long history with tarot cards, probably spanning back to when I was about 14.

I went through that quintessential early teenage phase of getting really super into witchcraft and Wicca paganism. And I’d always really been into the supernatural as a child, so zero surprises that I ended up being somewhat of a spooky teenager.

I would still say probably that morphed into a spooky adult as a result. I do have one tarot deck, and it was a gift from a friend of mine, and I’m not really sure which one it is. I didn’t realize at the time, actually, that it’s considered bad luck for you to buy your own tarot card, so I’m really glad that my friend bought me a deck. I’ve had it ever since I was a teenager, and I do use it.

I do use it not as often as I used to, but yeah, it’s been with me ever since. And I’d say at least once every six months, I will pull it out and do a quick reading.

17/02/2026, 15:13 - Finbarre:

Mentioning the cards just woke up one of the afternoon sleepers in my room here. Here’s Beigli with his “We’re doing this AGAIN” face

17/02/2026, 15:13 - CJ DeBarra: Omgggg so cute

17/02/2026, 15:13 - CJ DeBarra:

17/02/2026, 15:14 - Finbarre: Who is that adorable voidbeast?

17/02/2026, 15:14 - CJ DeBarra: Spooky teenager means a spooky cat!!

17/02/2026, 15:14 - CJ DeBarra: This is Meeley!

17/02/2026, 15:15 - Finbarre:

Today we’re going to be using Frank Duffy’s marvellous...

17/02/2026, 15:15 - CJ DeBarra: Omg love this

17/02/2026, 15:16 - Finbarre: Isnt that the best name??? I was sold by the crow mention, everything else is icing on the cake

17/02/2026, 15:16 - CJ DeBarra: I love it!

17/02/2026, 15:18 - Finbarre:

Now, it will come as no surprise that the first card you’ll receive is the Lovers.

Now, this is the anchor card that everyone on Tarot DMs will receive during February, you know, because of the whole Valentine’s Day circus thing.

So what I’ll do is I’ll think of a question based on your career path and the vibes that I get from this card when I pull it out. I’ll place it on a plate.

I’d like to know what kind of energy, what feeling you get from this card.

17/02/2026, 15:19 - Finbarre:

17/02/2026, 15:20 - CJ DeBarra:

I’m conflicted on how I feel about this card. You’re quite right with it being February. It’s possibly, you know, it’s the only card you can draw at this stage. But there’s almost kind of like a… I don’t know, maybe if it’s the artwork to this, but there’s almost like a death card feel to this one, which I’m guessing is because of the name of the tarot deck that you’re using. Also, there’s a giant crow.

But yeah, it’s kind of giving me both love and death vibes. Does that make any sense at all? So maybe, because I know the death card is not about death per se, but new beginnings maybe. I don’t know if that’s looking or reading too much into it.

17/02/2026, 15:24 - Finbarre:

You’re absolutely right. I think this is a very misunderstood card. And when teenagers pluck this from the deck, they think, hey, I’m going to get laid. When there’s far more at play here. This is the light to the devil’s dark, each one being the mirror of the other.

But looking in Frank’s tarot book that came with the deck, it says to paraphrase Leonard Cohen, everything will happen if only you give your words. And that reinforces the sacrifice which you have to give whether it comes to commitment, whether it comes to a good marriage or business partnership. So I’ll go into the question I’m going to ask you.

17/02/2026, 15:25 - Finbarre:

Your work has brought together hundreds of personal stories from people across decades of queer life in Nottingham. As I understand it, there’s underground scenes, liberation activism. So how is queer community here different in Nottingham to anywhere else, for good or for bad?

17/02/2026, 15:29 - CJ DeBarra:

That’s just it. I talk all the time about how important it is for us to know our local stories and stories outside of London, because so much queer history is filtered through London.

I mentioned Polari earlier, and as much as I love Polari, it’s often held up as, you know, a universal queer language that everyone spoke and everyone knew what it was.

When in actual fact, when I’ve done, you know, all the interviews that I’ve done, I’m currently on 195, I believe, off the top of my head. It was very mixed. You know, not many people spoke it. Those that did didn’t speak it fluently. They had the odd word, which only some of them used in general conversations. So it was quite a mixed thing.

If you look at some of the other major events in history, like the lesbian and gay support the minors, for example, that would be completely different in Nottingham, which was a very divided, you know, very mining city.

Still, you know, the reverberations of the strikes are, you know, felt within families and politics today. You know, if you look at that story as it’s filtered through, you know, films like Pride, which they’re all based in London. So that’s not to say that, you know, all history coming from London is bad and all history coming from, you know, small cities and towns is great because, it’s not like that at all.

It just means that we need more of it, more variation.

We’ve definitely got some things to be really proud of in our queer history.

For example, Justin Fashanu, he played for Nottingham Forest, I believe the first gay footballer.

And we’ve also, bizarrely, the first club to ever have a license for solely for LGBT people was in Nottingham. You would expect that to be in London, but it’s not.

It was here.

That was Le Chic on Canal Street. And the UK’s longest running LGBT bar, pub, I should say, is also here and still open today. So there’s lots for us to be proud of. And there’s, you know, we do have some darker moments in history as well. As all places do, London’s the same. So, yeah, queer stories very much vary from place to place.

I should note as well, I recently went to Norfolk to speak to the queer LGBT archive up there. I was talking about how much of a role the gentlemen’s bars in hotels used to play for gay men back in the 50s and 60s. Because they were legitimately a space where gay men could be together, even though, you know, the law was very much not on their side at that point.

The gentleman I spoke to in Norfolk said, well, actually, it was completely different for us. So it’s subtle little things, but, you know, we’ve all got our own individual histories.

17/02/2026, 15:35 - Finbarre:

When you mentioned about the first club ever to have a license in the back of my head, I’m thinking, “No, it has to be Manchester, surely!” and I didn’t realize it was Nottingham. And I was doubly surprised it was also on Canal Street. I’ve just looked up some vintage photos from back in the day of some of the chaps that used to go to La Chic on Canal Street. And they all have some wonderful mullets and fabulous ties.

17/02/2026, 15:38 - CJ DeBarra:

The fashion was wild. I mean, one of the glorious things about Le Chic was it existed in two parts, quite literally. So you had the first, you know, Le Chic, the original, and that opened from the early 70s up to about 1977. And that was really the first time that LGBT people, certainly in Nottingham, had had such a glamorous setting.

You know, prior to that, people had to go to like the back bars, the side rooms, the upstairs function rooms of like sometimes some really quite, you know, questionable pubs that were in slightly rougher areas because, you know, the landladies didn’t mind or they were sympathetic or they would just let anybody in because it was against the law at this point.

So as we get into the 70s and finally, you know, the law has partially changed, you know, it takes a long while for people’s attitudes to catch up. And finally, you have this wonderful, glamorous, quite a lot of money spent on developing Le Chic.

And then finally, you have Le Chic part two. So when Le Chic closed in 1977, so many people missed it. And there really wasn’t anything, you know, left afterwards. There wasn’t an equivalent. So one of the regulars from part one, Le Chic part one, actually reopened the club in the early 80s up to about 85, 86.

And that was quite literally called same building, you know, it was called Le Chic Part Two. And that was, I mean, what a difference in a short space of time. It was, I mean, if you’re talking about suited and booted, ties and all, Le Chic part two was definitely a different kettle of fish.

I mean, that was where you would go to see, you know, fashion students, you know, very avant-garde. You’d go to see that you’d see Clones, you know, that very quintessential 80s American gay man.

You had butch lesbians and you also had quite a lot of people that were into sort of more S&M outfits. I remember seeing this fabulous one, this fabulous photo of this guy in like tiny, tiny, tiny little underpants and like just chains hanging off a collar on his neck. It’s just, you know, what a difference in a short space of time.

17/02/2026, 15:42 - Finbarre:

I came to Nottingham in the early 2000s after falling in love with a beautiful teacher on OkCupid, if you remember that site.

When I came down to Nottingham, I went to NG1 and experienced it for myself. Was that the next step from Le Chic?

17/02/2026, 15:44 - Finbarre: (Also, the Lord Roberts has not changed ONE JOT. That place is eternal, a better choice than the Winchester in the event of a zombie apocalypse)

17/02/2026, 15:47 - CJ DeBarra:

Actually, no. So when La Chic closed, it would have been mid 80s. And there were other options. So probably the most notable is the once a month disco by Peter Martin, the DJ. And that was called Revolution. And it was held at the Astoria, which is actually around the corner from where Canal Street used to be.

But that was only really once a month, first Monday of every month. Then you had other options. So as you head into the 90s, you have Nero’s on St. James Street, which again has been going for absolutely ages. The same person who owned Nero’s was David Bradley. And the Bradley family, that’s Hilda and her four sons, pretty much ran the entire LGBT scene in Nottingham, or at least it felt like.

Their mother had Gatsby’s, which was the major pub until from roughly 83 to the year 2000, 2001. One of her sons had the Dragon on Angel Row. And David Bradley partnered with Frank Turner to have Nero’s, which was also called Le Mans.

And Club 69 in its time. And David went on to run another club at Madison’s, which was on Goldsmith Street.

So there were other options. And actually, by the 90s, or the end of the 90s, I should say, Nottingham was being hailed as the Queen of Clubs.

And certainly that was cemented when media opened at the Elite Building just on Parliament Street. I mean, that was like nothing people had ever seen before. It was wild. And you have to remember, the 90s was, you know, the big clubbing era. It was the decade of super clubs.

And it was, you know, PlayStation was born in that era as something for clubbers to do. And you had the Ibiza scene becoming massive. You had all these factors. And it was just unlike anything that we have today.

So media opened, and that was absolutely huge. And they also had an LGBT night. So, you know, you had your pop-ups. You didn’t really have anything steady. And that was called Media Darlings. And it was held on occasional nights.

So there were other options. I should give an honourable mention to the house on Huntington Street, although some people will remember that as the Lost Weekend, or they may not remember the Lost Weekend if they did it properly.

And then finally, in the year 2000, 2001, NG1 opened. And that was game-changing because not since Le Chic Part 2 had there been a solely dedicated, you know, Monday to Sunday LGBT club in Nottingham.

And one that really put a significant amount of money into, you know, developing that. There was quite a lot of money invested into NG1.

17/02/2026, 15:50 - CJ DeBarra:

Funnily enough, the Lord Roberts has actually changed a lot. So, the Lord Roberts has been a safe space since I can trace it back to the late 70s, but that’s not to say that that’s actually when it started. That’s just the earliest point where I can find evidence. They used to have drag shows.

In the 1980s, it was run by a straight couple who had a son, and they were very sympathetic. It became a space, and kind of an unofficial one. Then, roughly around 1997, it was queer-owned for the first time, and it sort of remained queer-owned for decades after that, I think roughly until about 2015-ish, give or take.

It used to be very different. First of all, the windows would have had curtains, and you wouldn’t have been able to see into the pub, which was quite common for that era. Also, you have to remember that most LGBT bars really didn’t want you to see into the pub, because it was a safety thing. I know that people I spoke to in interviews said that somebody remembered having a brick thrown through the window of Gatsby’s while they were sitting there. So there was a real safety element to it.

People also didn’t necessarily want to be seen in a gay bar either. If they were struggling to come out, or if it was their first visit, there needed to be an element of people being safe, if that makes sense.

So when it became queer-owned, they very much opened the pub up and opened the windows up. But also, the Lord Roberts used to be comprised of snug bars, and in the late 90s a lot of pubs actually bulldozed through those little rooms and nooks and crannies. If you’ve ever been in the Crown in Beeston, that’s a really good example of a pub that’s held on to some of its snugs and little rooms, and I think it’s all the better for it. It’s actually really lovely in there. I sound like I’m being paid by the Crown to advertise, but they are wonderful. You can still find the occasional bar that has spaces like that, but if you ever want to see what pubs used to be like, that’s the one to head to.

17/02/2026, 15:54 - Finbarre:

That is an incredible whistle-stop tour around what feels to me like a relatively recent period. It’s this rich kaleidoscopic tapestry I was completely unaware of.

17/02/2026, 15:54 - Finbarre:

As a resident of Beeston, I’m completely with you about The Crown, although it’s almost as good as The Pottle, some might say.

17/02/2026, 15:56 - CJ DeBarra:

Yeah, so I’ve been gone from Beeston for a while now. I moved in in 2017 and then I moved out, ironically, the same week of March 2020 that lockdown started. That was when I chose to leave Beeston and I’ve still got great time for it.

But yes, you’re quite right. It is a whistle-stop tour of what it’s like throughout the decades. But that is quite literally what my books are, what my project is. I spend all day researching what Queer Nottingham used to be like, what it’s like today. And yeah, absolutely eat, sleep and breathe it.

17/02/2026, 15:56 - Finbarre:

Photo: The Pottle, Beeston, February 2026

17/02/2026, 15:57 - CJ DeBarra: Very different from the crown!!!

17/02/2026, 15:57 - Finbarre:

CJ, it’s time for your second card. And for this one, I’m going to pick up the deck.

Where are we? There we go. Right. And I’m going to shuffle these as we speak.

When you feel that the moment is right, reach out across Nottingham or wherever you are and say stop.

17/02/2026, 15:58 - CJ DeBarra: Stop

17/02/2026, 15:59 - Finbarre:

The Five of Wands

17/02/2026, 16:02 - Finbarre:

This is quite an enigmatic depiction of the Five of Wands. In the Rider-Waite-Smith, you have your group of figures battling or appearing to battle with wooden staffs. But if you look closely, no one’s injured, there’s no destruction, there is nothing more than dynamic conflict. You have a collision of energies. So often this is a card of competition and friction.

17/02/2026, 16:03 - Finbarre: Now for your question:

17/02/2026, 16:04 - Finbarre:

Did any of your research uncover any competitive elements or heated rivalries?

17/02/2026, 16:07 - CJ DeBarra:

Thankfully, nothing too bad. I did have to tread very carefully with certain things like, you know, oh, one person said they started this and then another person said they also started it and it was all down to them and, you know, wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t involved kind of thing.

So, you know, because I’ve been writing all of this, you know, all of this up for a book, it’s kind of like, well, who do you credit, you know? And luckily, I come from a journalism background. So I am actually surprisingly weirdly not a historian or any form of archivist or official person in any way, shape or form.

I’m actually a journalist who’s been working in the industry for about 20 years. So I am kind of used to fact checking and doing my due diligence when it comes to things and kind of treading carefully in these in this kind of area as it is anyway.

And I thankfully I kind of know what I can and can’t say as well, which, you know, in terms of like media law.

So, I mean, yeah, I certainly if you want to talk about the pub scene, you know, amazingly, you would think that so many LGBT pubs and clubs would be in competition with each other.

But actually, I was kind of heartened to see how much everybody worked together.

You know, often one club would support, you know, say, for example, Admiral Duncan or New Forrester’s might have something on with NG1 in the evening.

Or, you know, they’d have deals on different days. So they’re not in direct competition, which is kind of really nice. You know, it’s lovely. And you also find and this continues today, I should add.

You also find that a lot of the pubs and clubs here, when they do LGBT nights or they work with the community, they will hire, you know, local drag acts. And you have that kind of scene. There is room for everybody, which is nice.

So you don’t really I mean, you know, you could interview somebody else who works in drag tomorrow and they could totally contradict me. I suppose there’s only a certain amount of gigs to go around.

But, you know, thankfully, I think, yeah, I haven’t really come across anything too bad in terms of competition.

17/02/2026, 16:13 - Finbarre:

You know what, CJ, you’ve got a big smile on my face hearing about how enduringly supportive this community has been in Nottingham.

That has really made my day.

17/02/2026, 16:14 - Finbarre:

It is so lovely to hear and discover that you live in a city of good people.

We have card number three. Where has the time gone? I do not know, but I have one card remaining on my desk for you. And this one’s been given to you by the Sunday Times bestseller Lucy Rose, who wrote The Lamb.

17/02/2026, 16:15 - Finbarre: Are you ready?

17/02/2026, 16:15 - CJ DeBarra: Yep!

17/02/2026, 16:15 - CJ DeBarra: Let’s go

17/02/2026, 16:15 - Finbarre:

17/02/2026, 16:15 - CJ DeBarra: Oooh

17/02/2026, 16:15 - Finbarre: IKR

17/02/2026, 16:16 - Finbarre: A fantastic depiction of the card. How’s this one for you?

17/02/2026, 16:16 - CJ DeBarra:

I love it. It kind of looks like a pomegranate… I’m not really sure if that’s somebody sitting over the top of a pomegranate or whether I’ve just got a really weird mind. It’s kind of like a cross between a vagina and a pomegranate.

17/02/2026, 16:18 - Finbarre:

I’m so glad it’s not just me. Also saying this, I got the memory of the legend of Persephone. When she went down into the underworld, she had the pomegranate seeds to consume that unfortunately kept her there as part of some magical contract. But maybe that’s just me.

The question I’m going to ask you is.

17/02/2026, 16:19 - Finbarre:

As the High Priestess deals with subtle signals and emotional undercurrents, when you’ve been researching the hidden histories of the Nottingham queer community, what was it that surprised you the most?

17/02/2026, 16:25 - CJ DeBarra:

I think for me, what surprised me the most and what I really enjoyed was actually finding such a rich history prior to 1967. I started the project in the 60s because I felt realistically with this being a predominantly oral history based project, I’m not really going to find any oral history accounts from prior to that.

What happened was as I was researching, I kept finding all these incredible stories. So I kept putting like a little pin in them and going, it’s not really my research time, but I can’t just let this go.

When I finished the second book, which, you know, the first one covers 1960 to 1990, the second is 91 to 2020. I wondered if I could find enough information to actually write another book. And I was really quite surprised that I could.

There was such a broad mix as well. I mean, one of my earliest stories in the third book is a trans history story from the 1910s. And that’s become one of my favourite stories that I’ve ever worked on, to be brutally honest.

You know, there’s stuff like the danger of the 1950s. I spent a lot of time in Cambridge looking at letters from one gay man to another gay man that are kept there in their archives and the Cambridge University archives.

You know, there was so much there that I hadn’t realised. And that’s before you get into, you know, queer suffragettes, music hall, World War One, World War Two, all of those things. I was just blown away by how much there is.

And still to this day, there’s going to be loads of stuff that is out there that I won’t have found.

You know, that’s why it’s so important that there are so many people taking up projects like this because somebody else with an entirely different background to me will find so much that I haven’t. Iit’s vital that things like that actually happen. But I think I was so surprised at how much there was and how rich it was.

Just honestly, it’s been absolutely incredible. And I think it’s one of the reasons why, you know, I said I’d stop doing this after the after I finished writing the third or actually the second book. I said I’d stop doing this and then I went, well, I’m going to do a third one. And then it was like, well, I’ll stop doing it after the third book. Actually, I think it’s becoming this massive thing where I don’t think I’m going to be able to let it go that easily.

The other thing I was quite surprised about as well was how much risk people took, you know, the because, OK, you can argue that women, you know, it wasn’t illegal. But certainly, you know, you could have your children taken away if it was discovered that you were a lesbian. You still had to contend with the stigma and social opinion and all of those things.

It was just the wonderful, incredible bravery people showed, like the lesbians that went to places like the Napier Inn on Union Street. Some of them, in fact, actually, I’ve just got a whole selection of photographs sent through in the last week that are from the 1960s that show women in suits and, you know, attending those very pubs. It’s just amazing, absolutely amazing.

Again, you know, the men that very much, they were risking jail, medical intervention, fines of all descriptions, you know, that rose the amount of times and all sorts just because they wanted to meet other people. They were lonely. Yeah, that’ll never, ever stop amazing me, quite frankly.

17/02/2026, 16:31 - Finbarre:

CJ, I’ve got one big favor to ask of you before we conclude. I need you to grab a deck of tarot cards and either shuffle it… so place somebody else’s card in the hands of fate… or if there’s one that you have in mind, one that you’ve been thinking about recently, for whatever reason, draw it out, take a picture of it and send it to me.

I’d love to know what it is.

17/02/2026, 16:32 - CJ DeBarra:

17/02/2026, 16:33 - CJ DeBarra:

So I just went and grabbed my tarot cards because I know exactly where they’re kept in the house. And this is the card that I drew, the Hanged Man I shuffled.

And I always think if there’s a card that jumps out to you, that’s the one you’re meant to have at that particular time. So there was one that kept getting like stuck as I was trying to shuffle it.

So good luck with that one!

17/02/2026, 16:33 - Finbarre: Gosh. Somebody is going is love this!

17/02/2026, 16:33 - CJ DeBarra: What’s the interpretation?

17/02/2026, 16:35 - Finbarre:

I have to confess that the Hanged Man, weirdly, is one of my favourite cards.

The idea of literally seeing the world from a new perspective, the idea of taking time to regenerate, to know your own mind, is vital in modern society.

But of course, this is reversed. So this is a card of almost refusing to release control. It’s normally a sacred pause, but this is surrender. This is stubbornness. This is hanging on to something that does not serve you…

.. and you’re going to give that to someone else.

17/02/2026, 16:36 - CJ DeBarra:

I knew it. I knew I was going to draw a card that would be trouble. Yeah, I apologise. But hey-ho, sorry!

17/02/2026, 16:37 - Finbarre:

It’s always the hard questions that bring the best answers. CJ, thank you so much for spending time with me today on Tarot DMs and for reintroducing me to my favourite city.

So when I’ll be walking the streets of Nottingham, it will be a new experience knowing what used to be there. When I’m grabbing a pint of mango cider in The Crown or popping onto a tram to go to Lush, what is around me will be seen with fresh eyes. Thank you.

17/02/2026, 16:38 - CJ DeBarra:

You’re so welcome. And thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Lucy Rose’s fiction and non-fiction have been published by Dread Central, Mslexia, The Observer, The Nerd Daily and more, and her films have screened at BAFTA- and Oscar-qualifying film festivals internationally. She is also a Forbes “30 Under 30 Europe Class of 2025” honouree and a “Books Are My Bag” Fiction Award shortlist nominee.

Lucy’s Sunday Times bestselling debut novel, The Lamb, is published by W&N Books in the UK and Harper in the US. It was selected for “Foyles Book of the Month”, named best debut novel of 2025 by Cosmopolitan and Spotify, chosen for Dakota Johnson’s “Tea Time Book Club”, and became a Goodreads Choice Award finalist and NetGalley’s “Literary Fiction Novel of the Year 2025”.

Find Lucy Rose online at lucyrosecreative.co.uk

07/02/2026, 10:01 - Finbarre:

Welcome to Tarot DMs with Finbarre Snarey. Today, I’m speaking to the Sunday Times bestseller, Lucy Rose. Hello!

07/02/2026, 10:03 - Lucy Rose:

Hello, hello. I’m so happy to be here. This is probably maybe one of the most fun interviews I’m ever going to do.

07/02/2026, 10:03 - Lucy Rose:

I should note, I’m also here with my black cat called Figgy.

07/02/2026, 10:05 - Finbarre:

Please give your familiar a scritch from me. I’ve been abandoned by my three. I’ve got Bexley, the tuxedo cat, this venerable gent who unfortunately looks a bit like something from Phantom of the Opera. He had his tooth removed and he had this big kind of swollen face and his eye was closed and he was looking rather miserable.

But he’s on the mend and he’s eating me out of house and home. I’ve got Beigli who is a ginger nonsense who has, I think, a brain cell, perhaps? And we’ve got Dios who is the sweetest, most cat-like cat I think I’ve ever owned. Have you got a picture of your little one there?

07/02/2026, 10:06 - Lucy Rose:

Oh my God, they sound perfect. I think we are in the absolute best company that we could possibly be in.

07/02/2026, 10:06 - Lucy Rose: Pic incoming

07/02/2026, 10:06 - Lucy Rose:

07/02/2026, 10:08 - Finbarre:

One from a few days back, here is Beigli sitting on my wife’s knitting project (a packet of crisps design from the 1980s)

07/02/2026, 10:09 - Lucy Rose: GORGEOUS

07/02/2026, 10:09 - Lucy Rose: literally sunshine

07/02/2026, 10:11 - Finbarre:

Oh, and he knows it. He’s been my marmalade-colored nurse, sleeping next to the cast I currently have on my leg after unfortunately doing in my ankle… but I don’t know if the purring of a cat helps bone recovery? Yeah, let’s hope it does.

Right. Normally, what I would do is I would open up the conversation by talking about, oh I so want to talk about your book, The Lamb!

But, against convention, I’m going to jump straight into your first card and then we’ll come back to your projects.

What’s your familiarity with tarot?

07/02/2026, 10:14 - Lucy Rose:

I have not a lot of experience with tarot. And by that, what I mean is that I’m kind of softly spiritual. I’ve always been surrounded by spiritual people. I have grown up around people who’ve read tarot. And I do pull myself a tarot card at least once a month. But I don’t think I have that really, really unique intuition that people who are really good at spiritual tarot have. I don’t have that intuition. But I do like the advice that tarot cards give me.

So I do, I have a couple of packs of tarot cards that I’ve been gifted. And I do pull the occasional card for myself and take the advice. But I’m not experienced, I wouldn’t say. And also, I just don’t think that I have that special intuition, but the advice is good.

07/02/2026, 10:17 - Finbarre:

Well, Lucy, I have a treat for you because we’ll be using the Queer Crow Death Magic Tarot by Frank Duffy.

I have an exceptionally nice deck just here. And your first card, spoilers, will be The Lovers.

Now, this is the card that everyone’s getting this season, obviously, with Valentine’s Day coming. This is a card of... let me guide you through the traditional meanings of the Lovers.

It’s a card of connection and alignment, significant choices. It represents union. Not necessarily romantic, something as spiritual as that connection.

It could be ethical or interpersonal. It’s the harmonization of opposites, if you like.

07/02/2026, 10:17 - Lucy Rose: Oooooooooh

07/02/2026, 10:17 - Finbarre:

07/02/2026, 10:19 - Lucy Rose:

Oh, this is so interesting. I really like this card. This card makes me feel super hopeful. Actually, I think it’s. Do you know what’s so interesting about writing is that it appears solitary from the outside, but it’s actually such a collaborative process and like finding a way to create something that is a product of you, but is also actually just a commercial product. That relationship is something I’m always constantly struggling with and battling with, because it’s so hard to wrestle with this idea that something can just be like a piece of you, but also is like a piece of capitalism.

I don’t know if that’s me stretching, but like that is like something that has constantly been on my mind like this. And that thing that you said, like this balance of opposites, like, I can’t tell you how much I’ve been wrestling with that over like the last couple of months in particular. I don’t know if you understand… I don’t know if you’ve experienced that or understand that kind of that push and pull and that thing that feels like chalk and cheese, like they don’t mix. I think I’ve been trying really hard lately to find that really rare, difficult middle ground of holding that my book is a piece of me. And also it’s a product. It’s so hard.

07/02/2026, 10:22 - Finbarre:

Not something that I’ve experienced personally because I sold my soul to the devils of capitalism a long time ago.

I’m sure that anybody who comes onto Tarot DMs or is listening to this with a creative streak will know exactly what you’re talking about.

Okay.

Your Lover’s question is...

07/02/2026, 10:23 - Finbarre:

In your writing, how do you approach themes of choice and desire?

07/02/2026, 10:27 - Lucy Rose:

Oh, this is a scarily accurate question for me right now because I think the project that I’m working on is all about desire and choice. That is such a tough question. I think one thing that I promise all of my characters is through everything that happens in the novel, the novels that I write, the stories that I write, the screenplays that I write, and they all have these safe havens in the books.

I’ll talk shamelessly about The Lamb! Margot is a character who actually has very little autonomy. She is a child living in a really, really scary house where her mum is a cannibal. Beyond being a cannibal, she’s also extremely abusive emotionally and physically with this girl. And so she is somebody who doesn’t have a lot of autonomy and with no real means of getting out of that situation.

I think if you’re writing about traumatic subjects like that, where the character’s freedom is stripped away from them, you give them the ability to make choices through safe spaces. I just think that is essential.

When I think about my own experiences, life, and when I think about the research that I conducted, like all of these people who go through these things survive because of their pockets of safety. Those pockets of safety give this like really, really rare ability to people to actually think without fear, without kind of feeling like you’re under this magnifying glass.

I think when people kind of have the ability to like it sounds so silly something as simple as think and analyze that is where choice comes, and so like Margot in this novel has these safe spaces. She has a best friend at school who is really kind to her she has this other friend who is her school bus driver called Steve who he knows something is going on but he kind of gives her that space to analyze it talk about it, think about it, and I think all of those spaces can kind of help her inform her decisions.

I think the key to kind of writing those stories that are about love and are about choice all stem from giving your characters safe spaces and I just a really big fan of if you’re writing those stories they can be impossibly dark and they can be filled with terror but you have to give them somewhere that is like a refuge, otherwise there’s just no way they can survive those situations

07/02/2026, 10:34 - Finbarre:

I love how in the same message you’ve covered the cannibalistic darkness of a monstrous mother and then Steve the bus driver.

On a serious note, those pockets of safety are absolutely vital. I know in tough times for me, even being in the shower and having just space to think and space to plan ahead has been game changing for me. Also, having time with tarot cards of being able to sit and reflect and just consider the moment. These things can utterly change your life and that was a superb answer. Thank you.

We’re going on to your next card now.

Card number two is the Wild Card and this could be anything.

I say anything. It won’t be the lovers and it won’t be the card that’s been picked for you, but anything else apart from that.

07/02/2026, 10:34 - Lucy Rose: Steve the bus driver ❤️

07/02/2026, 10:35 - Lucy Rose: Totally agree about the shower! The best thinking time to just reflect 🙂‍↕️

07/02/2026, 10:35 - Finbarre:

I am currently shuffling the deck and reaching out my thoughts across this rainy day to you.

Let me know when to stop.

And also, just for fun, tell me what kind of card you’re hoping for.

07/02/2026, 10:37 - Lucy Rose:

You can stop at the end of this message. I am going to tell you that it’s really rainy here as well because it is. There’s a massive grey sky and I live by the sea, so it’s very windy. And I am hoping for something that offers hope and strength, which I think is something that everybody probably hopes for.

Even if they’re kind of like dark things, I just want to know that I can handle them and that I have got this. I think that’s all anybody wants.

07/02/2026, 10:37 - Lucy Rose: A “you got this” card

07/02/2026, 10:39 - Finbarre: You have....

07/02/2026, 10:39 - Finbarre:

07/02/2026, 10:39 - Lucy Rose: Oooooooooooo

07/02/2026, 10:39 - Lucy Rose:

The scariest thing just happened. I’m literally not even joking. I opened my tarot card book and it opened the Four of Pentacles. I’m literally not even joking.

07/02/2026, 10:39 - Lucy Rose:

That actually really freaks me out.

07/02/2026, 10:39 - Lucy Rose:

07/02/2026, 10:40 - Finbarre: WHAT

07/02/2026, 10:40 - Lucy Rose: YEAH

07/02/2026, 10:40 - Lucy Rose: IM NOT EVEN JOKING

07/02/2026, 10:41 - Lucy Rose: Heebie jeebies

07/02/2026, 10:41 - Finbarre:

I was going to say that’s a bit spooky, but I’m kind of jaded to spookiness now.

Okay, the Four of Pentacles.

This always makes me think of, there is that wonderful illustration, which I discovered is actually by the author himself. On The Hobbit, you’ve got Tolkien’s Smaug wrapped around a giant pile of gold.

So it’s a card of possession, stability, and guarded resources. It can also be someone who fears scarcity.

07/02/2026, 10:42 - Lucy Rose: I love the hobbit 😭 I’m such a LOTR girlie

07/02/2026, 10:42 - Finbarre:

It’s you!

07/02/2026, 10:42 - Lucy Rose:

Oh, to be a sleepy dragon sleeping on a pile of goals.

07/02/2026, 10:44 - Lucy Rose:

If that isn’t me. Yeah, I like have a, you know, if to be completely honest, like have such and I talk about this loads, I have such a complicated relationship to money and to scarcity. And I’ve had like periods of my life where I’ve had nothing but instability. And there was like a really like a huge, huge, huge chunk that was so scary where it was like month to month. And sometimes like less than month to month somehow, like I was doing extra jobs on Gumtree to just kind of like get in the way.

And for the first time in my life, I’m genuinely kind of what I would consider stable. I have like a really happy situation. Like there’s very little conflict. It’s lovely. And I have just taken a step that has sort of disrupted that, which is that I left my full time job in December. Like literally my last day was Christmas Eve to become freelance and to try and pursue being a full time writer, which is really hard. It’s a hard thing to do. So I’ve been doing lots of freelancing and I’m kind of for the

first time since kind of having that like awful, awful period of financial instability and like other forms of instability. I am kind of feeling anxious about it all again, I guess. So, scary accurate.

07/02/2026, 10:44 - Lucy Rose:

I’m still literally like, how did that open to that page? Like, I...

[laughter]

07/02/2026, 10:46 - Finbarre:

The question from this card is, when it comes to your creative process, what is it that you hold too tightly onto?

07/02/2026, 10:46 - Lucy Rose: OH THATS A GOOD QUESTION

07/02/2026, 10:48 - Lucy Rose:

I think I’m going to say structure. I think, I don’t know if it’s the autism, but I, like, once something’s written down, it’s really, really hard for me to see it change or see it evolve.

And so, like, so much of, like, the new project that I’m writing has just been rewriting from scratch and, like, really confronting the blank page. I hold on way too tightly to this idea of, like, what something is in its first form, I think. And the project that I’m working on at the moment has been about letting all of that go and just kind of letting it grow and evolve and become something different, which is really tricky for me because I like, I like it when things are predictable and when I can see something and I understand it with complete clarity. Whereas, like, this is, the opposite of that. It is about unpredictability because you can write a draft and then you can be like, I don’t know what the next draft is going to look like. It could be completely different and kind of been open to this possibility of change.

I would say that that’s kind of the biggest thing for me at the moment. It’s been a really good creative lesson, though, because for things to become good, they have to change. They have to be stretched. They have to grow. They have to be challenged. And if it can’t justify its existence creatively, it’s time for it to go. And sometimes that can be really sad because it can be a scene or, like, a feeling that you care about so deeply, but it doesn’t serve this project. It might serve something else instead.

07/02/2026, 10:50 - Lucy Rose:

07/02/2026, 10:50 - Lucy Rose: One of said notebooks which I cannibalise my scenes in ^

07/02/2026, 10:53 - Finbarre: The part of this image (other than the fabulous glimpse into your process) that catches my eye is that sepia picture of the lady with the cat. Ancestor or goals?

07/02/2026, 10:53 - Lucy Rose: HAHA I’m so glad you saw that little photo!!! I found it at an antique place in Morpeth and it was 40p!!!

07/02/2026, 10:53 - Lucy Rose: I simply couldn’t not have it

07/02/2026, 10:53 - Lucy Rose: She’s my little guide when I have my creative wobbles

07/02/2026, 10:55 - Finbarre:

Lucy Rose, I am the bearer of bad news because we’ve come to your last card. But it’s a gift card. This is one that’s been given to you by Bridie Squires, who is a fabulous Nottingham poet, and she selected this one for you. An interesting continuation of the last card.

07/02/2026, 10:55 - Lucy Rose: SAD!

07/02/2026, 10:56 - Finbarre:

07/02/2026, 10:56 - Lucy Rose: I could only ever trust in a poetess to bring me good fortune 🤍💌

07/02/2026, 10:58 - Finbarre:

This card reminds me of Yggdrasil, the world tree, or the mighty Major Oak that we have here in Nottingham. This is a card of abundance, of security, of tradition.

It’s a stable foundation that’s built over time, and often through dedication or community of inheritance. This is a card of what’s passed down, whether it’s tangible or not.

07/02/2026, 11:01 - Lucy Rose:

This is such an interesting one because I often find myself saying this to so many creatives and I always forget to remind myself. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a painter or a poet. My feeling is that persistence always brings good fortune.

I know that there are kind of variables to that like the creative industries is really difficult to access and it kind of comes with difficulties depending on like your privileges and those variables. But I do really believe in just persisting with something even if it’s really difficult. Even just thinking about like the different projects I’m working on at the moment I’ve got a bit of a cauldron at the moment of different things.

I’m kind of really challenging myself and trying to be more ambitious and tackle ideas that I think are bigger than the projects that I’ve done before. I just I don’t know there’s something so reassuring in that feeling of like if you work hard, if you keep going, if you push yourself.

The success, what that looks like to, you know, different people is different. But to me, I know that I’m going to come out of this a better creative for just trying. And I think that that’s part of the journey of being a creative is shifting what that success looks like. It might look like financial gain. It might look like career success.

For me at the minute, that is feeling proud of my work in abundance. That that is like, is what will make me feel rich, I think, at the moment.

07/02/2026, 11:04 - Finbarre: Completely with you on the subject of of persistence. Years ago when I was in a Manchester launderette, this was stuck to one of the sides of a tumble dryer. Stayed with me until now:

07/02/2026, 11:05 - Finbarre: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On!’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race” - Calvin Coolidge

07/02/2026, 11:05 - Lucy Rose: I love this so much

07/02/2026, 11:05 - Finbarre: I digress! Thinking of your final question while the crows outside caw for their morning nuts.

07/02/2026, 11:06 - Finbarre:

I’m not entirely sure how to say in crow “Don’t worry. I’ll just be a few minutes!”

Okay. Your last question is, which values do you feel responsible for passing on?

07/02/2026, 11:08 - Lucy Rose:

My number one philosophy in life, and this goes for my creative practice, it goes for my work, it goes for my professional network, it goes to my neighbours, everything is… a

A rising tide lifts all ships.

Which I think in this climate, which is very much driven by individualism and like negative competitive spirits, I think is really important because to me success, what that looks like is we’re all thriving.

The game is not fun if nobody else is playing and I want to see other people succeed.

And sometimes I get really scared that as a sort of creative community, we’re like kind of like the rest of the world, we’re losing that sense of community and togetherness.

We’re doing this thing, we’re connected by this one thing that we all love, which is like craft.

And that’s really special and unique and it’s unique to the human race.

And so for me, that is my guiding… it’s my North Star, it guides me through life, it guides me through my creativity, it guides me through everything.

So that’s kind of what I would say to that.

07/02/2026, 11:11 - Lucy Rose: This has been so fun! I’m so sad it’s coming to a close!

07/02/2026, 11:11 - Finbarre:

Like a sunstone, the navigational instrument by seafarers of the Viking age, that is a great way of plotting your course.

And this is your chance to influence the direction, tweak the threads of fate for another person on Tarot DMs.

Lucy Rose, I’d like you to take your tarot deck, give the shuffle, pull out a card, and see what you get in your hands for the next person.

Please take a picture of it, and I’m curious to see what comes out.

07/02/2026, 11:15 - Lucy Rose:

07/02/2026, 11:15 - Lucy Rose: Eeeek

07/02/2026, 11:15 - Lucy Rose: The High Priestess

07/02/2026, 11:15 - Lucy Rose: Hope she finds the person she’s meant to 🤍

07/02/2026, 11:17 - Finbarre:

Oh my goodness, a card to uncover somebody’s enigmatic secrets! Tea will be spilled!

07/02/2026, 11:17 - Lucy Rose:

Oh to be a fly on the wall in that Whatsapp conversation! Yeah I hope she finds whoever she needs to and gives the best advice at the perfect time, that is all i can hope!

07/02/2026, 11:19 - Finbarre:

Lucy Rose, you have provided a magnificent triptych of tarot answers. This has been wonderful fun this Saturday morning. I’ll be going outside with a handful of cashew nuts very shortly to feed the crows who have been patiently waiting outside my window and I wish you a fabulous weekend.

07/02/2026, 11:19 - Lucy Rose:

Hope the crows enjoy their breakfast and thank you so much for having me. This has been a delight!

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Bridie Squires is a writer, performance artist and producer from Nottingham. Bridie is Founder and Director of GOBS Collective. Her work spans across poetry, playwriting and journalism, and has been featured by BBC Radio 4, BBC Sounds and LeftLion Magazine. She has performed alongside Holly McNish, Lemn Sissay and Linton Kwesi Johnson, and has appeared at We Out Here festival. Her debut collection Duck on Bike was self-published in 2023 and her one-woman shows Casino Zero and Chaos Casino premiered at Nottingham Playhouse in 2023 and 2025 respectively.

Find Bridie online at bridiesquires.com

01/02/2026, 14:19 - Finbarre:

I have the privilege, nay the pleasure, of welcoming Bridie Squires to Tarot DMs. She’s a playwright, a performance artist, an educator, and a producer. There’s something about the written word in Nottingham, isn’t there?

I had the pleasure, once upon a time, of dancing out of Lord Byron’s bedroom. I’ve collected books of D.H. Lawrence. I’ve heard the magnificent Georgina Wilding perform last year, but Bridie Squires is the most famous Nottingham poet I’ve spoken to so far. Hi!

01/02/2026, 14:19 - Bridie Squires:

Hello, Finbarre. Thanks so much for having me and for the lovely introduction. I’m not too sure about the most famous Nottingham poet. But yeah, I’m very flattered that you would say that. So thank you.

01/02/2026, 14:21 - Finbarre: You mentioned briefly that you’ve been sorting out your house over there, how it going so far?

01/02/2026, 14:22 - Finbarre: An Imbolc-inspired cleanup, the chance to finally put the very last of the last Christmas decorations away?

01/02/2026, 14:23 - Bridie Squires:

It’s going well, thank you. I am currently surrounded by laundry to put away. I think both me and my partner have felt this sudden surge of energy to clean. Yesterday I was cleaning the bathrooms and we’ve been tidying and we’ve had it in the diary for ages to have a good clothes sort out.

We kind of scheduled it according to the new moon, sorry, the full moon, which is tonight and then realised that it’s actually Imbolc today as well. So, or Imbolg, I believe it can be pronounced both ways.

I’m still learning about the pagan festivals, but we’re really jumping on this energy. It was nice and sunny yesterday.

So that really gave a surge and yeah, today we’re just kind of continuing on that.

I’m planning to do a little ritual later to say thank you to the goddess Brigid and welcoming the new energy. It’s been such a long time coming throughout the winter and now we’re getting these first sniffs of spring.

So it’s moving. We’re still in the thick of chaos. I’m looking forward to talking in between the cleaning. Feels quite symbolic.

01/02/2026, 14:26 - Finbarre:

And right at the beginning of the year, I drew a single tarot card, the Three of Cups, and I thought, my goodness, I have so many parties to attend! This will be a gathering of loved ones, a time to celebrate and bring in the new year.

Unfortunately, fate played a slight joke in that I completely broke my ankle. We are talking slipping on black ice and, well, put it this way, I haven’t looked at the original x-rays. I daren’t. They were that bad.

Now I’m standing on one leg with pretty much what I can only describe as a peg leg, one of these futuristic-looking eye walk contraptions. But with it yesterday, I went out for my first walk in the almost springtime sunshine and saw snowdrops and saw the local crows that we feed on a daily basis popped out to say hello as well.

It does feel like there is something in the air. So, yeah, the perfect day to do a big clean and they’re also inspiring me looking around my room. This patch is tidy, but the rest of the house, not so much.

As I’m hobbling around the one leg, I think I’ve got an excuse. I could swap it out for a mop.

01/02/2026, 14:28 - Finbarre: Wait, is that a WOLF MOON tonight?

01/02/2026, 14:29 - Bridie Squires: I think it’s the Snow Moon!

01/02/2026, 14:30 - Bridie Squires: Sorry to hear about your ankle!

01/02/2026, 14:31 - Finbarre: I have enlisted my two tinies as minions and they’re still bringing me tea so far so good!

01/02/2026, 14:31 - Bridie Squires:

I saw some snowdrops for the first time this year too on Tuesday. Wednesday. I’ve been attending a nature and health workshop delivery training by the Natural Academy and spent some time at Windmill Community Gardens, which I’d never been to before.

Myself and a bunch of others, I think there’s five or six of us in total, are learning about how to deliver outdoor activities for people to improve their health and wellbeing. And there, saw some snowdrops. So that was really beautiful, lovely metaphor for the new energy.

01/02/2026, 14:33 - Finbarre:

Well, speaking of new beginnings and a quick reminder for anyone that hasn’t heard Tarot DMs before, what we’re going to do is use a card which symbolizes the month. That will be given to every single guest I speak to in February.

Of course, it’s The Lovers. It has to be. Then there’ll be a Wild Card, which will be a card picked out at random. The third card is the Guest Card. That is one that will be given to you by the previous guest or guests that I had in December. Yeah, we’ll see what we get. We’ve got The Lovers to begin with.

So first of all, let me show you the picture of a fabulous new deck. I love this deck so much.

This is from one of my favorite illustrators, Frank Duffy, who I’ve previously had the pleasure of having an interview with on Tarot DMs last year.

And Frank has created this. Well, you’ll have to see it.

It’s predominantly linocut, I believe. There’s just something… something that resonates in this deck with me. Anyway, I’ll show you the picture.

01/02/2026, 14:34 - Finbarre:

01/02/2026, 14:34 - Bridie Squires:

You mentioned in the Three of Cups is really interesting as well, because I only really recently started drawing tarot cards in the past year or two. One of the first times I drew cards with other people in about a year ago was with my two childhood friends, best friends growing up.

We’d kind of lost touch in our 20s and we’ve really joined back together in our 30s. And it’s just been a really beautiful reunion. We’ve been away together and, you know, shared secrets and dreams and ate together. It’s been really lovely going on walks together. And I was with these two friends, Kim and Misha, and the three of cups came out and it just felt so important. These, you know, three, the three of us and joining back together and, and friendship and companionship. And yeah, that’s what’s being thrown up for me when you mentioned the Three of Cups.

01/02/2026, 14:35 - Finbarre: This is Frank Duffy’s Queer Crow Death Magic indie linoprinted tarot deck and is found here - https://shop.frankduffy.co.uk/franks-slow-burn-tarot-deck-kickstarter/

01/02/2026, 14:35 - Bridie Squires: Beautiful!

01/02/2026, 14:35 - Bridie Squires: My partner and I just got engaged 😍

01/02/2026, 14:36 - Finbarre: WHAT

01/02/2026, 14:36 - Finbarre: WHAT WHAT!

01/02/2026, 14:36 - Finbarre:

Oh my goodness, congratulations!

01/02/2026, 14:36 - Bridie Squires: In November 😁

We just had our Engagement Party last week ❤️🎈

01/02/2026, 14:36 - Bridie Squires: Thanks so much!

01/02/2026, 14:37 - Finbarre:

Not only is that amazing news, but of course, you’ve got your old friendships coming together as well. It sounds like 2026 is going to be a fabulous year!

Yes, I think, unfortunately, my Three of Cups was representing the care and the support and the incredible people around me, plus possibly some really good drugs.

Anyway, as this is The Lover’s card, I’m going to think of a question based on your creative path, your creative journey, and we’ll see what comes up.

01/02/2026, 14:38 - Bridie Squires:

I love the energy of the card you showed. I feel like it’s a crow sharing this beam of energy. Just interesting that you mentioned the crows earlier and feeding the crows and spending time with the crows. They’re so wise.

I just feel like it’s really an amazing time for me and my partner. It’s an engagement, it’s just really injected great energy into our ways of being as individuals and with each other. We’re pretty much set a date or we have set a date for a wedding.

We’re maybe hoping to do it this year, but just makes a bit more sense financially and not to rush things to do it next year.

So we’re looking at around Beltane next year. So again, that feeling of spring and the energy of the sun coming and we’re sort of, it’s going to be the week after Beltane and we’re positioning everything around the new moon. So all the symbolism you could ask for!

01/02/2026, 14:39 - Bridie Squires: Great, looking forward to questions 😁

01/02/2026, 14:40 - Finbarre:

A perfect powerhouse of pagan energy.

Okay, for the lovers, I would like you to think about your poetry and tell me how you explore intimacy or connection in your poetry, bearing in mind that complete strangers will be reading it.

01/02/2026, 14:44 - Bridie Squires:

Hmm. It’s a really interesting question and something that can throw up all kinds of feelings in the process of writing from a place of intimacy. I think ultimately I’m trying to be honest or dig down into what I’m really thinking and feeling and, you know, reflecting on memories, holding them up to the light, playing around with them, putting them back together again.

I think there are ways that you kind of naturally not hide behind, but make sure that, you know, things aren’t too exposing, kind of comes with the territory of playing with whatever source material you’re working with.

I’ve written a pamphlet recently in collaboration with Gobbs Collective. We all, there were 16 of us that went on a writing retreat in the countryside and went through a process of creating our own individual 16, our own individual 24 page pamphlets.

And I was really wanting to explore the topic of violence and women’s relationship with violence. And there were some quite, I guess, exposing things in there that can be related to intimacy. But there’s also these really like tender moments. So, you know, there’s really beautiful moments of intimacy that are a bit more just narrative led and they are what they are.

They’re a snippet in a window into, you know, a moment that my partner handed me a soda and lime at the bar, like before I’d even asked for it. You know, there’s just beautiful little moments. So, yeah, I think there’s a spectrum of intimacy.

We have to be careful as well, not to overexpose ourselves in these. Everybody can read that after. So it’s a tricky line to tread and there’s always space for things that people never read as well. I’m really interested in getting out all of those things that you might not, you might be afraid to say.

That’s, I think, where some of the magic lies. And actually in sharing those things, you find that a lot of people, people really connect with you and that’s where you might find a laugh or, you know, a real sense of connection with somebody. Even if you’re on the stage and they’re in the audience.

01/02/2026, 14:49 - Finbarre:

This morning, I had my own lime-flavoured moment of connection where my mother-in-law had, completely without my knowledge, left us a small pot of lime-flavoured marmalade. They’d been stashed away in the cupboard, didn’t know anything about it. I pulled it out this morning like it was manna of the gods. It tasted so good!

Going back to what you were saying about working with the Gobs Collective, it sounds very much like a place of safety, a place where you were able to go through these very difficult feelings and experiences. It sounds like a process of catharsis or renewal. Shaped those into words. Could you tell me more about the Gobs Collective?

01/02/2026, 14:54 - Bridie Squires:

Yeah, so I founded Gobs Collective about five years ago now, just entered our sixth year with support from Lonely Smallhorne. It was really off the back of a writing residency that I had at NTU, Nottingham Trent University. It was kind of born out of a want and a need to reinstigate some fire into the Nottingham spoken word scene following the disbandment of Mouthy Poets, which was quite a few years before I started Gobs.

Mouthy Poets was a group based at Nottingham Playhouse. I was a member there for two, three years or something and got to go on lots of, got to take part in lots of opportunities for development.

I didn’t really know that spoken word or poetry was something that I could do, but was secretly doing in my room and found a big group of people that were also into poetry and none of my friends were really into that.

I was kind of flying solo and suddenly found a tribe. And when that disbanded, I had a vague ambition to start a new collective one day.

The opportunity presented itself off the back of that writing residency at NTU. And it’s just grown into something that I could never have even imagined. So we’ve run spoken word education programs over the past five years. And we do lots of sort of satellite activity around that.

Like we do our Gobs Poetry Book Club, where we discuss poems, read poems out and do writing activities based off particular collections. We do quarterly meetups that can range from our winter warm up, where we gather to share news and food.

And we also do outdoor creative writing workshops in summer for our summer saunter.

So, yeah, it’s a really beautiful community of people, which I’m so, so proud to lead.

We’re entering a really interesting next phase to kind of morph into something that’s truly collective led rather than myself making all the decisions and programming. I mean, obviously, I’m always asking the collective what they want and need. But I’m just, yeah, we’re interested in looking at what’s the next step. It’s getting quite big now. So it’ll be really interesting to get help in managing the thing.

We really wanted to inject some vibrancy into the spoken word scene and potentially even improve the quality and the education opportunities that are available to people that aren’t necessarily an academic route. We’ve done that and then some.

What I really couldn’t have imagined was the community and the friendships and, you know, that have stemmed from Gobs. It’s incredible and just a beautiful bunch of people.

01/02/2026, 14:55 - Bridie Squires: P.S. lime-flavoured marmalade sounds amazing

01/02/2026, 14:57 - Finbarre:

(Just looking at this picture gives you an idea of the tartness! Gloriously sour)

01/02/2026, 14:57 - Bridie Squires: Looks intense

01/02/2026, 15:00 - Finbarre:

As you were describing, Gobs, I was beaming at the thought of a project that is that far-reaching and has that longevity of inspiring people from, say, Wollaton or Bulwell or St. Anne’s or wherever they come from. That’s such a brilliant idea.

Okay, going to move on to card number two and this is your Wild Card.

This could be anything… I would say anything. It will be not the lovers or the mystery final card, but something in between. When you feel like the moment is right, just say stop or write it and I’ll stop shuffling these cards.

01/02/2026, 15:00 - Bridie Squires: Stop!

01/02/2026, 15:01 - Finbarre: As you typed that, one card jumped out like it wanted to be seen. One moment...

01/02/2026, 15:02 - Finbarre:

01/02/2026, 15:04 - Bridie Squires: Oh wow! I always feel a little uneasy when the swords come out 😅

01/02/2026, 15:04 - Bridie Squires: But I tell myself it’s more complex than a simple positive/negative

01/02/2026, 15:05 - Finbarre:

Ah we were doing so well. Of course, the Seven of Swords in the traditional Rider Waite is a card of stealth and strategy. It often has a figure cartoon-like tiptoeing away from a campsite, clutching an armful of swords. It’s a card of calculated moves or the use of intellect.

I’m just having a quick look in Frank’s tarot book for the definitions of these cards here, just to add in Frank’s own flavour. And they’ve put that defeat is threatened from forces working in the dark. These are just as likely to be your own self-sabotaging as they are external threats to your safety. So, rather a perilous one. Let’s think of a good question.

01/02/2026, 15:07 - Bridie Squires:

01/02/2026, 15:07 - Bridie Squires:

01/02/2026, 15:07 - Bridie Squires:

01/02/2026, 15:07 - Finbarre:

Yeah, let’s go with innovation, shall we? Right… What unorthodox or secret creative methods do you use? And have they ever backfired?

01/02/2026, 15:14 - Bridie Squires:

So this is making me think about motivation in creating an ongoing creative practice for myself.

At the back end of, I think it was around 2024 or middle of 2024, I launched the GOBS Sunrise Sessions, which was ultimately a way for me to offer a sense of accountability for myself. What it was, was a 6am till 6.30am ritual in which people could join on Zoom. So the ritual consisted of a short time meditating, just finding a sense of stillness, moving on to a free write, a 10 minute free write, just letting whatever wants to come out, come out. Then we moved on to intention setting based on the mood cycle. So these practices aren’t necessarily unorthodox in themselves. A lot of them are quite common.

I think what at the time I felt was quite clever and a way that I’d finally managed to hack getting up early in the morning, which was ultimately the intention.

I wanted to find that sense of stillness in the morning and greet the day with a kind of ritual sense of rhythm. They felt like good general practices for my well-being.

So I’ve been running the Sunrise Sessions on and off for a couple of years now. Just recently this year, I was thinking about relaunching them again but something really fell off with them at the back end of last year.

I’m really privileged to work with Sarah Wheatley, who’s another member of GOBS Collective. A lot of the time for Sunrise Sessions, it’s just been me and Sarah. Although sometimes we’ve had up to, you know, six, seven people joining us for that shared ritual.

But in working with Sarah and enjoying this practice together, Sarah became a great person that I could rely on to maybe lead the Sunrise Sessions when it wasn’t available for me. Yeah, we started collaborating on it.

I was just having a really, a downward turn at the back end of last year, entering into the winter and something just fell off for me. At the beginning of this year, I started to realize that actually that practice of relying on the accountability for that ritual, while productive, is maybe rooted in fear slightly. So at the beginning of this year, I’ve just started doing some meditation with a candle.

And just doing it as and when and offering a sense of kindness and just not too much pressure onto myself and greeting the free writing process as a bit more slow and less of a kind of timed 10 minute energy, which has definitely got its benefits. I’ve just been experimenting with that at the moment. I guess it’s not just a creative practice, but it’s also a well-being practice.

I think that was the thing that came to mind when thinking about unorthodox methods and a sense of backfiring. You know, I sort of thought I’d cracked it for a while with the Sunrise Session, but it doesn’t always work. We have these ebbs and flows in life and there’s a beautiful sense of it being ritualistic.

But could that have potentially been a bit militarized in some ways?

Maybe that’s why it wasn’t sustainable.

01/02/2026, 15:21 - Finbarre:

I benefit so much from that type of not only discipline, not only habit forming, but deciding how you’re going to shape the perspective of your day. As you say, that creative practice that you’ve described is… it makes me think that along with Gobs, you like to approach different parts of your life with, it sounds like sheer determination. It sounds like, “I know what is going to be best here. I’m going to make this happen”

And throughout what you’ve been telling me so far, that seems to be a recurring theme. If any of these sessions happen again, I would very much love to be involved as a participant. I really need to dust off my pens and paper and get back to writing some poetry, I think.

Okay, we have the third card. Now, your third card is the Guest Card that was given to you at the end of last year. And I spoke to two people from the US, Paulina Stevens and Jezmina von Thiele. And they wrote a book of the secrets of Romany fortune telling, which is currently available. They gave you a particular card to start the year off with.

01/02/2026, 15:23 - Bridie Squires: You’re so welcome to join us at any point! Everything we have coming up is always at https://gobscollective.org/events

01/02/2026, 15:24 - Finbarre:

01/02/2026, 15:24 - Bridie Squires: Thinking of experimenting with GOBS Sunset Sessions soon. Nice up the bedtime routine.

01/02/2026, 15:25 - Finbarre:

I just saw that little heart symbol you put next to the Judgment card, or in this case, the Last Judgment. Out of interest, what does that say to you?

01/02/2026, 15:29 - Bridie Squires:

It’s throwing up a few things for me.

I’m kind of just looking at the imagery of the card with the beautiful, the illustrations on these cards. I’m seeing it as a pair of hands holding the sun, really the combination of the hands and the sun, giving rise to this wonderful symbol at the top of wings and heart.

I’ve been thinking a lot about, I mean, it’s interesting we’re doing this today on full moon, Imbolc, I believe it’s the first day of the Chinese New Year, the year of the fire horse. And just thinking about, yeah, the Last Judgment.

It’s time to just stop judging self and moving forward with more kindness.

I think holding that light that sits within us, not being ashamed, knowing that, you know, I’ve been around for a significant amount of time now and I have some confidence in myself and my abilities to hold space and create.

I guess it’s just time to take a little step back.

I think I’ve been in, you know, just going at it for so long.

You know, I was talking about the kind of imagery of a duck flapping its legs under the water and you kind of just see the stillness on top but in the background, there’s just been so much work.

I’m very privileged to be at a time in my life now where I think I can not scramble around for freelance work and, you know, just making sure that obviously there needs to be money coming through as well. But yeah, I feel like I can just take a bit of a breath out this year and try and focus on rest and stillness and health and well-being and spending time in nature.

I’ve traditionally written lots of lists of goals and I still do that. I think it’s important to do that.

Over time recently, these ambitions and things to manifest have sort of just simmered down to something quite calming. You know, they’re a bit more straightforward now. It’s like… spend more time in nature, make sure I’m moving my body every day, you know, try something new with poetry.

I think it’s about not needing to have that sense of ambition, cloud everything else and prioritise friends and family and being part of the community.

01/02/2026, 15:32 - Bridie Squires: Time to sit back and enjoy!

01/02/2026, 15:33 - Bridie Squires: Which is a fight in itself in today’s society 😅

01/02/2026, 15:34 - Finbarre:

And this is why one of my favourite poems of yours is, “On Fridays, I Take The Scenic Route”

Can I be incredibly cheeky and ask you to read it out?

01/02/2026 15:34 - Bridie Squires: Yeah no problem!

01/02/2026, 15:34 - Bridie Squires: Thanks for saying that - I like that one too ❤️

01/02/2026, 15:37 - Bridie Squires:

Through the Arboretum,
nod to tired pigeons
wearing face masks,
the squirrels gripping placards.

Burnt oak leaves disperse
in a childish scatter across tramlines,
clicking their heels in the low sunlight; confetti
celebrating the end of this 2020 summer.

Until next time, you jammy bastards.
With your lack of shits
about when you’ll re-emerge green.

I receive a text:
‘I’m not sure if we’re allowed.
What’s plan B?’

When my headphone music dies,
the muffled blast of autumn
pushes its way over Forest Rec.

Peppered with the glare of six crows,
it breathes:
‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’

01/02/2026, 15:41 - Finbarre:

There are parts of your poem that feel like yesterday, and I look at my calendar and I realize that they were over five years ago.

That takes me to your question.

For the Last Judgment, I would like to know, when you revisit your earliest work, who is it you see?

01/02/2026, 15:44 - Bridie Squires:

I see someone hungry, someone confused, someone that doubted themselves, someone that stayed up till four o’clock in the morning to get an entry into a competition.

I see someone who had a broken heart, someone that was just trying to work it all out, just trying to get by, someone that was lonely, someone that found a family and a tribe.

I see someone that inspired other people and was starting to realise it.

I see someone had some luck but also worked hard and had a good heart in creating and bringing people together and someone trying to have a good time.

01/02/2026, 15:46 - Finbarre: Closing the circle there beautifully and I have to ask, what was the competition that had you up all night?

01/02/2026, 15:47 - Bridie Squires: The Young Creative Awards! 😅

01/02/2026, 15:47 - Bridie Squires: Thank you so much!

01/02/2026, 15:48 - Finbarre:

I just did a super quick Google about the Young Creative Awards and one of the first things that came up was unexpected.

So I can see there’s a creative workshop and there’s a picture of your good self and it says “animal rap battles with Bridie Squires” Could you, can you explain what an animal rap battle is? I’m dying to know.

01/02/2026, 15:49 - Bridie Squires: 😂😂😂

01/02/2026, 15:49 - Finbarre: Whatever that chaos is, the idea sounds AMAZING

01/02/2026, 15:52 - Bridie Squires:

So that was an amazingly fun workshop, which I really want to do again, actually. But just to say that Young Creatives Nottingham, who run the Young Creative Awards, have been really supportive to me over the years.

After I won the award for the creative writing category for 19 to 24 year olds, many, many moons ago now, they were there as an organisation… they’re really interested in creating this kind of pipeline of opportunity for young people.

They offered me the opportunity to deliver workshops. I’ve delivered spoken word education programmes in collaboration with them. GOBS have collaborated with them recently. I was actually a producer for them for about six months.

When I was a producer, I produced a series of workshops for people that have engaged with the Young Creative Awards and also went out into schools. I went to Bluecoat, Aspley, and worked with a bunch of year nines there.

Got a big box of Beanie Babies in my attic, which were previously owned by my grandparents. Gave all the kids a Beanie Babies each.

Well, before this, it talked a little bit about the history of battle rap to give a bit of context and, you know, a bit of homage to the culture that battle rap emerged from. Hip hop culture. I’ve taken, I’ve taken part in a few acapella rap battles over the years, a handful of rap battles and just really enjoyed writing them.

It’s like writing rhyming jokes, basically. They’re really, really fun to write.

So I gave all these kids a Beanie Baby each and got them to create, just to write down any words that they could think of to, that were to do with their Beanie Baby.

They had a word bank to work from and then we talked about constructing a joke.

We had a mini rap battle of rap battle rounds between a rhino and a flamingo, etc, etc.

So, yeah, really good fun. I’m really keen to do that again sometime. Watch this space.

01/02/2026, 15:55 - Finbarre:

I love how blithely you mentioned, oh, a rap battle between a rhino and a flamingo.

You are going to have to rerun this. I would love to hear the outcome!

Anyway, we need to finish up with the Guest Card passed on to the next interview. For that, grab yourself your deck, shuffle the cards. Or if there’s a particular card that speaks to you, wants to make itself known, or if you’re just feeling really evil and you want to pull out the nastiest card in the deck, just to pass it on, whatever comes to you. That will be the card that’s donated from Bridie Squires to the next person that I speak to. I’m curious to find out what you pull out, and if you could take a picture of it, all the better.

01/02/2026, 15:57 - Bridie Squires:

01/02/2026, 15:57 - Bridie Squires: Ballin.

01/02/2026, 15:58 - Bridie Squires:

01/02/2026, 15:59 - Finbarre: Finishing with a card of legacy? Apt!

01/02/2026, 16:00 - Finbarre:

Bridie Squires, thank you so much for being my first guest for 2026 for Tarot DMs. It has been an eye-opener thinking about animal rap battles and hearing about your engagement and all of the wonderful things that you’ve brought to this interview, plus getting to hear your recital before as well. I hope you have a fabulous rest of your Sunday and yeah, you’ll see me at one of the Gobs Collective events very soon.

01/02/2026, 16:01 - Bridie Squires:

Thank you so much. It’s been a real pleasure and a privilege. I’m really blessed to have been invited to take part in this and what an interesting, beautiful format and an opportunity to connect and express. So thank you so much, Finbarre.

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Rooted in a Muchwaya Romani heritage of fortune-telling and healing, Paulina (she/her) has blended ancestral wisdom with modern holistic practices. Her expertise in tarot, palmistry, and energy healing forms the foundation of her comprehensive wellness coaching. Paulina serves clients globally, offering personalized guidance incorporating spirituality, herbalism, and fortune-telling online, and at her California-based private practice, Romani Holistic. Paulina is the subject of the L.A. Times podcast Foretold. The podcast follows Paulina as she navigates the consequences of her decision to leave her arranged marriage, and community, to redefine her identity. She is the cohost of Romanistan, a podcast that educates, empowers, and celebrates Romani culture, outcasts, rebels, and revolutionaries. She is also the coauthor of Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling. Paulina is based in California.

Jezmina Von Thiele (they/she) is a writer, performer, and spiritual practitioner whose work draws from their mixed Sinti-Romani heritage. Their award-winning poetry, fiction, and nonfiction has appeared in anthologies and literary journals. Jezmina speaks at events and leads workshops and rituals on divination, spiritual wellness, and creative practice across the country, and offers tarot, palm, and tea leaf readings. They are the co-author of Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling and the co-host of the podcasts Romanistan and Immaterial World. Visit jezminavonthiele.com

14/12/2025, 15:01 - Finbarre:

Welcome one, welcome all to the last recording of Tarot DMs for 2025. This one’s going to be a little different in that normally we would have one creative talking about their practice, their projects, what’s been happening recently and maybe sharing a couple of pictures of pets, but this time we have two! So I’m going to introduce Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens. Hello.

14/12/2025, 15:02 - Paulina Stevens:

Thank you so much for having us and we are happy to be here.

14/12/2025, 15:02 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

Yeah, thank you. We’re so excited. This is such a cool thing that we’re doing.

14/12/2025, 15:03 - Finbarre:

Thank you so much. I’m talking to you from Beeston, just outside of Nottinghamshire. So obviously the place famous for Robin Hood and the cheese riots that occurred here quite some time ago. Tell me, whereabouts are you in the world?

14/12/2025, 15:03 - Paulina Stevens:

I am located in California, USA.

14/12/2025, 15:04 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

Yeah, I am in New Hampshire. It’s in the northeast of the US. It is very snowy and very, very cold, whereas Paulina is in a very sunny, warm place.

14/12/2025, 15:04 - Paulina Stevens:

It’s a little cloudy today though.

14/12/2025, 15:05 - Paulina Stevens: lol

14/12/2025, 15:05 - Jezmina Von Thiele: Gotta have balance in the universe lol

14/12/2025, 15:07 - Finbarre: For me I have to dress up in a parka and wrap a scarf around myself like some kind of arctic ninja! As this format is a little different today, I’m going to bring the first card in and then we can discover more about you from there. The first, the Anchor card that all guests this month receive is....

14/12/2025, 15:07 - Finbarre:

14/12/2025, 15:07 - Finbarre: On a fancy handpainted plate no less which *flips* is from far flung Greece

14/12/2025, 15:08 - Finbarre: What vibes do you get from the card so far? It’s from Christina Ricci’s Cat Full Of Spiders Tarot

14/12/2025, 15:08 - Finbarre: (You are 100% allowed to utterly hate it)

14/12/2025, 15:08 - Paulina Stevens:

I feel like the World represents breaking old cycles and patterns, even if it doesn’t feel a part of the norm. As long as you’re being authentic to yourself, things will work out the way that they need to. And I also feel like it’s about breaking out of your comfort zone in general.

14/12/2025, 15:09 - Paulina Stevens:

And we love Christina Ritchie.

14/12/2025, 15:10 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

Oh my God, do we ever love Christina Ricci. Cat Full of Spiders. I didn’t even know this deck existed. I love the energy. I love the plate. And I feel like this feels really good for the end of the calendar year too.

I love her haunting little face encouraging us to, like Paulina was saying, break out of old patterns and trust that moving forward into the unknown is the right thing and that we’re ready. We have all the experience of the fool’s journey behind us and we’re ready to level up, which I think it’s always a good thing to think about for the new year.

I know that I’m definitely in this mindset where I’m thinking about what I’m ready to release as far as self-imposed restrictions and how I need to see bigger opportunities for myself. So I hope that, I hope this energy feels good for everyone, whether or not they’re connecting with the image.

14/12/2025, 15:12 - Finbarre:

Those are exquisite interpretations of this card. I love it when I hear slightly different interpretations of any given major arcana from anybody else. Which every time I now see that card, I’ll be hearing both of your voices.

So my question for you both is which part of your journey has come full circle this year in a way that has either surprised or humbled you?

14/12/2025, 15:16 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

What a cool question. I know that Paulina and I have a lot that we collaborate on. So there’s always a part of me that wants to answer for both of us, but also she’s on her own train too. But I feel like for the work that we do together, we are branching into the deeper and next iteration of what we want to do.

We have some exciting projects on the horizon. After our book, Secrets of Romani Fortune-Telling, we always imagined we would do more within the realm of divination and write more. We have a tarot deck in the works, a book on tarot in the works, and then a few other things that we can’t really speak on yet.

But I am very humbled by the way that we keep being invited to do more and say more about the things that we care so much about and giving cultural context and Romani history to what we’re doing.

It’s always really intimidating and scary to try to speak for your culture, and that’s particularly hard for a culture as varied and diverse as Roma. Just for anyone who might not know, Roma are a diet sport ethnic group originally from India, but a long time ago.

In the U.S., we tend not to think of the word gypsy as the correct term, although I know in the U.K., and we both love and respect to that in the U.K., it’s used a lot more neutrally. People don’t have so many, I guess, difficult associations with it. In the U.S., it tends to more only be used to conjure stereotypes, so we always kind of prefer Roma in the U.S., but however Roma want to identify anywhere is always fine with us.

It’s more about we’re encouraging non-Romani people not to appropriate the word. But I’ll just say it’s such an honor to be doing more of this work, to try to represent the Romani relationship to fortune-telling and try to accurately represent that as well, because there are so many inaccurate representations.

But for me, personally, I really feel like I am coming full circle on knowing who I am and what I want, which is such a vague statement, but it feels so true in all areas of my life.

I’m moving toward 40, and it’s really making me think what I wanted when I was 30. In some ways, it still feels true, but I am a totally different person now, and I really appreciate and respect that we change as we age, and that’s a vague statement.

14/12/2025, 15:20 - Paulina Stevens:

Oh yeah, I was definitely going to say the same thing in the fact that we keep getting opportunities and sometimes we question it.

Like, are we doing the right thing? Are we on the right path? And I feel like the universe just keeps giving us signs over and over.

And now, yeah, like we have these great projects that we’re working on.

I also feel like it’s even more than that. I feel that just this past year I have, I guess, found my purpose to a degree with talking about our community and social injustices and just other things that are going on, whether they’re small, like fashion, bigger, like politics.

I also feel like when it comes to more personal things that are going on, I have a better sense of myself and not really being afraid of being judged. I don’t really, I don’t know how to explain it. I guess I don’t really care that much about what other people are thinking.

I just hope that I can kind of complete my purpose and represent our community and talk about the things that matter.

14/12/2025, 15:22 - Jezmina Von Thiele: We’re feeling so aligned 💫

14/12/2025, 15:23 - Finbarre:

You are also an uncanny mind reader because I was just composing a follow-up in my head, and that was that you sound so wonderfully aligned where you both are now, like spiritual dancing partners in perfect step.

So I’d love to know, from where you are now to where you started, how did you both meet?

14/12/2025, 15:24 - Jezmina Von Thiele: I love when Paulina tells the first half of the story and then I pick up 😹

14/12/2025, 15:26 - Paulina Stevens:

Okay, so yeah, interesting story. I kind of grew up in a very conservative, very closed Romani community near Los Angeles, kind of right outside of Los Angeles in a place, Orange County.

I basically just felt like that life was not aligning with me. I felt like I needed to talk about it because once I left, other people were just communicating things like, yeah, like there’s a whole world out there and people need to know that and, you know, thank you.

And I didn’t really know how to talk about it or even how to get it started. I was like, maybe we need to do like a podcast or something. And I had actually watched one of Jez’s videos on YouTube, just educating people about Roma in general.

We didn’t really even know what we wanted to do yet. But I remember I think I emailed Jez and then we spoke and Jez was like, no, it’s not me. I’m not the one… and you can take it from here.

14/12/2025, 15:29 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

So, yes, I was very in my head about the idea of me being a mixed Romani person who grew up like fairly assimilated, you know, representing Roma in any way and publicly, which I had already been doing through some writing.

And also my mother had just passed away. I was so sick with long haul COVID and I have all these other autoimmune issues that it triggered.

And I was just like, oh, man, I don’t think I’m the one, you know, I was just feeling so low. The more I talked to friends who I thought would be really good for co-hosting with Paulina, asking them if they wanted to do it, the more they were like, girl, just do it. Honey, just do it. And I was thinking about it and I realized, you know, I can just represent who I am as a mixed and assimilated Romani person.

Like I have an identity that other people share or can relate to. And actually, maybe this would make the work a lot more interesting.

For us to be representing both types of experiences because there are innumerable experiences anyone can have being Romani.

So we are nice little symbiotic partners to each other. And even though we did have very different upbringings in many ways, there are so many things about our upbringing that were almost exactly the same and so many experiences that we share.

And it’s been so much fun doing this work together now for four years. So our podcast birthday is February 14th and we started in 2021.

Actually, we’re coming up on five years, I think. So yeah, wonderful. It’s been so wonderful and it’s led to so many opportunities and projects and it’s become even more than we imagined it would be. We were hoping to archive and celebrate Romani stories and have this be like our love letter to the culture. But it’s been something that allows us to explore our expertise and what we want to do in media in a lot of different ways.

Cultural consulting and article writing, book writing, you know, contributing to poetry anthologies, hosting a festival of the arts, LGBTQ+ Romani festival that we had. It’s just really wonderful, creative things we do together now.

14/12/2025, 15:30 - Jezmina Von Thiele: Our podcast is called Romanistan and is available on all podcast platforms, and I have a second podcast with Jessica Richards called Immaterial World 💖

14/12/2025, 15:31 - Finbarre: I’m stricken with Long Covid too, have been since 2020 and it SUCKS! Double-thank you for using your energy here with me today! Could you pop an example link in the chat for Romanistan and Immaterial World below just so I have the right ones locked in

14/12/2025, 15:32 - Finbarre: Is... this one of the parts of LC, we turn spookier and make podcasts? If so I’ll share the Nobel Prize money don’t worry!

14/12/2025, 15:33 - Jezmina Von Thiele: Absolutely it transforms us!

14/12/2025, 15:33 - Finbarre: Perfect! Now for the second card. The WILD one which could frankly be any of 77. Who is going to pick?

14/12/2025, 15:34 - Jezmina Von Thiele: Ooh Paulina do you want to pick?

14/12/2025, 15:35 - Paulina Stevens:

Okay, I pulled out the Page of Cups.

14/12/2025, 15:36 - Finbarre:

14/12/2025, 15:37 - Jezmina Von Thiele: I’m 💀

14/12/2025, 15:38 - Finbarre:

Oh, poor little Christina there. She looks so dejected. Of course, this is the card of emotional openness, of creative beginnings, of often unexpected inspiration when you pause to take that moment to listen to a surprising message from the subconscious.

14/12/2025, 15:38 - Finbarre: Or she looks like my daughter on the camping trip when we realised the snacks are still in the kitchen at home

14/12/2025, 15:39 - Finbarre:

Right, next question for you both, this one being from the Page of Cups.

Tell me about something from your intuition recently that surprised you.

14/12/2025, 15:41 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

Yeah, I think we were talking about this card fairly recently. So on Romanistan, we do interviews with Romani people doing amazing things of all different kinds of backgrounds. We were talking to Azul DelGrasso on the episode I posted in the chat about psychedelic healing. But then, you know, we might be talking to a poet in translation, Diana Norma Szokolyai for the next one. But we also do weekly tarot readings for the week ahead.

And I feel like we were getting the Page quite a lot. And I love what you’re saying about creative inspiration and emotional openness. This one, we were often talking about inner child healing as an element of it and experimentation. Yesterday, it was chafing me through client readings. And I love how cards can mean one thing for one client, another for another. And so much of this was encouraging people to be open and experiment.

And also to check in a lot with how they’re feeling almost like they’re a little toddler themselves. If they’re feeling big feelings, you know, if you’re feeling big feelings as an adult, it might be helpful for you to check in like you do with a little kid. Like, okay, honey, what’s going on? What do you need? Are we hungry? Or are we upset about this? Do we need to talk to a friend? Or what do we need?

And so there’s a kind of emotional check-in that I like to do with the Page and a reminder that our inner child, you know, inside all of us is still requiring nurturing and reassurance. And that as adults, we get to provide what we maybe didn’t always get as kids because we can’t always provide everything we want for our children because the world is complicated.

But we get to do that for ourselves as adults.

And sometimes also the Page can represent, you know, in some love questions that were coming up yesterday for clients, emotional immaturity sometimes.

And that might be something you can grow with.

It might be something you can’t grow with.

But I think that there are so many sides to every card, and I always really appreciate that.

And I also absolutely love the reference in this card for Christina Ricci. This looks like when she’s swimming in the second Addams Family, Addams Family Values in the iconic camp scenes.

So I absolutely love the Addams Family and Morticia and Gomez are my romance goals. I’ll take a Gomez of any gender, really.

14/12/2025, 15:43 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

Something about my intuition recently that surprised me. I mean, I feel like everything surprises me sometimes. But I was working with a client recently who was saying that no medium could contact her sister, but she wanted to try and see if her sister would come through for me. And sometimes when clients say like, I’ve been able to do it, can you do it?

There’s a lot of pressure and there’s a tendency to want to shut down for me. But I was open to it. And what ended up happening is that her sister came through and made it really clear that she didn’t really want to come through for mediums. And so she didn’t reveal a lot about herself other than she really just wanted to talk to her sister directly. And so the whole session ended up being about me kind of coaching her how to connect with her sister and trust her intuition, which was really beautiful. And Paulina and I talk about this in our book, Secrets of Romani Fortune-Telling. You know, everyone has access to their intuition and a good reading should help you feel empowered, not dependent of not even a reader, but empowered by the experience that you share. And this made me really happy because I didn’t shut down. I didn’t get in my head about it. I just shared what came through and that ended up being the right thing to share.

14/12/2025, 15:45 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

This is our book that’s currently out, a how to for tarot, palmistry, tea leaf reading + more plus the cultural and historical context of fortune telling as a Romani survival trade.

14/12/2025, 15:46 - Finbarre: Why would you do this to me, my bookcase is creaking already and you present me with this beautiful possibility? This looks not only stunning but the perfect gift for my mum’s birthday too

14/12/2025, 15:46 - Paulina Stevens:

I really love that. I feel like when situations like that happen, it kind of gives us a little jolt of like, oh, we’re doing the right thing or like we’re helping people in the right way. I would say that for me, my intuition, I think, has really surprised me so much because just like anybody, I have doubts of just regular signs or things like that. And at the very same time, I do have so much trust in my faith of just, you know, universal energy. And I have been feeling very spiritually in tune in the way that timing has been very perfect. Timing for everything, even when things happen by surprise and like, oh, like this horrible thing happened or this horrible thing happened. I’m really starting to see the purpose in it and not in a way of like, well, everything happens for a reason. But like, I do trust the universe in that sense. Even some of the worst things are just kind of this combination of, I think, getting us ready to really be spiritually in tune and connect with all people. And I almost feel like we’re connected. We’re all kind of connected at the core. And so, yeah, I don’t know. I just think my intuition has surprised me because it’s just getting stronger in general, I think.

14/12/2025, 15:46 - Finbarre:

One of the problems we’re speaking to fascinating people is that time flits away so quickly. And I realize that I should bring in the third card here.

Now, this is from Jennifer McGrew, who is a costume and production designer who has worked on ballets and B-movies. And she, through her life, has been carrying one card.

You’ll be able to tell this from the picture because this card looks like exactly what it is.

It is ruined.

And it is, of course, The Tower.

14/12/2025, 15:47 - Finbarre:

The exact card that has been following her through her life and now it is yours

14/12/2025, 15:49 - Finbarre:

A difficult card, but a rewarding one.

My question for the last tarot card for this interview is, has there been a moment in 2025 where everything fell apart, but something better emerged?

14/12/2025, 15:51 - Paulina Stevens:

I think a lot of things fell apart. I would say just certain situations like, I would say, living situations and work situations and jobs and opportunities, like many things would fall apart, I would say, towards the beginning of the year.

And somehow now everything is at a full circle. The opportunities are showing up and I ended up finding an amazing, an amazing place. And maybe the timing isn’t perfect, but I feel like in some weird way, I think it is.

14/12/2025, 15:52 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

h, that’s such a good question. You know, I feel like I’m still emerging. So much fell apart in 2025 for me in my personal life, and not in any deeply egregious way, in the normal way of people growing apart or having realizations about what someone wants and what someone doesn’t want.

And so relationally, a lot of my relationships are changing or evolving, and my vision for my future, what my future would look like in my personal life also changed tremendously. And while that is always painful to go through loss or experience different types of grief, I think that I’m still figuring out what it all means for me in the big picture.

But I am really relieved to have clarity and to be about what isn’t working and to have clarity about what isn’t my path, because I value honesty and clarity more than I value my personal comfort and security.

And I think that the Tower is such a good teacher for this, where sometimes things are falling apart for a reason, and you have to let them, and you have to fall with it. And the more that you are consciously falling, the more that you allow your body to relax through it, the less likely you are to get hurt and be able to actually process the experience.

And so sometimes falling without resistance is the healthiest, wisest thing we can do. I still feel like I’m falling into 2025. But at the same time, all of these other wonderful things are happening, especially with work and my collaborations with Paulina. And, you know, our podcasts, our books, our speaking engagements, all these cool things are happening. And so I feel like I am building a net that I am falling into. And the rest of it will make sense later.

14/12/2025, 15:52 - Paulina Stevens:

I do have to get going now, but I really, really appreciate you having us on here. And these were amazing questions. Very interesting. I was able to kind of pick my brain.

And I would also say I forgot, but the Tower card is something that I have been pulling up. I feel like it’s an overall representation of just these old illusions also falling apart and now being able to build things on real truth, I guess, authenticity.

So, yeah. But thank you so much. Thank you for having me!

14/12/2025, 15:53 - Jezmina Von Thiele: Thank you!!

14/12/2025, 15:54 - Jezmina Von Thiele: Bye Paulina! xoxo

14/12/2025, 15:54 - Finbarre: You are a superstar Paulina, thank you for talking to this random guy from Britain!

14/12/2025, 15:56 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

Also here’s a picture of my dog Lily for anyone who needs her

14/12/2025, 15:58 - Finbarre:

Lily is beautiful and she’s looking at you as if to say, why would you disturb my sleep? So that is a very well behaved, very well understanding, but also slightly dozy hound.

Yeah. Send her a scritch from me. Yeah. The question I have to ask about the guest card for 2020. How are we almost in 2026? It’s like living in the future or it will be.

We’ll need to pick the first card that my first guest will receive from you and I’ll name you as well. And you get to pick. So with power was a great power comes great responsibility. Let’s say from Spider-Man. If you have a deck nearby, I’d like you to shuffle it, draw one, place it down and take a picture of it. And that’s the picture that I’ll hand on to the person for the future.

14/12/2025, 16:00 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

14/12/2025, 16:01 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

Lily loves being a chaos goblin. And so she really appreciates that you see her as well behaved because you might be the only one. But we have the Judgment card for 2026. How exciting. How intense.

14/12/2025, 16:01 - Finbarre: JUDGEMENT?

14/12/2025, 16:01 - Finbarre: What a start

14/12/2025, 16:01 - Jezmina Von Thiele: 🔥

14/12/2025, 16:02 - Finbarre:

Wow, it could have been worse. And let’s face it, who doesn’t want to start the year with better wisdom and sense of purpose?

14/12/2025, 16:03 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

Yeah, sometimes we need the Judgment card. And I feel like it fits so well with what Paulina was saying about having clarity about who she is and caring a lot less about what other people think of her and just being brutally and beautifully authentic. But I do love that we’re being asked to rise up from the dead, which feels so appropriate this time of year.

14/12/2025, 16:04 - Finbarre:

Beigli sends festive wishes to your faithful four legged friend

14/12/2025, 16:05 - Jezmina Von Thiele: Omg 😻

14/12/2025, 16:05 - Jezmina Von Thiele: So precious! Lily loves cats

14/12/2025, 16:06 - Finbarre:

You know how some cats are predatory felines? They’re just one whisker away from being feral monstrosities, murder machines. Beigli’s the opposite. He will just snooze and cuddle. Those are pretty much his two modes.

Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens. I want to say thank you so much for being on Tarot DMs, especially when everything must be so busy this time of year. I will be looking to get myself a copy of Secrets of Romani Fortune-Telling Myself from all good bookshops. I’d like to say have a wonderful Christmas, winter celebration, whatever it is you get up to, and a fabulous new year.

14/12/2025, 16:08 - Jezmina Von Thiele:

Thank you so much for having us. This was so much fun. I know Paulina loved it too, because we share a brain, but happy seasonal greetings to everyone doing wonderful things. What a delight. We love what you’re doing and happy 2026. Yay!

14/12/2025, 16:12 - Jezmina Von Thiele: This was so cool! Thank you so much!

Jennifer McGrew works as a costume and production designer. She designs, fabricates, produces and consults for events, attractions, stage productions, commercials, films, television, fashion & tech items, websites and literary projects.

She also works as an alpha reader and content editor, reading and responding to scripts, editing books, researching unusual topics, plus she makes résumés and websites for friends and other artists. Sometimes she engages in journalism. Her interests converge all over the place and she finds everything fascinating. Currently she is helping a long-time artistic colleague create a new book about runes.

https://jennifermcgrew.com

https://mcgrewstudios.com

10/12/2025, 20:16 - Finbarre: Jennifer McGrew, costume and production designer extraordinaire, thank you for joining me across the Atlantic on Tarot DMs! How are you this chilly day?

10/12/2025, 20:16 - Jennifer McGrew: Thank you, Finbarre it’s a delight to be with you-

10/12/2025, 20:17 - Finbarre: Remind me Jennifer, where in the US are you today?

10/12/2025, 20:17 - Jennifer McGrew: Well, it’s an undisclosed location- haha just kidding:) I’m in the Salt Lake City Utah area

10/12/2025, 20:18 - Jennifer McGrew: It must be past 8pm now for you there!

10/12/2025, 20:19 - Finbarre: Salt Lake Ci... wait, I know *very* little about that part of the world. Other than, one of my favourite TV series - BIG LOVE! So good I have seen the whole thing twice and the Beach Boys track of God Only Knows still makes my eyes misty.

10/12/2025, 20:21 - Jennifer McGrew: Yes, love the drama of that program. Though not knowing any actual polygamous families myself, it seems like a great ‘what if’ adventure series. As in ‘what if’ a guy had multiple wives in a modern era and they had to keep it all under wraps. I like it.

10/12/2025, 20:22 - Jennifer McGrew: The opening segment is marvelous, isn’t it. That music, the ice skating, the crack in the ice!

10/12/2025, 20:22 - Finbarre: Chloë Sevigny was the absolute star of the show for me, adored it! Speaking of dancing, is it true you have worked on everything… between B-movies and ballet?

10/12/2025, 20:23 - Jennifer McGrew: Yes. Even side circuit professional wrestling costumes.

10/12/2025, 20:23 - Finbarre: WHAT

10/12/2025, 20:23 - Jennifer McGrew: Livin’ la vida loca

10/12/2025, 20:23 - Finbarre: Could you describe one of them? What on earth did that look like?

10/12/2025, 20:25 - Jennifer McGrew: Quite skimpy briefs, stretchy lycra, with sparkly initials and a monogram. Handsome fellah. Wish I still had a pic but probably would have to dig. I learned SO much about the sport and performance of wrestling during that time.

10/12/2025, 20:26 - Finbarre: The last time I saw pro wrestling was back in the early 90s, so if isn’t The Undertaker or Randy Savage I know nothing.

On the face of what you wrote, that sounds like the outfit to quite a different party but moving on... we have so many stories I know and we haven’t explored your first card yet!

10/12/2025, 20:26 - Finbarre: First into the ring is...

10/12/2025, 20:26 - Finbarre:

10/12/2025, 20:27 - Jennifer McGrew: Love it. Looks like she’s bursting through a portal while thinking, “tah dah!” You’ll have to fill me in on tarot card meanings, k? My education has some holes in it. And what deck is this?

10/12/2025, 20:27 - Finbarre: Christina Ricci’s Cat Full of Spiders deck there on a plate I bought today in a thrift store

10/12/2025, 20:28 - Jennifer McGrew: Wait a sec, actress Christina Ricci???

10/12/2025, 20:28 - Finbarre: Every card is her in form or fashion, it’s really rather surreal

10/12/2025, 20:28 - Jennifer McGrew: That is a fantastic product for an actress like her to get behind- I’ll need to get my hands on this

10/12/2025, 20:29 - Jennifer McGrew: So... the world. Tell me more!

10/12/2025, 20:30 - Finbarre: It’s the last card of the Major Arcana so it marks a moment of culmination, fulfilment. The individual in the centre of this card, whether Christina herself or the classic fool from the Rider Waite Smith deck has passed through all the lessons of the other cards. It is a card of broad horizons and connection.

10/12/2025, 20:33 - Jennifer McGrew: Well I do feel very fulfilled in getting to chat with you here- when I saw your call for artists and our ilk, I thought I’d better reach out and find out more about what you’re doing. My guess is that artists are more amenable to talking about metaphor, simile, and mysticism than, say, math or physics people? And how does one know when there’s culmination of something?

10/12/2025, 20:37 - Finbarre: I would say that interesting people love discovering more about interesting people... so creatives often experience the world a little differently in the most fascinating ways! Although many scientists I know (the ones that have ventured into peculiar paths of research, probably with wicked laughs and tesla coils in their basement) are wonderful too. Would you believe it that I’m a big fan of destiny too, so asking strangers to come on Tarot DMs is endlessly intriguing to me!

10/12/2025, 20:37 - Finbarre: I have thought of your question - what tells you when the creative project you are working on is complete?

10/12/2025, 20:38 - Jennifer McGrew: To me, it’s fascinating that you’re an IT guy (I looked you up at length). Your job is all about making systems talk to one another, creating reliable communications. Would this be correct?

10/12/2025, 20:39 - Finbarre: Absolutely! I think of tarot as being my analogue AI 😎

10/12/2025, 20:40 - Jennifer McGrew: Oh - easy answer. Back in the days of writing papers on literature or theory, I’d long heard the expression that “your paper looks like a snapshot of all the books and notes all open and askew on your desk right before you need to hand your work in”. Same with costumes to some degree. Most (client ones anyway) have deadlines, and they are finished usually right by the deadline with little time to spare.

10/12/2025, 20:42 - Jennifer McGrew: Three cheers for analogue AI! I think it’s why I like to work with my hands so much, there’s a logic to the processes of working with materials and objects. It’s oddly soothing yet stressful at the same time (esp when it’s a client project with a deadline).

10/12/2025, 20:44 - Jennifer McGrew: Here’s a pic of one recently, just finished by its deadline...

10/12/2025, 20:45 - Jennifer McGrew:

10/12/2025, 20:45 - Finbarre: Protein Pete has seen some sights! When it comes to crafting something with your hands and eyes, is there a moment of sensation when the garment is completed or the set looks perfect? It is a skill I wish I had so I’m curious about what must be like, it can’t simply be a checklist box ticked?

10/12/2025, 20:46 - Finbarre: I noticed the blur by the hands there, whoever was in that costume was So Very Excited!

10/12/2025, 20:49 - Jennifer McGrew: For others, who consider themselves artists (making their own work and following their own path), their work is ‘done’ when they think it’s done. I’ve also seen many artists ‘overdo’ their work (they don’t know when to quit- and I have many essays I’ve abandoned over the years like this). Because I rarely make art for myself, I think of myself more as an ‘artisan’. I always have a checklist. I’m always workin’ for the man. When all the boxes are checked off- the project is ready to release to the client.

10/12/2025, 20:49 - Jennifer McGrew: Yes! Their ‘Protein Pete’ performer in there was SO energetic. My guess is he’s in his early 20s.

10/12/2025, 20:51 - Jennifer McGrew: I *might* make some art of my very own this holiday season (I’m taking some time off)... So maybe that is culmination?

10/12/2025, 20:51 - Finbarre: What do you have in mind?

10/12/2025, 20:52 - Jennifer McGrew: Not certain. All I know is I don’t want any disturbances or anyone looking over my shoulder. Probably some *giant* puppets. Maybe.

10/12/2025, 20:53 - Finbarre: *Probably* some giant puppets. Flip a coin, y’know.

10/12/2025, 20:53 - Jennifer McGrew: Seems as though the art of interpretation is very artistic, as in when you explore Tarot with others--would this be right?

10/12/2025, 20:55 - Jennifer McGrew: Yes. Giant puppets. The sort I always wanted to get to as a youngster. Just for fun. So ....culmination maybe? I’ll keep you posted on any progress. Maybe what I need most is just a long winter’s nap.

10/12/2025, 20:56 - Jennifer McGrew:

10/12/2025, 20:56 - Jennifer McGrew: Here’s lookin at you, kid-

10/12/2025, 20:58 - Jennifer McGrew: Oh, and I really like how many of your interview subjects have shared their PET photos with you, so here’s one of these two fellows

10/12/2025, 20:58 - Jennifer McGrew:

10/12/2025, 20:58 - Finbarre: Very much so, all artists tell stories through the medium of whatever it is they create. I like to pen the occasional poem, so summarizing the symbolism in any card comes easy with them being so exquisitely rich in detail when performing a reading. From there the new poem seeks meaning and that is where sharing what was seen becomes magical.

10/12/2025, 20:59 - Finbarre: Tell me at once, who are these fabulous beasties?

10/12/2025, 21:00 - Jennifer McGrew: Dentu on the left. Glen on the right.

10/12/2025, 21:01 - Finbarre: The pins near the eyes make it look like the creature from Hellraiser and a taco spawned a lovechild

10/12/2025, 21:01 - Jennifer McGrew: Ok, so poems, ay? My colleague (I’m helping him write a book on runes right now) is going to write a poem for each rune, in first person. Interesting.

10/12/2025, 21:01 - Finbarre: Dentu is almost about to blep.

10/12/2025, 21:03 - Jennifer McGrew: His approach will be a lot like Bilbo and Gollum’s riddles- in which some of the mysterious items or objects ‘describe’ themselves, making the listener guess who/what they are. Are your poems about tarot cards like that too?

10/12/2025, 21:06 - Finbarre: I like that very much, I haven’t plucked a rune from a pouch for a long time and if memory serves the Elder Futhark has 24 in total - it has only just occurred to me that is one for every hour of the day. The way you mention the objects describing themselves is spot on. Never the same way twice either and each one having the meaning changed, just a little, by the one before and after too.

10/12/2025, 21:06 - Jennifer McGrew: Ok and so another question about culmination of those cards and the World being the last/final one... Does the cycle/sequence go in a linear fashion and then does the process repeat itself once someone’s had all the lessons of all the prior cards?

10/12/2025, 21:08 - Jennifer McGrew: Ok cool, 24 runes in the Elder F and 24 hours in a day- I need to tell him this for sure!

10/12/2025, 21:09 - Finbarre: Let me know when the book comes out as it sounds very much like something I need on my shelves! With the tarot the process isn’t linear, it is best thought of as cyclical, leading towards another spiral staircase of growth. The Fool always has more to learn, to discover and to dance towards.

10/12/2025, 21:11 - Finbarre: Speaking of which, your second card awaits and it could be anything! I have removed two from the deck - your first and third card. The second one, the Wild Card is the one we’ll draw in a moment.

10/12/2025, 21:11 - Jennifer McGrew: I know he’ll be fascinated and will want to go down the rabbit hole of researching time and how it’s been recorded and kept, esp in more Paleo contexts prior to clocks, watches, etc. (he and I are both Virgos) and I’ll want to look up the concept of ‘hours’ to see when and how this first appears in world languages and texts, etc.

10/12/2025, 21:11 - Jennifer McGrew: Woooot. Love a wild card (should I be nervous?).

10/12/2025, 21:11 - Finbarre: VERY

10/12/2025, 21:12 - Jennifer McGrew: NIIIICE

10/12/2025, 21:12 - Finbarre: Probably no giant puppets in there

10/12/2025, 21:12 - Jennifer McGrew: Those have to be created from sheer grit and partial insanity

10/12/2025, 21:12 - Finbarre: I’ll shuffle them as we type and when the moment feels right, type “stop”. For good or for ill. Or for puppets.

10/12/2025, 21:13 - Jennifer McGrew: Ok. Everything humanity does is really for the puppets...

10/12/2025, 21:13 - Jennifer McGrew: Ok...and...STOP

10/12/2025, 21:13 - Finbarre: ... and we have

10/12/2025, 21:14 - Finbarre:

10/12/2025, 21:14 - Finbarre: An extremely Art Noveau looking Christina!

10/12/2025, 21:14 - Jennifer McGrew: F*&(cking get out of town. THAT’s the card I always pulled back in the mid 80s with my friends

10/12/2025, 21:15 - Jennifer McGrew: Except it was from that 007 deck

10/12/2025, 21:15 - Jennifer McGrew: Tell me about her, please

10/12/2025, 21:17 - Finbarre: That deck gives me the heebie jeebies truth be told. The characters in it are a little too surreal for my taste and seem... off. Not like this vision of loveliness. Right so the Empress. A card of creation, cultivation and life in bloom. Her energy is generous and that richness comes from the natural world. With that look in her eyes she challenges you to thrive.

10/12/2025, 21:18 - Jennifer McGrew: She is definitely lovely. I’ll take it :-) what is the significance of the second card in this three card pull?

10/12/2025, 21:21 - Finbarre: If this was a standard three card reading, the trio would be past present and future. If you want to use this to think about the here and now, that’s where The Empress would be pointing.

10/12/2025, 21:22 - Finbarre: Your second question - what does the word “abundance” mean to you as a creator?

10/12/2025, 21:24 - Jennifer McGrew: Ah, ok. Abundance I think of as my huge skill set and jazz improvisational skills when the chips are down where I’m in the flow state. Plus I have the time now, and means to do what I like pretty much. I can be picky about clients. I’m inching closer to retirement and putting up with Les b******* lets me do more of the kinds of things I like to do

10/12/2025, 21:25 - Finbarre:

Couldn’t resist getting out your old friend

10/12/2025, 21:25 - Jennifer McGrew: Those cards are definitely a bit strange and not nearly as lyrical or beautiful as the ones you’re using now

10/12/2025, 21:26 - Finbarre: I would swear that card should gave me a cold chill picking it up. Possibly cursed.

10/12/2025, 21:26 - Jennifer McGrew: Her red outfit is pretty menacing isn’t it

10/12/2025, 21:27 - Finbarre: The tiny hands too. Always a bad sign.

10/12/2025, 21:27 - Jennifer McGrew: Lol tiny hands!

10/12/2025, 21:27 - Jennifer McGrew: Ok, just saw it... is she holding THE WORLD in her tiny hand?? Chilling.

10/12/2025, 21:27 - Finbarre: When it comes to your clients, how do you decide who to work with?

10/12/2025, 21:28 - Jennifer McGrew: I like people who reach out to me. The ones who will pick up the phone and talk or at least use the contact form. It’s nice to have a conversation with someone just to get their vibe before talking business...

10/12/2025, 21:31 - Jennifer McGrew: And the commercial or corporate projects always have better budgets- so the money thing usually factors in

10/12/2025, 21:33 - Finbarre: Has something come up that has been that unexpected something you didn’t know you wanted to do until the call or form came through and then YES

10/12/2025, 21:34 - Finbarre: Apart from wrestlers, puppets and energetic protein mascots of course

10/12/2025, 21:35 - Jennifer McGrew:

My father’s (he’s 91). He wanted a wizard costume for Halloween. My life is so rich and abundant because of all the things he’s always made for us and done for us. This place is full of all the evidence. Cool items, cabinetry, machines, tools, and that he encouraged his heretical firstborn to do these things. I was never a good fit in academia or corporate cultures

10/12/2025, 21:36 - Jennifer McGrew:

10/12/2025, 21:36 - Jennifer McGrew: My rune colleague (the one who’s book we’re working on now) carved that magical wizard’s staff for him:)

10/12/2025, 21:40 - Finbarre: “Heretical firstborn” should be on a T-shirt! This is an amazing outfit and I adore the worksmanship that gone into the stick of You Shall Not Pass

10/12/2025, 21:41 - Finbarre: The sleeves are frankly fabulous

10/12/2025, 21:41 - Finbarre: You could stash Dentu in one side and Glen in the other

10/12/2025, 21:43 - Jennifer McGrew: Thank you. He really liked it. I’ll bring up the “Heretical firstborn on a t-shirt” idea. Years ago I had a t custom made for him that quoted William S, “How sharper than a serpeant’s tooth to have a thankless child” because it was something he always quoted and joked with us about

10/12/2025, 21:46 - Finbarre:

Sadly I’m not au-fait with King Lear (studied it as a teen and none of it went in) but I did see the episode of Star Trek The Animated Series though. Which is almost the same.

10/12/2025, 21:47 - Jennifer McGrew: You’re so ahead of me on this - I’ll see if I can get this on my watch list!

10/12/2025, 21:48 - Finbarre:

It has nonsense like this in it, perfect for crappy days

10/12/2025, 21:50 - Jennifer McGrew: Dig it. He’s a bit of a Quetzalcoatl

10/12/2025, 21:50 - Finbarre: Time for your third card Jennifer, the last one that was gifted by my last guest, Lara. She is an anatomical pathology technician who (among many many things) reconstructs the deceased and she left you with this:

10/12/2025, 21:51 - Finbarre:

10/12/2025, 21:52 - Jennifer McGrew: ah, this is the ten of cups?

10/12/2025, 21:54 - Finbarre: Exactly! The reward of the emotional journey - love that’s been earned, not just found. Strong emotional bonds, whether with family, friends, or chosen community and traditionally depicted as a rainbow over a household.

10/12/2025, 21:55 - Jennifer McGrew: Hell yes. I’ll take that gladly. The future, maybe? And tell me about Lara’s contribution here- clarify maybe? And thank her for me?

10/12/2025, 21:58 - Finbarre: Lara is one of the many wonderful people I have spoken to through Tarot DMs, that I would never have had the chance to discover more about day-to-day. Her interview talks about her work (which I knew nothing about) and touches on the of the emotional and spiritual aspects of working with the dead. We also talk possibly too much about The X-Files. I most certainly will!

10/12/2025, 21:59 - Jennifer McGrew: Very cool. So did she also have this as her third card? And I will talk XFiles with you ANY time. Big fan here.

10/12/2025, 22:00 - Jennifer McGrew: I am enthusiastic about reading your conversation with her- she has a totally fascinating job

10/12/2025, 22:01 - Finbarre: This is the card she drew at the end of her interview for the next person and as it happens that lucky person is Jennifer McGrew! I have a small and growing list of the X-Files episodes I need to catch up on as I have never had the pleasure. I know. Somehow lived through an era where that AND Twin Peaks were out and never saw either.

10/12/2025, 22:03 - Jennifer McGrew: Awesome that you’ve had her pull that card. Makes for a cool segue to your new subject. Please give her my regards. My mother passed in August and we’ve all been through a lot. We miss her, and the mysteries of death just compound and confront me every day.

10/12/2025, 22:07 - Finbarre: I’m so sorry to hear and I’ll be messaging Lara soon to pass on your thanks. I’m glad you have this sweet card to end on as it brings the mind to the good times.

10/12/2025, 22:07 - Finbarre: Last question, what does emotional fulfilment look like for you - is it seeing your studio team thrive, watching an audience swept away by a world you helped create, or something else?

10/12/2025, 22:10 - Jennifer McGrew: All of those things. On the nose. Plus the awesome family, partner, friends and things I’ve been able to cultivate and keep close to me. Life is rich. I do like that this last card is the 10 of cups:) A good note to end on!

10/12/2025, 22:12 - Finbarre: When you have downed tools and you’re taking a rare moment to skritch the cats with your feet up, what aspect of your work do you find yourself missing and relishing coming back to?

10/12/2025, 22:16 - Jennifer McGrew: Sad addict here. I actually do thrive on the deadlines, the stress, the challenges, the client capriciousness, the completion. I get a bit restless without looming projects. But I can start all that again in January- haha. I’ve enjoyed having a bit of vacation time lately and talking to you is great- it’s super fun to reflect on life thru the lens of cards, oracle, etc.

10/12/2025, 22:17 - Jennifer McGrew: You’ve been reading tarot for many years, yes?

10/12/2025, 22:19 - Finbarre: My parents are old hippies so I have always had cards around the house, but it wasn’t until university that I discovered that reading the cards of strangers was such a delight.

10/12/2025, 22:20 - Finbarre: I stashed them away until last year but something told me it was time to take them out again. Better than doomscrolling!

10/12/2025, 22:22 - Jennifer McGrew: My rune oracle colleague also enjoys reading for strangers- he’s friendly in the mix with everyone. And he also has regular clients. Do you have quite a few ‘regulars’ as well? What do you think your impulse was that made you take those cards out again? Curious to know!

10/12/2025, 22:23 - Jennifer McGrew: You are obviously a connector. You like engaging with people on a level not captured by, say, politics, other bullshit?

10/12/2025, 22:25 - Jennifer McGrew: I’m intrigued lately by all the commentary about ‘therapy culture’ out there. And how much of our mental stress could be solved just by socializing, hanging with friends, etc. I see you as doing this with Tarot DMs, and it’s really cool.

10/12/2025, 22:26 - Finbarre: You know, these days I only use my cards for TarotDMs.com or my other related projects, never for a straight reading for now. The only classic reading I gave was earlier this year as part of a prize for a fundraiser for the charity auction raised by Lauren Beukes and Jeanette Ng but it feels more like a part of expression, connection or discovery than a side hustle. Although never say never.

10/12/2025, 22:27 - Jennifer McGrew: “expression, connection or discovery”. YES

10/12/2025, 22:27 - Finbarre: People like your good self remind me the world is awesome.

10/12/2025, 22:28 - Finbarre

10/12/2025, 22:28 - Finbarre: Speaking of which, what card will you leave for my next guest? At the moment it could be one of several so I’ll not give any spoilers.

10/12/2025, 22:30 - Jennifer McGrew: Thrilled to pull a card for the next person. How do I do this?

10/12/2025, 22:31 - Finbarre: Either draw a card randomly or pick one that feels right for the moment. The first that comes to hand or mind, then share a picture of the one you decide.

10/12/2025, 22:32 - Jennifer McGrew: Um.. at the beginning you asked if I had a deck here. Sadly I do not! I just had that one card that’s been floating around on my desk for several decades now!

10/12/2025, 22:33 - Jennifer McGrew:

10/12/2025, 22:33 - Jennifer McGrew: It’s probably too alarming for most. Plus I didn’t pull it out of a deck unseen

10/12/2025, 22:34 - Finbarre: If you’re happy for that to be your card (or the one that’s meant to be) we’ll take it but if there is another you’d like to hand to the next person you’re welcome to decide. Of course, that one *could* be interesting!

10/12/2025, 22:34 - Jennifer McGrew: Your call. Choose, but choose wisely...if you’ll use it or not for your next subject!

10/12/2025, 22:37 - Finbarre: Done and done. The gift of THE TOWER will be passed along (and genuinely it’s a good card to consider as it means you get to anticipate and prepare for trouble ahead)

10/12/2025, 22:38 - Finbarre:

10/12/2025, 22:39 - Jennifer McGrew: Sounds fine to me. I ALMOST just went to a random tarot card generator site I found. Give this card to the next person with gusto. The fact it’s survived all these years is rather metaphoric.

10/12/2025, 22:40 - Finbarre: Certainly has weathered the years for a reason my goodness

10/12/2025, 22:41 - Jennifer McGrew: Haha - yep. Or it’s the weird flotsam that’s just splashed around me for years every time I’ve moved. People are stronger than they know. Trouble makes us stronger. If we survive it. Not a bad thing to experience in life.

10/12/2025, 22:43 - Finbarre: Jennifer McGrew of McGrew Studios, it has been simply lovely speaking to you - getting to see your two gorgeous grey furfriends and hear about your work! If folks want to explore your work, the peculiar and the unconventional, where can they see your wonderful creations?

10/12/2025, 22:46 - Jennifer McGrew: Oh it’s been so fun chatting with you as well Finbarre! Much here at https://mcgrewstudios.com/ and then there’s always https://jennifermcgrew.com/ Back in the old days, we all had giant portfolios of work stored under our beds. I’m still excavating there, plus old hard drives, etc. Thank you for the very cool chat and the cool site you’ve made - it is a really fantastic idea.

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Lara is an Anatomical Pathology Technologist (APT) who has been working in NHS hospital mortuaries for over 10 years, providing continued care of the deceased. She lives in Yorkshire with her partner, and tortie cat that she rescued from a basement at work. In her spare time she enjoys wandering around cemeteries, old churches and museums. Outside of being a walking stereotype, her other hobbies include aerial circus, learning Swedish and watching objectively terrible films with friends.

06/12/2025, 16:47 - Finbarre:

Hi Lara, thank you so much for joining me on Tarot DMs this World Month. I’m here with a mug of tea, a stack of tarot cards, and ready to go. Before we start, could you describe a little bit about what you do for your work? Because I’ve read about it, and I’m not entirely sure if I quite understand.

06/12/2025, 16:51 - Lara:

Hello. So yeah, I’m here as well with a mug of mulled wine after having quite a long day at work, funnily enough. So I’m an anatomical pathology technologist or APT for short. I’ll probably just say APT for the rest of this because it’s shorter.

Essentially, I work in a hospital mortuary, but as a job, we do work in what we call public mortuaries as well, which are mortuaries run by the local council, not affiliated with hospitals. It’s almost like another ward in the hospital is the way that I describe it.

So we are the staff who work in the mortuary as a ward in the hospital and our patients are the deceased patients in the hospital. We call them patients, by the way, not bodies or anything else.

Yeah, it’s our job is the day-to-day running of the mortuaries. There’s a lot of paperwork involved. We do the receipting and the releasing of patients to funeral directors. We do when families want to come and visit someone, we facilitate that. And then we also do the post-mortem work. So we assist with the post-mortems with the pathologists. That involves the evisceration and reconstruction of patients when they need a post-mortem examination. And yeah, I think that’s kind of about the long and short of it, really.

06/12/2025, 16:51 - Finbarre: Poets I know. Many of my friends are illustrators, writers and academics but what you bring to the world is something I have never known.

06/12/2025, 16:52 - Lara: I am so envious of people with artistic talents, as I have none! But I have so many friends in that world

06/12/2025, 16:54 - Finbarre:

I have so many questions to ask, but I’m going to wait for the cards to direct them.

I’m thinking, was it Six Feet Under that got you into this?

How does somebody wake up one morning and decide, this is the career path I would like to take?

What the actual day would be like if you were to just clock in and do whatever it is you do. Right. Okay. I’m going to send you the card of the month, which is The World card. And I’ll think of something from there.

Prepare to get a barrage of things I’d like to know!

06/12/2025, 16:54 - Finbarre:

06/12/2025, 16:58 - Lara:

That’s okay. I often get a lot of questions when people find out what I do for a living. And it either comes from a place of curiosity, just in general, from that aspect, or people just don’t know what I do. Thankfully, I love talking about my work, and what I do is my biggest passion.

The way that I got into it is I am of the generation of the Scully Effect. So I absolutely adored The X-Files and Dana Scully when I was younger. And I wanted to be Dana Scully. And that was being a forensic pathologist, basically. But, oh my God, I was a teenager, a young teenager, pre-GCSE things, and I was looking into what you have to do to become a forensic pathologist. You have to be a doctor to do that. I knew at that age that that’s not what I wanted to do at all.

So I kind of put all that aside and was like, well, that’s clearly not for me then. And it was only, like, to cut a very, very long story short, if you want the details, I’m more than happy to give you them. But to cut a long story short, when I was in Uni doing a degree that I ended up not really enjoying and realizing I didn’t want a career path in that either, I sort of revisited what mortuary work may look like for me. Like, if there was any way that I can access that. I stumbled upon a blog by a forensic pathologist based in the UK who detailed the same thing about, you know, how you become a forensic pathologist and the career that it takes. Like, the career path that you have to go on for it. And at the end, they just kind of offhandedly almost mentioned that if that didn’t sound like you wanted to do that, there was this career path.

Instead, there was this job called, like, anatomical pathology technologist that works in mortuaries and assists at postmortems and, like, sent a link to NHS jobs. Like, the descriptions of, like, you know, different career paths that you can work in the NHS.

I read that and it was just a complete light bulb moment of that’s what I want to do. That is it. You have just described exactly what it is.

To find out at that age that this job exists just absolutely blew my mind.

06/12/2025, 16:58 - Lara:

Before all that, I guess I was always into Egyptology and stuff when I was like a lot younger. And just speaking to various people sort of in this field or in death work in general, you do find that the Egyptology obsessed child to death care worker adult pipeline is straight and narrow. And I think so my interest in this field starts a lot earlier than that. So yeah, it’s been quite a journey.

06/12/2025, 17:02 - Finbarre:

Possibly your face when I reveal I haven’t seen the X Files. I KNOW.

06/12/2025, 17:02 - Lara: WHAT!!!!!???

06/12/2025, 17:03 - Lara: Ok, the episode that started it was Bad Blood. Season 5, episode 12. If nothing else, watch that!!!!

06/12/2025, 17:04 - Finbarre:

It is true I am so sorry! I have friends that have gone into medicine as you say purely because of the Scully Effect and I’ve not even seen… there’s supposed to be an incredible episode about a person that eats spleens or something. Apparently that’s a good one, oh and there’s supposed to be that wonderful episode called “Home”. No I can’t even put on a straight face, listener or reader please please don’t watch “Home” as far as I’m aware if you want to maintain your sanity.

Let’s go back to the card first of all, The World. It’s a final card of the Major Arcana it’s a card of fulfillment and integration. Yeah I’m going to bring some woo back into the science. Yeah, I know, but it represents something that is long awaited that’s been achieved so that is going to be the inspiration for my question to you.

06/12/2025, 17:04 - Finbarre:

Something I’d like to know is about the lasting legacy of your work. So how do you think compassionate mortuary care affects families and communities?

06/12/2025, 17:07 - Lara:

Okay, firstly, a quick one. The episode you’re looking for is called Tooms, and that is in season one of The X-Files, I believe. I may have to fact check that one. But it is incredible and terrifying. And it’s also, there’s another episode as well. I can’t quite remember what that one’s called. I may have to go have a quick Google about that one. But he comes back. Spoiler alert, sorry. But they are great episodes.

06/12/2025, 17:08 - Lara:

It’s interesting that the world is a card that’s related to long, longstanding sort of wish fulfillment, etc.

It actually took me 10 years before I managed to get a job in the mortuary from when I first sort of started actively looking when I was 19. And that is quite a common theme with people who work in this industry is so, so hard to break into.

So just, yeah, just the fact that that’s the card of the month is like very, very apt for my job, really.

06/12/2025, 17:09 - Lara:

Sorry, I have just fact-checked.

And the first episode that Tooms appears in is actually called Squeeze, which I think is a really, really early episode in Season One. But yeah, watch it. It’s brilliant.

06/12/2025, 17:12 - Lara:

Okay, now to answer the question, after doing some X-File related research, I think it’s something that people don’t really think about in the general population. They don’t really know what we do, and what our job is exactly.

In a way, we’re almost there to myth bust, in a way. People meet us, speak to us at one of the worst points in their lives. You never really know what their misconceptions are, but we do hear a lot when families come and see their people in our visiting suite and they come in and they’re scared because they expect something like they see on TV.

And I have a lot to say about how my job is portrayed on TV, by the way. And they’re expecting somebody to be pulled out of a fridge on a metal tray or something like that when they come and see someone. And it’s not like that at all.

To actually put a face, like a human face and personality, I guess, to the person who’s looking after your person in the mortuary is really helpful. And to know that that person is being taken care of and that there are humans behind this job, I think is very reassuring.

And, you know, there are many reasons why people may come to us and we don’t always know the stories of the people who are in our care. And, you know, some families have had awful times with their experience in healthcare or their person’s experience in healthcare.

And then it’s quite a weight for me to know that, like, I really don’t want to add to that bad experience and I’ve got to try and make this not worse. There’s no making things better, but it’s about making things not worse.

And if people can come out of their experience once they’ve met us with a feeling of, you know, sort of like, I don’t know, at least there’s someone in their journey that isn’t terrible, then that’s quite important.

But yeah, I think one of the things is that what we do and, you know, what services we provide and offer within hospitals and public mortuaries as well, just isn’t really known. And it’s just about that sort of advocacy of like, yeah, this is something that can be, I hesitate to say positive experience, but not a negative one.

06/12/2025, 17:14 - Lara:

Yeah, I think that the mortuary in general is a very sort of neglected area in healthcare and healthcare communication, I guess.

There’s never any good press that comes out about a mortuary.

It’s always seen as the hospital’s little secret.

The only time that we’re ever in the news, like, you know, publicly, is because something bad has happened. When good things happen or positive things happen, you just never really hear about it at all in the wider public or even within the hospital setting as well.

You know, we have like trust-wide emails and, you know, things like that. And you never sort of hear how well a family’s had, you know, in the sort of feedback kind of thing that, you know, the wards may receive in through your normal daily feedback channels.

We don’t really have that. Well, we don’t have the mechanism for, you know, getting feedback, but it’s just not something that people are aware of that things can, like, positive can happen down there.

06/12/2025, 17:19 - Finbarre:

You know, Lara, you’ve got me thinking that the only time I’ve ever considered a mortuary as existing in my life was when I was working on a IT service desk.

I received a telephone call that a hospital that we’re connected to had a flood. And mortuaries being mortuaries at the bottom of the building, they managed to get their temperature control system flooded.

Their freezers or refrigeration systems weren’t working. I don’t think I’ve tried to solve a ticket faster in my life because the possibilities of what could happen there still haunt me.

To discover more, we’re going to need a second tarot card.

06/12/2025, 17:20 - Finbarre: I’m going to shuffle the deck, let me know when to stop.

06/12/2025, 17:20 - Lara: Stop!

06/12/2025, 17:21 - Lara:

Oh my God, yeah, with your flooded fridge problem, that sounds like an absolute nightmare and I’m thinking of it obviously from my end and sort of how we would end up dealing with that. We are very well versed in how to deal with, you know, fridge breakdowns and stuff.

We have contingency plans, but from a flood, that sounds like that’s not like necessarily a quick fix. That will be such a headache from my point of view, so thank you for fixing that fast!

06/12/2025, 17:21 - Finbarre: I think the deck hear you talking about your 90s TV show of choice. You get....

06/12/2025, 17:21 - Finbarre:

06/12/2025, 17:22 - Lara:

AMAZING!

06/12/2025, 17:22 - Lara:

Also, I can’t help but think, are those, it looks like Christine Ricci in those cards, I guess. Definitely in The World, at least.

06/12/2025, 17:22 - Finbarre:

All right, give me a minute. I need to try and work out how to respectfully thread this card into this conversation. Okay, come on, Finbarre, you can do this.

06/12/2025, 17:23 - Finbarre:

06/12/2025, 17:24 - Lara:

Oh my God, I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention or didn’t look as to which deck you were using but yeah, that makes sense.

06/12/2025, 17:24 - Finbarre: If you or anyone reading this subscribes to TarotDMs.com you’ll be in the hat to win the deck at the end of the month!

06/12/2025, 17:26 - Finbarre:

Often the devil card represents bondage, temptation, shadow aspects of the self. It also represents contrast and it shines a light on what choices are available to us.

06/12/2025, 17:27 - Finbarre:

As your work brings you face to face with suffering, loss and despair, how do you confront those darker aspects? How do you protect yourself from emotional burnout?

06/12/2025, 17:27 - Finbarre: Christina Ricci asks the big and serious questions, it seems

06/12/2025, 17:29 - Lara:

It’s such a good question and it’s one that I don’t exactly know the answer to strictly. So I think part of it is that in a way, and there’s no way to, I guess, do this job if it’s going to be one that is going to destroy you.

It’s one that you’re going to take home with you. Obviously, you don’t really know how it’s going to affect you until you start doing it. So it’s like a catch-22 when you get started. It’s something that’s never actually really emotionally affected me in that way. And that’s not uncommon, I have to say. I don’t know if it’s, like I said, just the kind of people that are called to this work, because I do believe it really is a calling, that there’s almost a kind of resilience and sort of self-protectiveness there that enables that. In a way. Only those that can do, I guess.

06/12/2025, 17:31 - Lara:

So yeah, it’s something that I’ve thought a lot on over the years because it is one of the more sort of awkward questions that I get asked because there’s no way of really saying that “Oh no, I love my job and it doesn’t bother me”.

That doesn’t sound like you’re saying, you know, I don’t care that your person has died or it doesn’t bother me that death happens and I’m actually kind of glad that it happened or else I wouldn’t have a job.

That’s obviously not what I’m trying to say, but trying to put that succinctly in a way that doesn’t, you know, need someone to sit down and have a cup of tea and sit with you for about an hour while you explain, you know, your inner workings of your brain.

So I’ve never really been able to put it in very pithily, I guess.

06/12/2025, 17:32 - Lara:

I’m going to have to try here. So I think what it kind of boils down to is that the reality is: we are very, very separated from active grief. And we don’t have to break the news that someone has died. We don’t have to watch somebody die. We don’t have to support families in that very, very immediate grief. We don’t have that. And that in and of itself is very, very protective.

06/12/2025, 17:35 - Lara:

So the way that I think of it personally, I guess, I’m not sure if anyone else in this field does, but I certainly do, is that I don’t see the people that are in our care as “bodies”, quote unquote. They are people to me. And I just sort of figure that I’m meeting these people at this point in their life. This is who they are. And I don’t know anything about them before.

I think that’s just me accepting that this is who they are at this moment kind of thing. That’s how I’m able to do it. And that’s just the way that I think. I didn’t have to force myself to think that way. That is just what I think and feel. They are my patients. We are another ward on the hospital. And that’s just what I do. It’s a very sort of practical aspect. Like I said, a very Dana Scully way of thinking about it, I guess.

Yeah, this is who they are and this is my role in their life.

06/12/2025, 17:38 - Lara:

So, as a bit more of my background, I was raised Catholic. I’m not Catholic anymore. But one of the things that we are taught is that death is not the end of life, but it’s an event in life.

That’s obviously seen as from an individual perspective that when you die, you hopefully end up going to heaven and your life continues on eternal. And it’s actually kind of true just as a daily thing, isn’t it? That death is an event in life. People you know will die and then your life carries on one way or another.

And for me, it’s more literally, you know, this is my job. My job is that people die. And yeah, I’m not quite sure how my upbringing necessarily within Catholicism played into, you know, my very, very practical, I want to say, I don’t know… outlook on this. But yeah, I think that’s what it is. I look at this with a practicality.

06/12/2025, 17:41 - Lara:

That’s not to say that I haven’t had cases that stay with me. My main emotion that I feel, I guess, when I hear histories of some of the people that are in my care is actually more anger.

I see ways in which they have been maybe failed or let down by healthcare or by society. And you look at some things and go, this death didn’t need to happen. This shouldn’t have happened.

And it definitely sort of politicizes you if you weren’t already. One of the things that I care quite deeply about is maternal deaths, which is classed as any death of someone whilst they are pregnant or up to a year after they’ve given birth, no matter how the pregnancy ended.

There are vast, vast racial disparities and wealth and economic disparities in outcomes for pregnant people. And it’s something that I learned quite early on in my career because we specialized in maternal deaths in the place that I trained in.

When I was being taught about the cases, what the pathologist basically said, you know, what is one of the biggest indicators or factors in maternal deaths. And it’s race here in the UK. I mean, it’s the same in America as well. But in America, the biggest cause of death in pregnant people is actually murder, which is, yeah, quite something.

But over here, we have inquiries into maternal deaths that hopefully try and figure out, you know, patterns and ways to hopefully tackle some of the health inequalities, etc. To reduce that, that’s, I guess that’s the way that I focus in the way that things that we do in our job that can help people who are living in.

06/12/2025, 17:45 - Lara:

Also, I find it quite funny that as an ex-Catholic, the card that I pulled was the devil.

06/12/2025, 17:46 - Finbarre:

I don’t know about you, Lara, but many of my Catholic friends and family have many opinions and things to say about the devil.

I can hear the depth of commitment when you were speaking before to your calling and that passion that you have delivering dignified care to your patients really comes through. It must do to their families and those that remember them.

I’m just humbled that you’re sharing this with me and anyone else that’s either reading or listening to this. Thank you so much.

06/12/2025, 17:48 - Finbarre: Ready for your third card?

06/12/2025, 17:48 - Lara: Absolutely!

06/12/2025, 17:48 - Lara:

Like I said, I will talk all day about my job. I absolutely love it, but I think people really do need to know a bit more about what we do for sure. So I’m here for longer.

06/12/2025, 17:49 - Finbarre:

Lara, your last card was chosen by Helen Nesburg, who’s an illustrator, writer and muralist based in Portland. She pulled one from the deck and this is what she got.

06/12/2025, 17:50 - Finbarre:

06/12/2025, 17:50 - Finbarre: The Ace of Wands (but upside down)

06/12/2025, 17:50 - Lara: Ooh

06/12/2025, 17:51 - Finbarre: Disconnection! A temporary creative void! Now to thread that in....

06/12/2025, 17:52 - Finbarre:

I gazed into the eyes of Dana Scully, and now I have my inspiration. Possibly not the first time I’ve gazed at Gillian Anderson. But anyway, moving on.

Have you ever watched a TV series or film that’s tried to capture what a mortuary does and completely missed the point? What’s the most misguided or hilariously wrong portrayal you’ve ever seen?

06/12/2025, 17:54 - Lara:

Oh my gosh. Right. So this is going to be a little difficult to answer simply because since I started this job,

I find it very, very, very difficult to actually watch media like that because it just makes me so angry because people get it so wrong.

I did say earlier about the portrayals of my job in the media is something I have a lot of opinions on.

06/12/2025, 17:55 - Lara:

I think the most egregious one that I can talk about that admittedly I haven’t watched because it’s so bad, but I have read a lot about it, is Silent Witness.

It’s a British one, so I can comment a little bit more because it’s not really fair of me to describe what American shows are like because we work very, very differently.

I’m sure they’re all absolutely terrible portrayals as well, but particularly Silent Witness is not great.

06/12/2025, 17:57 - Finbarre:

Pictured: just your average Thursday?

06/12/2025, 17:59 - Lara:

Oh my God, that’s exactly the series I was thinking about. I’ve just Googled it. I think it’s series 26 of Silent Witness. But basically, it’s just, I mean, for one, I think it’s my job specifically as an APT isn’t really represented in media like this. It’s always about the pathologist and they’re the ones that do everything.

And they do and they don’t. Forensic pathology is a bit different. They do do more than your sort of everyday histopathologists. But yeah, it’s just like they do everything and we’re not there. And you may see an extra or something with an arm in shot or something.

I do think Silent Witness tries to include us a little bit more. But yeah, we’re almost like completely missing. Again, I’ve not actually watched Silent Witness because it makes me so angry. So if anyone wants to correct me that we are represented in there, then absolutely, please do that. I still won’t watch it because it will make me really mad.

06/12/2025, 18:00 - Lara:

In general, as tropes, what really, really, really make me angry, the idea of pathologists and even forensic pathologists working in their own clothes, not wearing scrubs, being able to turn up in the mortuary whenever they want.

Generally, the doing of, oftentimes they’re criminal, so it’s forensic postmortems. It’s just the pathologist in the room. Actual forensic postmortems, you have got a ton of police calling around as well.

You’ve got, you know, SOCO, scenes of crime officers, if that’s what they’re still called. Sorry, not quite sure their exact terminology now.

You know, taking bits of evidence, you have photographers. It’s not just the pathologist. But in these shows, you would think that it just is. It’s just them. They’re the star of the show.

06/12/2025, 18:01 - Lara:

The way that it shows people, like the front of the pathologist going out and, you know, they have guns or they’re, you know, just getting out in the action, being part of the investigation of things. And that does not happen.

This is probably part of the reason why, you know, with the Dana Scully that I wanted to be a pathologist because it did look quite exciting.

It’s not actually that exciting at all. You turn up at all hours of the day to do an examination and then leave onto your next job.

06/12/2025, 18:01 - Lara:

Another one, obviously there’s the whole, you know, you pull someone out on a tray and show a family them in like the fridge room. That does not happen.

06/12/2025, 18:03 - Finbarre:

I’m taking a look on Reddit and apparently there’s one character in Silent Witness that somehow has been shoehorned into the sort of detective workflow, even though they’re a mortuary assistant.

And they’re getting stressed out about the case, so they have to lie down on a mortuary table and stare at the ceiling to think things through. Yeah, my parents really like this show.

06/12/2025, 18:03 - Lara:

Another one is, you know, the whole people just seem to be laying in post-mortem rooms waiting to be examined. And that doesn’t happen.

I was re-watching Broadchurch recently and there’s a scene where the person who’s been murdered is sort of lying out on a PM room table. And it’s clear from what you can see obviously they’re covered like sort of quite a lot with a sheet.

But the pathologist is being asked, you know, sort of like provisional sort of cause of death or whatever and you can see the body lying in the background that they haven’t had a post-mortem examination.

Like you can see that they’ve not and they don’t have the incisions that they would have. They don’t, you know, they’ve not been examined.

And, you know, the whole talking about, oh, it’s, yeah, they, you know, they’ve been, you know, X, Y, Z. This is the cause of death. And you’re like, how do you know? You’ve not even looked. You don’t know.

06/12/2025, 18:04 - Lara:

Yeah, no. Oh, God. Oh, no. Yeah, no, that’s not what happens. That is not what happens at all.

Oh, my God. Yeah, I’m never going to watch this. Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

06/12/2025, 18:04 - Lara:

Just as a really sort of dull one, I guess, is how fast results take. You hear people talking all the time about, you know, oh, we’ve got the toxicology results back like the next day.

And no, no, toxicology hasn’t even been put in a machine yet. It’s probably not even been like sent to the lab yet. That’s great. I want to know what universe they live in, that they can get their toxic results back so fast. That’s not happening.

06/12/2025, 18:06 - Lara:

What’s quite funny about these things is that there are ostensibly, what’s the term? I can’t quite remember what the term is, but like a technical advisor. I think that’s it.

And I think actually someone in my very, very first job that I worked at used to be like an advisor on Silent Witness specifically, where you’re consulted about the realism aspect of a show, what they would do or things like that.

And they stopped because they’re just like, you don’t listen to us. And it’s just an embarrassment. This is not a representation of my job. So I’m just going to step away.

That is actually something that I have done. I did it once for a film where I came in as the advisor on the mortuary scenes. And it is just a little bit of a joke.

It was good money, but it’s not something you do because, you know, there’s going to be any kind of accuracy. It just doesn’t happen. That needs to happen at like the writing stage, not just the filming.

06/12/2025, 18:07 - Lara:

I think, yeah, part of it, a lot of it just doesn’t make good telly because the things that we do, it is actually quite dull compared to what happens on the TV. It’s not completely exciting. Conversely, there are some things that if you did show it on TV, like the actual things that happen, people probably wouldn’t believe it.

I don’t know if that’s just because people think what is on TV must be a true reflection of what happens and therefore that inaccurate portrayal would be so unbelievable because it’s not what they’re used to. Or if they are just, yeah, it’s so unusual as to what they would imagine that actually does happen. They just wouldn’t believe it.

06/12/2025, 18:07 - Finbarre:

I think I’ll stick with my guilty pleasure of... *ahem* iZombie. I stand by my choices. Love it.

06/12/2025, 18:08 - Lara: Haha I have never seen that!

06/12/2025, 18:08 - Finbarre: WHAT

06/12/2025, 18:08 - Lara: Also never seen 6 Feet Under

06/12/2025, 18:09 - Finbarre: I’ll do you a deal. I’ll see an episode of The X-Files and you try this?

06/12/2025, 18:09 - Finbarre: (I suspect I’ll do better out of this, iZombie is glorious unabashed TV trash)

06/12/2025, 18:10 - Lara:

06/12/2025, 18:10 - Finbarre: Do you happen to have a deck of tarot cards anywhere nearby?

06/12/2025, 18:10 - Lara: I DO

06/12/2025, 18:11 - Lara:

06/12/2025, 18:11 - Finbarre:

Well, that is brilliant because we have 77 cards that could potentially be the Guest card. Now, of course, The World won’t count because that’s the one that everyone will get. So I’d like you to give those a shuffle, produce one, and let me know what you’ve got. If you could take a picture of that even better.

06/12/2025, 18:12 - Lara:

So this is the is it AG Muller tarot cards they’re all in French. They were actually given to me by my mum she had them as like I don’t know a youngster I guess and I remember playing with them when I was a kid not really obviously knowing what tarot cards were exactly and she gave them to me so I’ve had these for quite a while.

06/12/2025, 18:13 - Lara:

06/12/2025, 18:16 - Finbarre:

You’ve got me thinking back to my GCSE French, and I’m trying to remember what that would be. Is it something like Dix de Coupe? Possibly. Ten of Cups. It’s the card of the happily ever after so I think somebody’s going to be quite pleased to get that one.

06/12/2025, 18:17 - Lara:

Quite disappointed that I didn’t pull the death card, to be honest. The last time that I did a random pick of a tarot card, it was actually a friend’s birthday and she had a tarot deck and it was literally the card that I pulled out first, which I was so proud of.

06/12/2025, 18:18 - Lara:

As an aside, I do actually have a Death and Judgment card design, like tattooed on me, one on each leg.

I know that Death isn’t, you know, literal. It’s actually quite a nice, like good card.

That was my reasoning behind it anyway. The same with Judgment. I do know what they mean and I didn’t just get them because, you know, they were cool or anything like that. And they were based off a friend of mine’s own designs with cats.

I will have to try and get a picture of them and send them over.

06/12/2025, 18:20 - Finbarre:

Now, the Death cat I can all too easily picture, because let’s face it, most felines have brought some form of early demise to furry animals or our feathered friends, but the idea of a Judgement cat? I can only think of Ceiling Cat from the early 2000s.

06/12/2025, 18:21 - Lara: Oh, my cat is full of judgement

06/12/2025, 18:21 - Finbarre:

*judges*

06/12/2025, 18:22 - Lara:

My cat (Ripley), very judgemental

06/12/2025, 18:25 - Lara:

06/12/2025, 18:25 - Lara:

06/12/2025, 18:26 - Lara: Had to dive into the depths of my photo albums for those! That’s when they were freshly done

06/12/2025, 18:26 - Finbarre:

The ink and detail on those is so crisp and there is a touch of Pratchett to the Death card there.

06/12/2025, 18:27 - Lara:

Yeah, I love that interpretation of it. That it’s, like, a cat, of course, would be, like, Death’s companion. Yeah, I’m not actually sure if Pratchett was her inspiration from it, like, for the cards. But, yeah, no, I really, really like that it’s not an obvious depiction of, like, the Death tarot. It’s just, yeah, Death having a little cuddle with their cat.

06/12/2025, 18:27 - Finbarre:

That honking great eyeball ring of yours looks like you would place it on a table and it would follow you around the room or possibly contains deadly poison.

06/12/2025, 18:28 - Lara:

You know what, that picture was taken so long ago and I completely forgot I had that ring. I think I’ve still got it somewhere, but I don’t really wear it anymore. Maybe we should bring it back.

06/12/2025, 18:29 - Finbarre:

I was thinking the same just a few interviews ago when I was talking about one of those jointed goth 90s rings that I used to have.

The kind that you would wear when you had your long black coat and you were desperately trying to be like somebody from The Matrix.

And I’ve just paused to remember quite how long ago The Matrix came out.

Nope, moving on!

Lara, thank you so much for joining me on Tarot DMs. I’m astonished and gobsmacked with my head blown about what it is that you do for your work.

I know every day is a school day and I feel like there is so much more that could be talked about on this. I’d love to come back to it. And yeah, I now understand just a little bit of the world of an anatomical pathology technologist.

06/12/2025, 18:30 - Finbarre:

Now your tea must be long drunk. What plans do you have for the rest of the evening?

06/12/2025, 18:31 - Lara:

I don’t know. I think I’m just going to chill out watching a film. Me and my partner can never really decide on what to watch. It’s probably just something that we’ve seen before. We were going to watch Commando before I started this interview. So I think we’re going to go down and watch that. And I have got a giant tiramisu to eat that I bought at the Christmas market earlier on in town. So I’m going to do that really.

06/12/2025, 18:31 - Lara:

And of course, at some point, I’m going to have to watch an episode of iZombie!

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Helen is an illustrator, writer, and muralist based in Portland, OR, where she lives with her partner and two wild, small humans. She writes and illustrates A Creative Frenzy, a humorous Substack newsletter for a neurodivergent audience of creatives, parents, and feral women. She is currently querying her first book, a middle-grade fantasy novel.

Discover more here:

A Creative Frenzy

Neurodivergent visual storyteller for the delightfully strange, the ferociously feral, and the little bit sleepy.

By Helen Nesburg

03/12/2025, 20:02 - Finbarre:

Writer, illustrator and muralist, it’s Helen Nesburg! Welcome to Tarot DMs. How are you?

03/12/2025, 20:03 - Helen Nesburg:

Hi! I’m doing great, looking forward to having this chat. I think this is a really fun, unique way to do an interview.

03/12/2025, 20:03 - Finbarre:

You are very kind, especially as with this being the new month, we have The World as the theme. So that’s going to be your first card. We’ll come to that shortly. But it also means we’re using a new deck. And the deck we’re using tonight is Christina Ricci’s Cat Full of Spiders tarot deck, which is as peculiar as it sounds.

03/12/2025, 20:04 - Helen Nesburg:

That’s fantastic. Like a good 90s kid. I have always been obsessed with Christina Ricci. She is the epitome of perfect goth.

03/12/2025, 20:05 - Finbarre:

A little bird tells me, well, your Substack, A Creative Frenzy, tells me that today in your house, at this very minute, a seven-year-old with ADHD and a three-year-old with a thirst for destruction are plotting against you. Have they wreaked their vengeance yet? Or is this like the Sword of Damocles just waiting?

03/12/2025, 20:06 - Helen Nesburg: Ha! It’s a long game for those two

03/12/2025, 20:06 - Finbarre: Sticklebricks in your slippers? Nerf bullets EVERYWHERE?

03/12/2025, 20:08 - Helen Nesburg: No Nerf! I’m still trying to keep gun type stuff out of the house but they do have play swords and a bow and arrow. It’s more a midlevel type of danger.

03/12/2025, 20:09 - Finbarre:

My 14-year-old daughter has graduated from Goblincore to almost to be a full-on LARPer. She recently has been bought some archery gloves, you know those ones where you can actually fire a decently strung bow and not take your fingers off? She is really into that, plus she’s also got a little hand-cross bow and all manner of things. She’s going to be doing her black belt in jiu-jitsu. If I need a tiny bodyguard for the apocalypse, she’s perfect.

03/12/2025, 20:11 - Helen Nesburg:

That’s brilliant. I always wanted to LARP. I’ve never done it. Once my sister, who is also like me, a huge dork, found that you could do a Harry Potter style LARPing somewhere in the Netherlands. And that’s maybe a future life goal when we’re old ladies, we’ll go do that together.

03/12/2025, 20:12 - Finbarre:

I love the idea. You could go for sorceress or you could go for bog witch, depending on how you’re feeling on the day. Before we start with your cards, I need to ask you, what do the words feral mom mean to you?

03/12/2025, 20:13 - Finbarre:

Yeah, I know I’m British and I can’t quite make the mom sound, but you know what I mean.

03/12/2025, 20:14 - Helen Nesburg:

It’s a good question. I think in this case, what it means to me is the antithesis of the buttoned up, yoga’d, organized, know when the homework’s due, have the lunch, have a 10-point plan, can make it to work on time and can come back and cook dinner type mom.

It’s a fly by the seat of your pants. We’re probably late. We’ve missed, we’ve lost the books. We don’t know how to help with homework, but we can make a goddamn great diagram. The kids are loved, but they might still be a little unclean. So making it through together type mom.

03/12/2025, 20:16 - Finbarre:

I do love that approach of, are the kids breathing? Are they happy? Are they safe? Tick, tick, tick. Everything else will take care of itself.

Right. We need to get these cards looked at as time is a ticking! So the first one, as I say, is going to be the world. I’ll send you a picture in just a moment.

You mentioned you’re a 90s kid. Did you dabble in tarot back in the day? I don’t know, maybe after watching Charmed or Practical Magic?

03/12/2025, 20:18 - Helen Nesburg:

I definitely loved all that type of stuff. One of my favorite authors was Francesca Lea Block, who wrote this series that was very tarot heavy, all about kids getting into trouble in Los Angeles. Probably read it too early, a little too dark for my age at the time. But anything that was a little Wiccan, a little tarot-y, I really ate that stuff up when I was younger.

03/12/2025, 20:18 - Finbarre:

03/12/2025, 20:19 - Helen Nesburg: I love it!

03/12/2025, 20:19 - Finbarre:

Your first tarot question, based on the world, is if you imagine a life that feels deeply yours, not shaped by anything outside, no expectations, no presumptions, what does that world not include? So imagine everything is perfect, as far as it can be. What does that not include?

03/12/2025, 20:21 - Helen Nesburg: Smartphones, AI, so much of the recent technology that zaps creativity and makes me worried for my kids. I also used to work in tech so I’ve seen too much.

03/12/2025, 20:22 - Finbarre:

That’s an interesting thought and one I very much agree with. Imagine you’ve got a dial and you can turn that dial back technologically to a previous year. Approximately when do you think we had it right?

03/12/2025, 20:23 - Finbarre: Was it... the 90s! Maybe before?

03/12/2025, 20:24 - Helen Nesburg:

2005. I think we’re in a really great place with technology in 2005. You had mobile phones, you could take a picture, but none of these apps and all this craziness. You could still walk around. Nobody was documenting everything that you did. Nobody was really bullying folks online the way that they do now. And it was so hopeful. You could get news from across the world in an instant. Twitter was full of scientists and journalists, and it was just opening up the world in all new ways. So I think that that was really a golden period when technology felt super.

03/12/2025, 20:26 - Finbarre: Plus I present to you one of the finest mobile phones ever made *drum roll*

03/12/2025, 20:26 - Finbarre:

IT’S BEAUTIFUL

03/12/2025, 20:27 - Helen Nesburg: Pure perfection! Little did we know.

03/12/2025, 20:28 - Helen Nesburg: I love how the internet connects us, I just wish it went on a different path

03/12/2025, 20:29 - Finbarre:

Do you feel more creative now, actively fighting against those kind of distractions? Or do you think you were more so then?

03/12/2025, 20:31 - Helen Nesburg:

If you’d asked me that same question two years ago, I would have said absolutely more creative then. I was painting a lot, producing a lot of work, didn’t have a whole lot of outside influences other than the world around you and things you were choosing to research. But in the last even three years, I’ve really gone on a creative journey. I think the work that I’m producing now is more interesting and more creative than what I used to do.

03/12/2025, 20:33 - Finbarre:

I would love to explore more about that in your second card. So I have a stack of them here. I’ll send you a picture of the backs because they’re quite exquisite. And I’m going to be shuffling these. So I’d like you to say stop or type stop. Let’s see what you get.

03/12/2025, 20:33 - Finbarre:

03/12/2025, 20:33 - Helen Nesburg: Stop!

03/12/2025, 20:34 - Finbarre:

03/12/2025, 20:34 - Finbarre: The King of Swords there

03/12/2025, 20:35 - Helen Nesburg: I love her face, suspicious but unbothered

03/12/2025, 20:36 - Finbarre:

You may be peering at that thinking, oh God, what on earth was the King of Swords about? So it’s a pinnacle of intellect, reason and authority. It’s somebody who is a master strategist who leads with clarity and an integrity. It does represent an embodiment of truth and discipline, a situation where you can rise above emotions and rely on the head instead of the heart. So it’s about controlled power.

03/12/2025, 20:37 - Finbarre: Next tarot question - what bold truth or message do you communicate (perhaps unfiltered or urgent) through your work?

03/12/2025, 20:41 - Helen Nesburg: Unfiltered definitely fits the bill when it comes to my work on Substack. For many years I worked in polished professional jobs. I wrote a lot but without feeling or voice. It’s taken me time to reset, strip all of that away and let myself onto the page. But that’s exactly what Creative Frenzy is about, by naming it that I gave myself permission to be messy and real. Now I want that to me the message to readers, it’s ok to be weird and chaotic. That’s life, that’s what’s fun and interesting.

03/12/2025, 20:43 - Finbarre:

I was looking through your illustration work and you create this bouquet of fascinating forms. What visual artwork are you working on at the moment?

03/12/2025, 20:45 - Helen Nesburg:

I did an illustration of baboons for my last post and now I’m obsessed. Here’s one of the reference photos I used. Look at his hair and his peeved expression. He’s fabulous! I’ll probably do something to keep drawing them. Maybe a picture book?

03/12/2025, 20:46 - Helen Nesburg:

These are how the turned out for the posts. I love drawing things that make me laugh.

03/12/2025, 20:47 - Helen Nesburg: On that note I have wanted to do a picture book for a long time. I’ve dabbled with ideas but maybe next year I’ll make it happen.

03/12/2025, 20:47 - Finbarre:

I was glancing through your children’s illustrations and I spotted the, I want to say it’s a stoat, but it may be a weasel, a marten, a mink, not sure. But there’s some kind of, there’s a creature that’s pulling a cart full of apples and he’s got this little expression on his face as if to say, well, hi. He’s got such a friendliness that just made me grin straight away. Does he have a name?

03/12/2025, 20:49 - Helen Nesburg: Ah yes, he’s a weasel! Unnamed at the moment but I’m open to suggestions. He’s a character that passes through my middle grade novel. I’m in the process of querying the manuscript and I’ve done some early illustrations as well.

03/12/2025, 20:50 - Helen Nesburg:

03/12/2025, 20:50 - Finbarre: Look at that little face!

03/12/2025, 20:52 - Finbarre:

I need to put on my sensible voice now and not look at the screen. You’ve been given a Gift Card. This is the tarot card that’s been handed on from the last guest to yourself.

And this is from C.B. Lee, a New York Times bestselling author of young adult middle grade fiction.

And they have picked this card for you.

Now, as I just so happen to have the deck as well that C.B. Lee had in mind. We’re going to jump away from Christina Ricci’s Cat Full Of Spiders and take a look at this one.

03/12/2025, 20:52 - Finbarre:

03/12/2025, 20:52 - Finbarre: The Magician from the Modern Witch Tarot deck

03/12/2025, 20:52 - Finbarre: Last one, are you ready?

03/12/2025, 20:53 - Helen Nesburg: Let’s do it!

03/12/2025, 20:55 - Finbarre:

I’m taking a look at The Magician card and I can see she has everything laid out. And in her hand, she grips an object of power. Okay, so what is something that you once believed was beyond you? Whether it be emotional, creative, practical reality… but you now realize it’s part of your power and something that you wield?

03/12/2025, 20:57 - Helen Nesburg:

Absolutely. Writing. I’ve always loved writing, but I never in a million years would have called myself a writer. I have dyslexia, and so reading came hard to me. But then once I became a reader, that’s all I did. I was that kid who used to walk to school tripping over things with my nose in a book. But I still was never kind of a mantle, I guess, a hat I put on for myself until I just sat down and wrote this book.

It absolutely poured out of me in about three months, exactly this time last year. And I finished it and went, oh, holy shit, I wrote a book. It’s fabulous. And of course, it’s taken a lot more time to work on it and get the manuscript in a good place. But the idea that I could be a writer, that I am a writer, that’s still so new to me. I’ve always considered myself a visual artist.

And it just, it absolutely feels like a superpower that, I don’t know, I just got zapped by lightning and I’m still figuring out everything that I can do with it.

03/12/2025, 20:59 - Finbarre:

I’m delighting in this She-Ra style imagery (I much preferred the later version, the one that happened recently. Although the music of the earlier She-Ra was probably better!)

Anyway, I can picture you zapped by some kind of sky beam.

Out of interest, if there are people listening to this or reading who are in a position where they’ve yet to discover their creative talents in the way that you did, is there a piece of advice you could give them?

03/12/2025, 21:02 - Helen Nesburg: Play, give yourself room to play. I started so many things, wrote absolute garbage until I found the path back to my own voice. Also it’s really helpful to tap back into what you loved as a child. I think Therese something magical about whatever weird topic you loved at nine years old, there’s a thread there that’s worth following.

03/12/2025, 21:04 - Finbarre: That’s me needing to write about triceratops then!

03/12/2025, 21:04 - Helen Nesburg: Yes! Exactly

03/12/2025, 21:05 - Finbarre:

Although my second favourite dinosaur was the Iguanodon because it had razor-sharp thumbs. The idea that you could live in the Cretaceous or the Jurassic or wherever it’s from and defend yourself by basically giving people the thumbs up, I think is a testament to probably how badass that dinosaur was.

Okay, before we wrap up, I need you to either think of a tarot card or draw one if you have one in a deck for the next guest.

And also, could you tell me what your favourite dinosaur is? Now the question has been raised, it needs to be asked!

03/12/2025, 21:09 - Helen Nesburg:

My kids have this gorgeous Dino book and this is my favorite

03/12/2025, 21:09 - Helen Nesburg:

03/12/2025, 21:09 - Helen Nesburg: He’s just so goofy looking

03/12/2025, 21:09 - Finbarre:

03/12/2025, 21:09 - Helen Nesburg:

03/12/2025, 21:10 - Finbarre:

You completely missed that. There was this inhalation of breath. I just went *GASP* “it’s upside down!” but we’ll keep it that way. The Ace of Wands. Oh, that’s going to be a tricky one for someone, but it’ll provide an interesting story, I’m sure.

03/12/2025, 21:11 - Helen Nesburg: Oh dear, I’m a novice! I didn’t think about the upside down

03/12/2025, 21:11 - Finbarre: Gorgeous! Can I ask which cards you have chosen there?

03/12/2025, 21:12 - Helen Nesburg: The Moon Witch Deck

03/12/2025, 21:13 - Finbarre: The contrast of the writing against the black background would make it perfect for reading by candlelight, thank you for this (I may need to grab the deck for myself!)

03/12/2025, 21:14 - Helen Nesburg: My pleasure! A gift from my sister

03/12/2025, 21:15 - Finbarre:

She has magnificent taste. Helen Nesburg, thank you so much for joining me this evening on Tarot DMs and for helping make technology this wondrous way that I can talk to you across continents about tarot and nonsense and dinosaurs and ways of capturing that creative spark. It’s been so lovely speaking to you. And if your work has piqued the interest of anyone that’s listening to this or reading this, how can they best follow your creative adventures?

03/12/2025, 21:17 - Helen Nesburg:

Thank you. It’s been so fun. Nonsense is my absolute favorite topic. So I’m happy to talk nonsense for days. Best way to find me is probably by Substack. My name on it is Helen Nesburg.

A Creative Frenzy is my Substack publication. I’m on Instagram at Helen Nesburg. My website is Helen Nesburg. The benefit of making up your own last name is that nobody else has it and it makes it very easy to find you on the internet. I guess possibly a blessing and a curse. It was fun, thanks again!

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

C.B. Lee is a New York Times bestselling author of young adult and middle grade fiction, including Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe, A Clash of Steel, and the acclaimed Sidekick Squad series. Their work have received seven starred reviews and have been finalists for multiple awards, including the Lambda Literary Award and the Rainbow Award. Lee’s work has been featured in NPR, Teen Vogue, Wired Magazine, Hypable, Tor’s Best of Fantasy and Sci Fi and the American Library Association’s Rainbow List. Born in Los Angeles to Chinese and Vietnamese refugees, Lee has cultivated a passion for storytelling from a young age. They live in Los Angeles today and strive to eat as many bao as possible.

https://cb-lee.com
instagram.com/cblee_cblee

19/11/2025, 20:01 - Finbarre:

CB Lee, it is a delight to have you on Tarot DMs. Thank you so much for joining me. I was speaking to my wife about who your favourite superhero might be. Now, we think it’s going to be an X-Person. Is it? Are we right?

19/11/2025, 20:03 - C.B. Lee:

I would have to say if you had asked me 10 years ago, my favorite superhero would have been Jubilee or Kitty Pride. Really a big fan of X-Men in general!

Although, you know, in the last 10 years, I’ve also gotten really into Marvel.

My current favorite superheroes would be Gwen Stacy and Miles Morales.

19/11/2025, 20:04 - Finbarre:

Her dress sense IS supreme quite frankly

19/11/2025, 20:04 - C.B. Lee:

So 90s, so cool.

19/11/2025, 20:05 - Finbarre:

Apologies, I was just reading Not Your Sidekick and I had to jump in with a superhero related question. How is your day going? Tell me, what wonderful things have happened recently? I’d love to know.

19/11/2025, 20:06 - C.B. Lee:

Thank you. Just put the dogs in their Christmas sweaters. I know that it’s only mid-November, but I think as soon as Halloween is over, we pretty much get started. We do have like still a lot of like autumnal decorations, but we’ve also started our Christmas excitement.

19/11/2025, 20:06 - C.B. Lee:

19/11/2025, 20:06 - C.B. Lee: looking for a picture in their Christmas sweaters lol

19/11/2025, 20:06 - Finbarre: Look at those two superstars! What are their names?

19/11/2025, 20:07 - C.B. Lee:

19/11/2025, 20:07 - C.B. Lee: This is Sherlock

19/11/2025, 20:07 - C.B. Lee:

19/11/2025, 20:07 - C.B. Lee: this is Bao

19/11/2025, 20:07 - Finbarre: Sans deerstalker, pipe and scads of opium

19/11/2025, 20:08 - C.B. Lee: 😂😂😂

19/11/2025, 20:08 - Finbarre: Bao? As in the bun??

19/11/2025, 20:08 - C.B. Lee: yes!!

19/11/2025, 20:08 - C.B. Lee:

19/11/2025, 20:09 - C.B. Lee:

19/11/2025, 20:09 - C.B. Lee: i cannot find a good picture in the sweaters so we’ll have to move on haha

19/11/2025, 20:10 - Finbarre:

Just half an hour ago, my wife had prepared this giant tray of autumnal lasagna. You know, when it’s been oven-baked, so it’s got that browned top, and this vegan delight was eaten by the whole family.

I’m probably half lasagna myself now, and I’m looking at those pictures, and I’m still just a little bit hungry. Is that a particular drink that you would have with those bao buns? Is it something like some kind of rice wine or...

19/11/2025, 20:11 - C.B. Lee: Probably just tea I think. On a hot day I love a good iced milk tea with boba!

19/11/2025, 20:12 - C.B. Lee: That lasagne sounds absolutely amazing, was it pumpkin? What was it that make it autumnal?

19/11/2025, 20:14 - Finbarre: The sheer tongue scorching levels of paprika! My wife’s family originate from Hungary and their love of that spice comes into all of their hearty dishes. I probably have flushed cheeks now though.

19/11/2025, 20:15 - Finbarre:

We should probably start moving on before my stomach starts audibly rumbling on the microphone. I’ve got your first card, and it is The Moon.

This is the same card that everyone gets this month - and it’s a mysterious, quite psychedelic card, this particular one.

19/11/2025, 20:15 - Finbarre:

19/11/2025, 20:16 - C.B. Lee:

19/11/2025, 20:16 - C.B. Lee:

It has been a long while since I’ve had cards drawn, but I have seen this card before, just not in a while. I think my last reading, I pulled The Fool and several others, but I don’t remember. I think it was overall an interesting conversation.

But no, I can’t remember having pulled this one in recent years.

19/11/2025, 20:16 - Finbarre:

Just as a quick reminder, this one is a card that signals a time of uncertainty, where not everything is as it seems. More than meets the eye, as the Transformers would say.

So your intuition is in a heightened state. Also, that risk of misinterpretation is as well. It’s a time of dreams and distortion.

19/11/2025, 20:20 - C.B. Lee:

I’m currently working on another book. So I think the moon really works well pointing to that stage of the unknown, the uncertainty, dreams, just because it’s really fun being in this space where I’m still dreaming up the story and it can kind of go any which way at this point. It’s not like a solid thing yet, like not a draft where I’m working with something already I made, I’m editing it.

But the creation of something new is really a great part of the process.

19/11/2025, 20:24 - Finbarre:

My first tarot question for you is, do you ever leave things unresolved in your stories?

And if you do, could you give me an example?

19/11/2025, 20:26 - C.B. Lee:

So first, yes. And if I’m doing a series, absolutely. For example, the Sidekick Squad, you know, the overarching plot, like what’s going to happen with the Resistance and the League of Heroes… League of Heroes is not resolved by the end of books one, two or three. They come across new problems and hope to solve them. So yeah, in this series, there’s definitely things that are open and yet to be closed still.

19/11/2025, 20:26 - C.B. Lee:

And I think most of my other books, I feel like I always like to invite the reader to imagine and then fun doing it. I do want to have the story be satisfying and fun read so the main conflict will be resolved.

But I like to leave a few questions like what’s going to happen next with the characters and leave things on a hopeful note for people to imagine the future and what might that future bring for those characters, but still know that they’re safe and happy at the end of the story and the particulars of what happens next. You’re free to imagine that.

19/11/2025, 20:28 - C.B. Lee:

I think the biggest question mark probably is in Clash of Steel. I don’t know if there’s a way you can indicate to your readers about spoilers, but I kind of leave it up to you because you don’t know what happens to the pirate queen. Is she dead? Is she alive? Did she succumb to her greed? What happens in that cave? So we don’t know the 100% truth of what happens because Xiang and Ahn, the main characters, don’t know. And they’re, they and the book, going off on their own adventure, but we know that they’re together and they’re happy. But I wanted to leave it open just in case, you know, I wanted to come back for a sequel.

19/11/2025, 20:30 - C.B. Lee:

19/11/2025, 20:30 - Finbarre:

I really appreciate that you prize not necessarily a happy ending, but a positive one. Because my two kids will, probably the mark of a terrible parent, will spend a good part of the night in bed with books, just reading and reading until they fall asleep.

Initially, I thought I should probably go in and stop them and say, you know what time it is, etc. But I would rather they fill their boots with the written word. You know, they see so many screens during the day. And it is just that time of reflection and contemplation. But also, if they’re in a happy world, if they’re in safe hands, that’s brilliant. So I’m so glad you said that.

19/11/2025, 20:32 - C.B. Lee:

Thank you. Yeah. It’s been interesting, I think, seeing my kid who’s four now reading and really enjoying stories. And I try to encourage it as much as possible. But, you know, definitely in the parenting side, like, hmm, this is bedtime. Do you really need another story? But like, you know, that’s the balance, right? Like, okay, bedtime versus, oh, you’re having so much fun reading these books.

19/11/2025, 20:36 - Finbarre:

19/11/2025, 20:34 - Finbarre:

Okay we are now on card two this is the wild card and in my hands I’m holding the Hexen 5.0 tarot by Suzanne Treister and these are huge. These are like the size of a VHS cassette. Depending on how old you are you may possibly remember them in your distant memory, so yes the deck is enormous! and What I’m going to do is do my best to shuffle these, you cannot riffle shuffle them. You can, I don’t know, it’s a bit like throwing books around. I’ll do my best!

When you type stop or say stop I’ll produce one card and think of a question

19/11/2025, 20:37 - C.B. Lee:

19/11/2025, 20:37 - C.B. Lee: ok stop!

19/11/2025, 20:37 - Finbarre: OH MY GOD ARE YOU SURE?

19/11/2025, 20:37 - Finbarre: I kid, I kid. One moment...

19/11/2025, 20:38 - Finbarre:

19/11/2025, 20:39 - Finbarre:

So the Two of Chalices here, normally represented by the Two of Cups, is that meeting of hearts. It’s a card where mutual attraction or emotional connection brings that almost sacred moment where two people recognise something profound in the other.

19/11/2025, 20:40 - C.B. Lee:

That’s great. There’s always an element of romance in my stories. So I love recognizing a kindred heart… is important in all my work. I think it’s really wonderful. I think even works that I don’t write arcs that aren’t particularly romantic. I think connection is superhuman and just building connection and community.

19/11/2025, 20:42 - Finbarre:

Here’s your question from the Two of Cups. From what I can gather in your stories, queer love is portrayed with tenderness and complexity. What do you think is essential when representing queer connections on a page?

19/11/2025, 20:44 - C.B. Lee: I think if you had asked me this in 2015 when i first started writing, i would have said it was very important to show queer characters existing and having fun and getting to have romances

19/11/2025, 20:46 - C.B. Lee:

I think where things have shifted a bit is that the pressure, you know, 10 years ago, especially in TV, not necessarily in literature, although I think people were looking at literature in a particular way, is that there is this need for characters to be pretty perfect.

If you wrote someone as evil or mean, or this person cheated on that person, or they’re messy, or, you know, have flaws, or are full of flaws, it felt like because there were so few queer characters in media that, like, if you created someone, a character that wasn’t quite perfect, it was a blow, right, to the queer community. That it was bad representation if this person was terrible.

At the time, I wrote characters that were very, like, I was writing to what I wanted to see. You know, in the Sidekick Squad, they’re teenagers. They’re very good to each other. You know, they make mistakes. They try their best. But overall, it’s a very, like, straightforward, I mean, not straight, but, like, direct relationship.

They have, like, great relationships with their parents who are all super supportive because I wanted that. I wanted people to live in a world where everything was wonderful, you know, aside from the superhero conspiracy in that world.

19/11/2025, 20:48 - C.B. Lee:

I think today I would love to see more characters get to be messy or evil or vindictive or terrible or cheating or whatever they are in all their flaws, right?

Like I want to see people have the range of emotions and, you know, they’re human and I want to see them being human. I think as there are more and more people writing in this space, that there isn’t the same kind of pressure for someone to be perfect. Because, you know, even back then this was true, but I think that people kind of took it very seriously that like one character was the utmost, like had to be the representation for all characters in that community, right?

So, you know, whatever is bad representation or good representation, that’s all kind of, you know, I think the more people are writing that will have the range and there’s less pressure for someone to create. Someone who theoretically can’t exist as someone who might represent an entire community.

19/11/2025, 20:51 - Finbarre: Is there a messy & complex character in fiction like this that you have enjoyed recently?

19/11/2025, 20:52 - Finbarre: I ask as my shelves always have room for just *one* extra book recommendation

19/11/2025, 20:53 - C.B. Lee: City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

19/11/2025, 20:54 - C.B. Lee: Sophie and the girl she’s in love with - who is part of the ruling class , they’re both so much

19/11/2025, 20:54 - C.B. Lee: The novel is great

19/11/2025, 20:55 - Finbarre: Set on a tidally locked planet? Social division and drama? SOLD

19/11/2025, 20:55 - C.B. Lee: Its epic and amazing

19/11/2025, 20:57 - Finbarre:

Time for your last card. Now, this is the Gift Card that’s been handed down from the previous guest on Tarot DMs.

And that was Cay Macres, who is the writer of the interactive novel Witch’s Brew: Love and Lattes. They have given you this.

19/11/2025, 20:58 - Finbarre:

19/11/2025, 20:58 - Finbarre: I boldly assume The Page is the person in the fancy doublet and not the scaly one in the goblet

19/11/2025, 20:59 - Finbarre: Also. Another from the Cups suit?

19/11/2025, 21:01 - Finbarre:

In tarot readings, the Page of Cups often represents a wide-eyed and tender spirit. So, thinking of that, when inspiration first knocked when you were a young writer, what naive hopes did you have then that you’ve kept alive?

19/11/2025, 21:05 - C.B. Lee:

I think it’s about joy. You know, what you said earlier about writing my works with tenderness, I feel like that’s such a great insight because I really do want people to see and read my work and feel like they are being comforted or held or like that they’re safe here in this story and that it’s going to be a good time.

I think the inspiration that I hold on to is really like why I write, why do I write, why am I here? And it’s really, I think, because storytelling gives us so much joy and gives me joy to bring that to the world. You know, I want to see the world have more stories that really inspire us. And so I’m just looking forward to sharing these with the world.

19/11/2025, 21:07 - Finbarre:

Sometimes I do wish this was a video podcast because you would see the big smile that you’ve placed on my face. Thank you so much, C.B. Lee. And to continue the spirit of passing on the love, which card would you offer to the next guest?

19/11/2025, 21:09 - C.B. Lee:

19/11/2025, 21:10 - Finbarre:

A fabulous choice!

19/11/2025, 21:13 - Finbarre:

It has been wonderful having you on Tarot DMs, C.B. Lee. Please give my love and my scritches to Sherlock and Bao.

I have just heard the front door go downstairs. My wife has arrived back with the kids, and they have crumbled up cookies to stick into ice cream. So I’ll need to disappear off shortly. Before I go, do you have any news on when your new book will be coming out?

19/11/2025, 21:14 - C.B. Lee: Enjoy those cookies!!

19/11/2025, 21:15 - C.B. Lee:

It still has not yet been announced, but likely it wouldn’t be until 2027. The project will possibly be announced before the end of the year. Maybe not. I don’t know. It might be announced next early next year.

Readers can follow my Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/cblee_cblee and I’ll post news about it when I do get word when it’s okay to post.

Thank you for having me. This was really fun!

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Cay Macres is a writer and narrative designer based in California who loves queer fiction, tea, and cats! They are the author of the cozy fantasy interactive novel Witch’s Brew: Love and Lattes. They also write short stories and manage the social media pages for the puzzle game community Thinky Games.

Play the first three chapters for free at https://www.choiceofgames.com/hearts-choice/witchs-brew

11/11/2025, 20:01 - Finbarre:

Cay Macres, author of Witch’s Brew: Love and Lattes, the interactive romance novel, welcome to Tarot DMs! How are you?

11/11/2025, 20:03 - Cay Macres:

Hi, Finbarre. I’m doing well. It’s, you know, your typical foggy day in San Francisco. It’s about noon and still hasn’t burned off. I don’t mind that, you know, summer happens pretty late here and I’m definitely looking forward to more of that fall weather. Like any writer, I love, you know, rain, crunchy leaves, sweaters, tea, cuddles with cats.

11/11/2025, 20:04 - Finbarre:

As fate or kismet would have it, over the breakfast table this morning, I was reading about something peculiar to San Francisco.

Am I right in thinking, and this may sound absolutely insane if I’ve been reading, I don’t know, some kind of farce or parody… but is it true that The Fog in San Francisco has a name?

11/11/2025, 20:05 - Cay Macres:

Yes, he does definitely have a name. His name is Karl. I’ve often wondered, though, does he stop being Karl when he moves over into Oakland, for example? I’m always curious about specifically which clouds are Karl and which clouds are not Karl. But either way, both me and my cats love him. I have one cat who’s extremely fluffy and very much appreciates the foggy cold weather.

11/11/2025, 20:06 - Cay Macres:

11/11/2025, 20:07 - Finbarre:

The first one is a distinguished floof with a particularly good taste in books. The second one looks like it’s directing a film.

Could I ask what their names are?

11/11/2025, 20:08 - Cay Macres:

Yeah, so the fluffy one is named Periwinkle after the Cat in Blue’s Clues. And then Tibbs is also named after an animated cat and is from 101 Dalmatians. But Perry is definitely the one who likes to get into trouble, distract me from my writing, and loves playing fetch. And Tibbs is more the cuddle bug of the two.

11/11/2025, 20:09 - Finbarre: OK, we’re doing the cat pictures so I need to grab mine. One sec.

11/11/2025, 20:09 - Finbarre:

11/11/2025, 20:10 - Finbarre:

I do promise at some point I will actually open the tarot deck.

So at the top there, we have Beigli, who is more loaf than cat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Beigli move quickly. He’s very good at being asleep and exposing his beans.

We’ve got Dios in the second picture there. Dios is just a good all-round cat. She’s pretty. She’s affable. She does cat-like things.

And the bottom one is Bexley, who is the wise old gent. Very distinguished. Also incredibly timid. You walk into a room and he’s gone. You know, it’s like there’s a little smoke bomb where he used to be. And on occasion, if you’re lucky, he’ll come up to you, flip upside down and expose his belly. But literally for a few minutes and then that’ll be him for the week.

11/11/2025, 20:11 - Finbarre:

Okay, while we have the finest felines assembled, can you talk me through just a little bit about your most recent game?

11/11/2025, 20:16 - Cay Macres:

Yeah, so Witch’s Brew is an interactive novel, and in it you get to play as a magician who is attending university, keeping up with their grades and classes, and learning different types of magic, but is also working at a cafe that’s struggling. So there’s a lot of different things that you can do. You can kind of forge your own story in it. You can have a cute little black cat as your familiar. You can romance different characters or decide not to. Because there’s so many different branches you can go down, it is a lot of words. When you put all of those branches together, it all adds up to 400,000 words, which was surprising even for me as the author to see on the Steam page!

11/11/2025, 20:18 - Finbarre:

As a creative outlet, I would tend to write poetry. So the idea of getting that number of words down on anything is incomprehensible. I don’t think I’ve ever written that number of words probably in my life. So that must feel like an incredible accomplishment. It must also be one hell of a lot of proofreading. Right. Cay. I’ve got my cards out. We’re ready to go.

The first card you’re going to receive is The Moon with it being Moon Month. I’ll pose a question to you based on that theme.

11/11/2025, 20:18 - Finbarre:

11/11/2025, 20:19 - Finbarre: For The Moon I would like to come back to something you said previously. First question:

How do you address uncertainty in Witch’s Brew? In those player choices that are difficult to predict?

11/11/2025, 20:25 - Cay Macres:

Yeah, this is a really good question. And the honest answer is that you can’t predict what every single person who stumbles across your work is going to want to do with it.

Luckily for me, I had a team of beta testers help me with this. And that also answers your question about proofreading. So I had both an editor and beta testers who went through it and suggested a bunch of edits. Some of those edits involved wanting there to be an extra option that they felt was missing from the piece.

One example is that while I might really like a certain character and want to be nice to them all the time… another character might want to have a more rude approach or not even rude, but just want to be more snarky or, you know. You have to craft a player character that fits as many people as possible.

You’re never going to create a totally universal player character, but you can try your best at least.

11/11/2025, 20:29 - Finbarre:

One of the reasons why I love interactive fiction so much is the sheer amount of scope that is so generously given to the player, which would account for those 400,000 words. Plus, like the idea of, you know, you can be male, female, non-binary. You can be gay, straight, bisexual, asexual. You can be polyamorous. You can play it however you wish.

It gives you options that, to be honest, no other genre of game tends to do that I’ve found. I mean, I’ve only played a small number of the Choice of Games catalogue. I do have some favourites.

I’ve yet to delve into The Heart’s Choice, but I know that when I do, I’m going to be basically playing one after the other after the other.

11/11/2025, 20:32 - Finbarre:

Looking through The Heart’s Choice options that you have, you have everything from retrieving a stolen artefact, you’ve got heists, you have what appear to be vampires, you have dark magics and you have so much to choose from.

So what was it about the idea of working in a magical cafe on a college campus that made you think “I want to work on this and I’m going to devote 400,000 words plus to this idea?”

11/11/2025, 20:33 - Finbarre: I ask as I would get such terrible decision paralysis in your shoes!

11/11/2025, 20:37 - Cay Macres:

For me, what really inspired me to make this story is that I really like the idea of magic being a mundane thing. So one big inspiration for this was Kiki’s Delivery Service and kind of just Ghibli movies in general.

In Kiki’s Delivery Service, the main character is a witch who’s trying to find herself in a big city. And magic serves this purpose of self-confidence, showing you how to make art. But it’s also this thing that you just use at your nine to five job.

It’s mundane, but it’s also special. And I really liked that idea.

11/11/2025, 20:38 - Cay Macres:
I think the second thing that also inspired me to write this novel was just the setting of Peridot Pines, which is essentially just Santa Cruz. That’s where I went to university and the campus is just really pretty and magical. It’s up on a hill and you can see all the way down to the Pacific Ocean. It’s surrounded by redwoods. And when instead of throwing house parties, they throw parties out in the middle of the forest. You know, you have friends who will bring a generator all the way out down this like really steep winding trail just so they can put fairy lights in the trees and have a DJ. So it was such a nice community and a nice place to go to school.

I feel like it just fit this magical campus idea perfectly. I actually just went there this weekend on a trip. And so I’ll send some photos of that.

11/11/2025, 20:38 - Cay Macres:

11/11/2025, 20:39 - Finbarre:

I have such tree envy. That doesn’t look real. It looks like a set where you’d expect to see actors walking around wearing Ewok costumes. Or perhaps it’s a path to a quest in Boulder’s Gate.

That’s a wonderful looking place. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to come home, to be honest.

11/11/2025, 20:42 - Finbarre: Time for your second card. The Wild Card which we’ll draw from the deck. Concentrate and reach out, mind Karl while you do and say “stop” to pick a card that I am currently shuffling.

11/11/2025, 20:42 - Cay Macres: It’s funny you say Ewoks, because some of those Star Wars scenes were filmed in the Redwoods! (Not in Santa Cruz, I don’t think, but with the same trees in California.)

11/11/2025, 20:42 - Finbarre: See. Psychic. Totes.

11/11/2025, 20:43 - Cay Macres: Okay… keeping Karl in mind now!

11/11/2025, 20:43 - Cay Macres: Stop!

11/11/2025, 20:43 - Finbarre: Oooooh. An interesting one.

11/11/2025, 20:44 - Finbarre:

11/11/2025, 20:46 - Finbarre:

I don’t know about you Cay, this is a card I rarely see. It’s one that depicts altered perspective, an invitation to release control, allowing a new viewpoint to emerge. It’s one of spiritual growth, often linked to, I think it’s the depiction of Odin hanging from, I want to say, Yggdrasil.

I probably got that completely wrong! He’s collecting the runes from the base of the tree.

From that, I’m going to ask you, what was the biggest rewrite you had to perform in your last project?

11/11/2025, 20:51 - Cay Macres:

The biggest rewrite to Witch’s Brew was definitely changing a bit of the Chancellor’s character. For some context, the Chancellor is this character who’s in the dark about magic. Is like a new Chancellor replacing an old one that was a magical person. And she’s very much the suspicious one of the story who’s trying to figure out what’s happening, is putting the magical community in danger. And the main thing that I had to change there is that it is somewhat difficult to have this character who doesn’t have as much power on paper as your other characters. So she’s completely unmagical, doesn’t have any magic, but does hold power because of her position at the school. So in order to make her more of a threat, I gave her this object that essentially has a way of cutting through certain types of magic.

So yeah, it’s a difficult balance to strike when you’re doing something that’s cozy fantasy, slice of life, because you want it to still feel cozy. But you also do need there to be stakes and to have this nice wrapped up resolution.

11/11/2025, 20:54 - Finbarre: Do you have any of the game’s artwork to hand, I would love to see!

11/11/2025, 20:56 - Cay Macres:

Yes, here is the cover image for Witch’s Brew! It was so cool to see an artist bring my characters to life based on descriptions of them!

11/11/2025, 20:57 - Finbarre: WITH THAT ADORABLE FAMILIAR OF COURSE

11/11/2025, 20:57 - Cay Macres: Other than that, it’s all text-based, which is fine for me. I love writing visual descriptions of scenery!

11/11/2025, 20:57 - Cay Macres: Yes, and you get to name the familiar! It was fun getting to imagine what my cats might say if they could talk.

11/11/2025, 20:58 - Finbarre: Mine would simply say “cheese now”

11/11/2025, 21:00 - Cay Macres: I think she says something very similar in the novel! (By the way, I never mentioned how adorable all your cats are!)

11/11/2025, 21:01 - Finbarre:

Thank you so much as are yours yours have a a vibe of being a before and after advert for some kind of cat hair dryer! They look like such wonderful floofs to cuddle and fuss.

Okay we’re up to the third card now time has zipped away and this one is The Gift card one that has been handed to you from my last guest.

11/11/2025, 21:02 - Finbarre:

Now, this one has been given to you by Scott Leeds, who is the writer of Schrader’s Chord, a horror novel involving a record shop, which has me thinking that I need to get more vinyl in my life, but also something to play them on.

Right, I’ll show you a picture.

11/11/2025, 21:03 - Finbarre:

11/11/2025, 21:03 - Finbarre: What vibes does this one give you?

11/11/2025, 21:05 - Cay Macres: All these cards are so neat! I love the colors! Hm, I admit I’m still a tarot novice, though I have my guide nearby. Without looking at the guide, I’d say it has a thoughtful maybe celestial vibe?

11/11/2025, 21:07 - Finbarre:

I like the idea of thoughtfulness, of ideas nurtured and flourishing.

All right, my question for you, this is the last one, is which character have you been most protective of and why?

11/11/2025, 21:08 - Finbarre: This can be a recent one from your game, or going back to stories you have previously written.

11/11/2025, 21:14 - Cay Macres:

I think as a writer, I tend to put little pieces of myself into each character. So sometimes I’m more protective of the little pieces that I put into characters rather than the whole character themselves.

So I think, for example, for Mel in Witch’s Brew, they’re a barista who’s a bit shy and always tired because they’re overworked. I think I feel a bit protective of that aspect of them because that was put in there from my experience as someone who’s worked in a few cafes over the years.

Other characters that I can think of, I wrote a story called Fool’s Gold, which is very much about the transmasc experience, about thinking about memories from the past and relationships changing with your relatives as you go further in your transition.

That’s definitely a character that I would feel very protective over because there’s, I think, a larger piece of my personal experience in that than with maybe other characters that are a bit more fantasy-like.

11/11/2025, 21:18 - Finbarre:

Putting your creative work out into the world is an act of bravery, and putting those elements of yourself in there, doubly so. Also the very best kind of magic, I think.

Thank you so much for that thoughtful answer. Now, what I’d like you to do is, if you have a deck of cards, of tarot cards, nearby, to pick them up, to have a little think about the next guest, whoever they may be, whoever I’m lucky enough to speak to, and to pull a card out for them. Or, just daydream a little and see which is the first card that comes to mind.

Let me know, and I’ll make sure the next person gets it.

11/11/2025, 21:22 - Cay Macres: Okay, the card I’ve chosen is the Page of Cups! It feels like a very playful card. In my deck, the classic Rider deck, he seems to be having a staring contest with a fish!

11/11/2025, 21:22 - Finbarre: This I have to see, could you take a snap?

11/11/2025, 21:22 - Cay Macres: Of course!

11/11/2025, 21:23 - Cay Macres:

11/11/2025, 21:24 - Finbarre:

You have ruined this card for me. Thank you so much, Cay!

No, you’re absolutely right, that’s quite an expression they have for each other.

11/11/2025, 21:26 - Finbarre:

Cay Macres of Witches Brew: Love and Lattes, thank you so much, so very much, for giving me the giggles every time I’m going to see this card now, and for joining me on Tarot DMs. Also, give my love to Periwinkle, to Tibbs, and to my newfound fog friend, Karl.

11/11/2025, 21:28 - Cay Macres:

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This is such a unique format for an interview and I had a lot of fun looking at all the cards and chatting. Make sure you give all of your cats some pets and belly rubs when they allow it too!

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Scott Leeds lives in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Schrader’s Chord is his first novel.

10/11/2025, 20:04 - Finbarre: Scott Leeds, welcome to Tarot DMs! Hope you had an enjoyable morning stroll - where abouts in the world are you today?

10/11/2025, 20:05 - Scott Leeds: I am in Washington State, in the US. Beautiful autumnal weather today. Ray Bradbury would be happy to see all the leaves everywhere.

10/11/2025, 20:07 - Finbarre: Here in Beeston in the UK it is the kind of weather that needs humungous chunky jumpers, tea and good music to listen to.

Before we get into your book, Schrader’s Chord, I discovered by chance that you made a Spotify playlist for this and IT IS FABULOUS

10/11/2025, 20:08 - Finbarre:

10/11/2025, 20:09 - Scott Leeds: Thank you! It was very fun to put together. The first song on that playlist (The Fog by Moonface — who happens to be Spencer Krug, one of the two lead singers of Wolf Parade) is perfect for autumnal weather. And winter weather for that matter!

10/11/2025, 20:10 - Finbarre: Looking through this did make me give my (modestly small) vinyl collection the side-eye as I have a few of those... but the idea of any of those being cursed is preposterous *ahem*

10/11/2025, 20:11 - Finbarre: For anyone that hasn’t discovered your book yet, could you briefly describe it?

10/11/2025, 20:13 - Scott Leeds: Sure! Schrader’s Chord is about an A&R man from a major record label who flies home to Seattle after the death of his father, only to find that he has inherited both his father’s record store and a black case containing four vinyl records that, as the legend goes, can open the gate to the land of the dead when played simultaneously. This being a horror story, the main character (Charlie) and a few others naturally give into curiosity and play the records. After that, some spooky stuff happens!

10/11/2025, 20:14 - Finbarre: Not spooky stuff! 😱You know, the prospect of inheriting an actual record store does feel like it would still be worth it.

10/11/2025, 20:14 - Scott Leeds: Totally and completely agree.

10/11/2025, 20:15 - Finbarre: I would put up with a *lot* for the complete discography of Depeche Mode

10/11/2025, 20:15 - Scott Leeds: Hahaha… can’t disagree with you there!

10/11/2025, 20:17 - Finbarre: On the subject of rum and uncanny happenings, on Tarot DMs we use the same first card over the whole month - this one themed by The Moon (from The Hexen 5.0 Tarot Deck by Suzanne Triester). Here’s a picture:

10/11/2025, 20:17 - Finbarre: It represents a time when not everything is as it appears. Where shadows play tricks on the mind and instinct becomes more reliable than logic.

10/11/2025, 20:18 - Scott Leeds: I’d say that definitely has a connection to the book!

10/11/2025, 20:18 - Finbarre: So, my question to start off with is - what fascinates you about the unseen and the scary?

10/11/2025, 20:18 - Scott Leeds: Also, the artwork on that card looks like something you’d see on a Charles Mingus or Dave Brubeck album cover. I dig it!

10/11/2025, 20:19 - Scott Leeds: Ooh. Good question.

10/11/2025, 20:22 - Scott Leeds: I think my fascination with the unseen has always been rooted in a fear of our space being violated. It also stand to reason that, in many cases, the unseen thing is more comfortable and more confident in whatever space it resides that we are: the shark circling below us in dark water, the predator in the woods at night, the thing in the corner of a dark room who only resides in the dark, who doesn’t, as we have to do, split its life in both dark and light. The shadows are its home.

10/11/2025, 20:23 - Scott Leeds: As for the scary, I’ve always been fascinated by the spectrum of fear, about what scares different people. Some people are terrified by gore and visceral imagery, some people by the rocking chair in the room that starts slowly moving…

10/11/2025, 20:25 - Finbarre: For me if has always been things that are off kilter. When everything looks completely normal but *something* is just a few clicks off what would be humdrum and everyday. Did you think of the records in this story as being something that would be in your reader’s frame of reference, or some kind of ancient and esoteric artifacts?

10/11/2025, 20:26 - Scott Leeds: I completely agree with the off-kilter point. I’ve had a lifelong dream of being in the backyard of my childhood home, which I recognize immediately, although everything about it is slightly off. It’s always creeped me out.

10/11/2025, 20:29 - Scott Leeds: As for the records: I spent my youth working in record stores (and have been a music fanatic my whole life (my mother’s family was in radio, so I grew up with dozens and dozens of crates of records in my basement, along with a gigantic mahogany hi-fi system on which to play them), so I was under the impression that, while my history with records might be a tad more involved than the average millennial, the records themselves would be well within readers’ frame of reference. That, as it turns out, has often not been the case, haha…

10/11/2025, 20:31 - Finbarre: Off the top of your head, before we pull the next card, can you think of any of that basement music that gave you chills?

10/11/2025, 20:32 - Finbarre: The hi-fi system in my head already has a Stephen King quality to it!

10/11/2025, 20:33 - Scott Leeds: Hmm… only chills in the good frisson sort of way, like hearing Giant Steps by John Coltrane for the first time or Remain in Light by Talking Heads…or Tea for the Tillerman by Cat Stevens… so many!

10/11/2025, 20:34 - Finbarre: Frisson! I tried to explain to my wife that certain tracks like these marvellous picks make the hair stand up on my arms but she doesn’t get it at all (weird as out of the two of us, she is the one with any drop of musical talent) so I’m pleased to hear I’m not alone on that one.

10/11/2025, 20:35 - Scott Leeds: But if you want creepy chills. In 2004 I went up to Vancouver BC to see Sonic Youth and Wolf Eyes (who I hadn’t heard at that point) opened for them. I was so disturbed, I had to buy their latest record (Burned Mind) at the merch desk. That album still creeps me out!

10/11/2025, 20:36 - Scott Leeds: Careful about listening to that one in mixed company, haha. It can be pretty nerve-shredding.

10/11/2025, 20:38 - Finbarre: Thank you for the recommendation… although I *may* not say that when I hear this, it will be a discovery.

Anyway. Card two! This is your Wild Card, the one that we pick while we’re chatting and it can be anything (except The Moon and the one that was chosen for you by the last guest). When you’re ready, type “stop” and I’ll show you what is drawn.

10/11/2025, 20:38 - Scott Leeds: Stop.

10/11/2025, 20:38 - Finbarre:

10/11/2025, 20:39 - Finbarre: You get The Queen of Pentacles there. A reminder that wealth isn’t only money, it is the things we value in other ways. Time, stability and comfort.

10/11/2025, 20:41 - Finbarre: Your question: how do you create the space to support your writing?

10/11/2025, 20:41 - Scott Leeds: That is a very interesting question right about now.

10/11/2025, 20:42 - Finbarre: I’m always intrigued by these ones, these cards have a habit of being timely! Go on

10/11/2025, 20:44 - Scott Leeds: I haven’t really spoken about this very much (I’m generally a very private person), but for the last five years, my sister and I have been full-time caregivers for our mother, who has an atypical and aggressive form of Alzheimer’s. It’s been a privilege to dedicate our lives to her care, but her condition requires nearly constant supervision and assistance which leaves very little time for writing.

10/11/2025, 20:46 - Scott Leeds: I’ve always been a pretty fast writer, so it’s been a learning process to write while caring for someone. On the days I can write, I can only usually fit twenty or thirty minutes in, and on many days I can’t write at all, so it’s been difficult. But it’s created certain obstructions that have almost entirely changed my writing style, so we will see how the next book does!

10/11/2025, 20:48 - Finbarre: I can’t possibly imagine how disciplined your approach must be to try and listen to that muse of inspiration before having to devote your time.

On that I also have to say thank you for spending your time speaking to a strange man far across the ocean with his magical cardboard!

Will the next book be horror too?

10/11/2025, 20:50 - Scott Leeds: It’s been my pleasure! Thank you very much for having me! And the next book will definitely be a horror novel, but it’s… how do I say this? It’s going to be very different from Schrader’s Chord, haha…

10/11/2025, 20:52 - Finbarre: Well the last card may tease a clue or two more, we’ll see. This is the Gift Card and was chosen for you by the artist Stephanie Inagaki. Incidentally, I believe she modelled for this one. One moment...

10/11/2025, 20:53 - Finbarre:

The Two of Swords

10/11/2025, 20:54 - Scott Leeds: Very cool! Well done, Stephanie!

10/11/2025, 20:55 - Finbarre: It’s a traditionally tricky card, one that calls for uncomfortable truths as many of the Swords do. A crossroads where a decision must be made, but clarity is elusive. Power in acknowledging vulnerability and moving forward, even when the path is uncertain.

10/11/2025, 20:56 - Finbarre: So, not exactly The Ace of Funtimes

10/11/2025, 20:56 - Scott Leeds: hahaha

10/11/2025, 20:57 - Finbarre: Last question from the tarot. Tell me about the last creative crossroads you stood at, which direction did you decide to take?

10/11/2025, 21:00 - Scott Leeds: Again, a fitting card! This second novel was a difficult one to start. The subject matter is so expansive, writing about it feels like trying to cover the entirety of Everest with a butterfly net. I think, in the end, I wrote twenty-two first chapters, simply because I could not find my way in to the story. And then, after months and months of agonizing, I threw them all away and started writing without a first chapter. Now that I’m about halfway into the writing of this book, I know exactly what the first chapter will be, and it will be the last chapter I write.

10/11/2025, 21:04 - Finbarre: It is wonderful to hear that your creativity has persisted in these demanding circumstances, I hope that when you pass the midpoint that the momentum you have built up carries you swiftly. I’m smiling at the thought that instead of the last line being the one you write at the end, it could well be the opening one!

10/11/2025, 21:04 - Scott Leeds: Thank you 🙂

10/11/2025, 21:05 - Finbarre: Something occurred to me, do you ever think up parts of your stories when you’re taking your dog out for a walk?

10/11/2025, 21:05 - Scott Leeds: Every day!

10/11/2025, 21:06 - Scott Leeds: I tend to talk to myself when I’m working out a story (especially dialogue), so I’ve gotten some weird looks from fellow walkers, haha…

10/11/2025, 21:07 - Finbarre: Would you be happy in sharing a snap of your four legged co-writer here?

10/11/2025, 21:07 - Scott Leeds: Sure! Give me a moment...

10/11/2025, 21:10 - Scott Leeds:

This is Charlie.

10/11/2025, 21:10 - Finbarre: WHAT A HANDSOME BEAST 😍

10/11/2025, 21:11 - Finbarre: With luminous eyes here too! I think you’re fine chatting to yourself when out and about, I suspect the other walkers only have eyes for Charlie here.

10/11/2025, 21:12 - Scott Leeds: You’re probably right!

10/11/2025, 21:13 - Finbarre: Scott is has been lovely talking to you, but before we finish up I have to ask you to do something for me - could you pick a card for the next person based on whichever gives you the right vibes. Don’t worry about the meaning of them, just pick whichever feels right and I’ll let them know it’s from you.

10/11/2025, 21:13 - Finbarre: (Just don’t pick the Two of Swords again. Gosh no)

10/11/2025, 21:14 - Scott Leeds: hahaha

10/11/2025, 21:14 - Scott Leeds: Since I don’t own a tarot deck, I’ve pulled up a random tarot generator, and whatever comes up will be the pick!

10/11/2025, 21:14 - Finbarre: *drum roll*

10/11/2025, 21:14 - Scott Leeds: The Empress!

10/11/2025, 21:14 - Finbarre: NICE

10/11/2025, 21:14 - Scott Leeds: Hope that’s a good one!

10/11/2025, 21:16 - Finbarre: Very much so, a Major Arcana card too so we’ll be sure to learn something profound and quirky in equal measure. Thank you much for chatting with me. Scott Leeds, where is the best place for folks to pick up Schrader’s Chord if they don’t already own a copy?

10/11/2025, 21:18 - Scott Leeds: Any place! Local bookstores, libraries, major bookstores, online retailers… in that order of preference :)

10/11/2025, 21:19 - Scott Leeds: Finbarre, it’s been wonderful talking with you. Thank you very much for having me.

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Stephanie Inagaki is a multidisciplinary fine artist, jewelry and accessories designer. Her body of work draws inspiration from the fairytales and folklore of her Japanese heritage. Using anthropomorphic creatures such as foxes, crows, snakes, and black cats, she weaves personal narrative into a broader reflection on human experience. Through these ethereal protagonists, Inagaki explores the cyclical nature of life and death, the masks people wear for themselves and others, and the ways love and loss drive transformation.

See her work at https://www.stephanieinagaki.com/

[2025-11-05 20:13:43] Finbarre:

Stephanie Inagaki, it is an absolute pleasure to have you here on Tarot DMs.

On November the 5th, it is bonfire night, and it is also the night of the “beaver supermoon”, apparently. We are outside experiencing the sound of pops and bangs, because of course we have the Guy Fawkes celebrations here in the UK… and I understand that there are causes to be celebratory in the US today?

1-05 20:14:57] Stephanie Inagaki:

Yeah, yay for the supermoon! It’s a great time to do an interview with you. Yeah, it’s really uplifting and encouraging to see all the Democratic voting polls have been happening. It’s definitely needed for sure. This year’s felt really, really long and it’s not even over yet.

[2025-11-05 20:16:39] Finbarre:

Each month on Tarot DMs, we have a different card attributed to the month. So last month for Spooky Season, we had The Devil. And as fortune has it, this month is The Moon. So before we get into the questions I’m going to ask you, The Moon card is one that I’ll be giving to every person that I have an interview with this week. So they’ll all get a similar type of question.

The second card is one that’s pulled out at random. That’s the wild card and the third card is a gift card. Now, this is one that’s been passed on from a previous guest.

Something unusual is happening with that…. I’ll tell you very shortly. When it comes to art and when it comes to illustration, graphic design, what experience have you got with The Tarot?

[2025-11-05 20:19:03] Stephanie Inagaki:

Honestly, I don’t have a lot of experience working with tarot. I’ve dabbled in it. I’ve definitely had fans and clients ask if I would make a tarot deck myself. And as you know, there are so many different cards. And it’s really a language, its own language on its own that I unfortunately have not had the time to delve into it.

I’ve bought books and all the things, but I did make a drawing for the Empress card a few years back. And that’s probably my closest connection to including the tarot in my oeuvre of drawings.

[2025-11-05 20:19:31] Stephanie Inagaki:

That being said, I do really love the imagery and symbolism of what tarot is.

[2025-11-05 20:20:17] Finbarre: Hurrah for dabbling! Do you have an image of that Empress card to hand?

[2025-11-05 20:20:39] Stephanie Inagaki: Yes! Let me find it

[2025-11-05 20:22:26] Stephanie Inagaki:

[2025-11-05 20:24:14] Finbarre:

Thank you Stephanie, can you talk me through what materials were used in that exquisite piece?

[2025-11-05 20:24:50] Stephanie Inagaki:

I mainly work in charcoal, so most of the drawing is in charcoal and the border is in gold foil. I also collage with washi paper, so that’s what the obi, which is the colored belt around the fox is.

[2025-11-05 20:25:51] Finbarre: You, 100% should think about creating that deck. Seriously. I LOVE THIS.

[2025-11-05 20:26:33] Stephanie Inagaki: omg thankkkk youuu!!! I honestly just feel so inept since I don’t totally understand all the symbolism and language I haven’t delved back into it >__<

[2025-11-05 20:26:21] Finbarre:

I have a terrible tendency to get sidetracked, so here is your card and here is your question…

[2025-11-05 20:26:48] Finbarre:

And that enigmatic card is, of course, from the Hexen 5.0 Tarot by Suzanne Treister. Okay, so The Moon. Are there any hidden fears in your work that you explore?

[2025-11-05 20:30:05] Stephanie Inagaki:

I don’t think I’d necessarily say that they’re hidden. I don’t really have that many fears. I’m also a fairly open book, but something that I think culturally and also through my visual practice. I’m always addressing life and death. And for me, it’s something very cyclical. One feeds the other. But on the other hand, I’ve also had a lot of poignant deaths in my life. And so I think for me, my own internal fear, I don’t know if it necessarily translates into my individual art, would be death of loved ones and people that are close to me.

[2025-11-05 20:31:09] Stephanie Inagaki:

I have a deep respect for death and it’s not necessarily a negative thing like how Western culture has perceived it to be.

Like I mentioned, I believe it’s cyclical in nature with life, that one feeds the other. So it’s something that I have more respect for than fear.

[2025-11-05 20:33:22] Finbarre:

You mentioned that appreciation, respect, reverence of a life that’s past and of death.

I’m looking at your website at the mourning jewellery that you have, where you have, say, a familiar’s cat skull, a memorial pendant, or you have a little teeny tiny tombstone for your cat?

Sorry, I’m laughing. It’s the cutest thing I think I’ve seen all week! What inspired you to bring beauty and decay together?

[2025-11-05 20:35:19] Stephanie Inagaki:

Well, I’ve been goth since I was wee, since I was preteen, and I just kind of just stuck with it. I think it really helped that my parents gave my late brother and me the opportunity to have pets, but that we had to take care of them.

So we had rabbits and dogs and, of course, fish from the local fairs, and they don’t live that long.

It was our responsibility to also, with the aid of our parents, bury them in our backyards. And that just carried on with me becoming a little goth and into an adult goth.

[2025-11-05 20:35:51] Stephanie Inagaki:

I also grew up with my Japanese background that we always have altars for our ancestors. Every time during dinner, we would light incense and place food for our dearly departed and bow and pay our respects to them.

[2025-11-05 20:36:25] Stephanie Inagaki:

So I think with those things coupled, death wasn’t seen as something that was so sanitized and separate from the living.

[2025-11-05 20:39:38] Finbarre:

I must confess that I too went through a goth phase. In fact, just recently, I found one of those… you know, those jointed rings that used to get in the 1990s. And of course, I still have, you know, my long leather coats from the Matrix days. The box under my bed containing all of my silver jewellery is something that my kids have been pillaging from. They love that stuff. Right. We need your second card. Time is running away with us. This is going to be your Wild card.

This is going to be one that I pull from the deck. We’ll take a question from that. So it’s not going to be The Moon. Of course, that’s already been used, but everything else is up for grabs. So I’m going to be shuffling the cards here. I’d like you to say “stop” or right “stop” and we’ll see what we get.

[2025-11-05 20:41:06] Stephanie Inagaki:

That’s great that your kids are pillaging through your things. I definitely still have a bunch of my old goth jewelry I will probably never ever wear since I make my own now. That’s way better! But anyway, yes, stop.

[2025-11-05 20:41:39] Finbarre: Also, the shame. The shame

[2025-11-05 20:42:23] Stephanie Inagaki: Hahaha I loveddddd those!! I still have friends that spend three plus hours getting ready. I don’t have time for that!! lol

[2025-11-05 20:42:31] Finbarre: Ta da!

[2025-11-05 20:43:28] Finbarre:

So we’ve got the good fortune here of having the Ace of Pentacles, a card of prosperity, that first spark of material opportunity. It’s not a card that guarantees wealth, but it gives opportunity, the chance to create it. It’s a card of manifestation, that something real is beginning.

[2025-11-05 20:44:25] Finbarre:

Tell me about a recent opportunity that’s made the world brighter.

[2025-11-05 20:46:06] Stephanie Inagaki:

I’ve been vending with this convention called Oddities and Curiosities Expo, and I made the leap to double the amount of cities that I’ll be traveling to and vending at, and I got most of the ones I’m doing.

So I’ll be currently doing 13 different cities across the United States, and that’s really exciting. I picked a bunch of places I’ve never been to, some of my friends out, some of them I don’t, so that’s exciting and new, and hopefully the world is okay still.

[2025-11-05 20:47:40] Finbarre:

What kind of oddities and curiosities are we talking about?

[2025-11-05 20:49:09] Stephanie Inagaki:

Oh man, it’s all kinds. There’s always this giant taxidermy vendor and they usually have a humongous giraffe head, which includes the neck. But then there’s people who will taxidermy like raccoons with beer cans and chips. You have people who have fine art, jewelry, antiques, all kinds of oddities, like everything that you can think of.

[2025-11-05 20:50:56] Finbarre:

[2025-11-05 20:51:21] Stephanie Inagaki: It’s saying weeeeeee!

[2025-11-05 20:52:00] Finbarre:

This little sparkly guy is the only piece of taxidermy that I own. I recently went to a place called the Dark Arts Market in Nottingham, which sounds very much in the same vein.

There was this stall that had all these bits of bones and feathers in jars and all manner of interesting whatnot. And there was this bug, the most beautiful bug I think I’ve ever seen.

Look at it. It is magnificent in this little bell jar. And it was obscenely expensive but I had to have it. So I have wasted so much money on such a beautiful thing. No regrets.

[2025-11-05 20:53:08] Stephanie Inagaki:

Definitely no regrets. The expression that whoever taxed or made it into is priceless. And yes, indeed, it is. The colors on it are astounding for sure.

[2025-11-05 20:53:14] Finbarre:

Time for the third and last card. This is the Gift card, which would normally come from a person to be given to you to inspire our conversation. Now, unfortunately, I messed up, did a couple of interviews too close to each other, and I have two gift cards for you. So you need to pick them. Will you be choosing the card from Treasa McCabe? Will you pick the card from Amy Kaufman? You choose.

[2025-11-05 20:53:25] Finbarre: No hints though

[2025-11-05 20:54:21] Stephanie Inagaki:

I will go with the latter.

[2025-11-05 20:56:18] Finbarre:

I think you chose wisely.

You have Treasa McCabe of Spooky Doorway, who created The Seance of Blake Manor. She had the Eight of Wands reversed, which would have been quite a difficult card.

But Amy S. Kaufman, who was the writer of The Traitor of Sherwood Forest, has given you this card.

[2025-11-05 20:56:34] Finbarre: THE LOVERS! Wooo!

[2025-11-05 20:57:29] Finbarre:

How do you decide which projects to commit to?

[2025-11-05 20:58:59] Stephanie Inagaki:

Hmm, good question. I definitely follow my gut intuition and if it aesthetically flows with the rest of the body of my work. Like, for example, especially when I’m vending, I do have clients come up and ask if I’d be willing to do a commission or whatnot.

I usually don’t take those unless they visually align with the work I make. If not, in actuality, it’s going to be really expensive for them because it would be a one-off for me. If it’s something I can integrate within my own work, I’ll take it on. If not, I have a tonne of other jeweler friends that I’m happy to suggest.

[2025-11-05 21:00:27] Finbarre: Would it be possible to have a sneaky peek at anything you’re currently working on/have recently finished?

[2025-11-05 21:01:24] Stephanie Inagaki: Yes!! I’m super proud of these new sculpts I finished of my new jewelry collection called Night’s Planchette

[2025-11-05 21:01:40] Stephanie Inagaki:

[2025-11-05 21:02:41] Stephanie Inagaki: This one’s getting released this Thursday through Every Day Originals so I just finished it yesterday, it’s called The Night Fall!

[2025-11-05 21:04:05] Finbarre:

And of course, the moon makes an appearance there.

When I was looking at those pieces of jewellery, I was picturing Laszlo Cravensworth from What We Do in the Shadows leaping into the air, shouting “bat!”

But I won’t do his voice. There’s no way I can do a Matt Berry impersonation.

You have seen What We Do in the Shadows, right?

[2025-11-05 21:04:43] Finbarre: Please say you have otherwise the Council of Goths will rescind your license

[2025-11-05 21:05:04] Stephanie Inagaki:

Oh my god, yes. It’s one of my favorite shows. And before I canceled my Hulu account, it definitely was on my rotation roster of what I played in the background. So I don’t even know how many times I’ve rewatched What We Do in the Shadows and also a giant IT Crowd fan as well.

[2025-11-05 21:06:48] Stephanie Inagaki:

[2025-11-05 21:07:05] Finbarre:

I’m going to grant you the magical power of deciding the next card for the next guest.

This could be pulled from a deck. It could just be thought up straight off the top of your head. It could be the way it should be, or it could be reversed. Your choice. Use that power wisely. And what do you pick?

[2025-11-05 21:08:23] Stephanie Inagaki:

[2025-11-05 21:10:07] Finbarre:

I can’t keep a straight face when you show me GIFs like that.

[2025-11-05 21:10:49] Stephanie Inagaki:

Okay, I’m going to pick a card that I had the honor to be on. One of my best friends, Alan Amato, came out with a tarot deck called Heretical Fates, and he represented me as the Two of Swords.

[2025-11-05 21:11:19] Finbarre: Ouch (Great card, but ouch)

[2025-11-05 21:11:54] Finbarre:

Stephanie, you’re an absolute meanie. So you’ve gone for a card that represents tension, blocked emotion, introspection, the idea of stillness, a moment between decisions, of inner conflict. It’s going to be an interesting answer, but I’ll make sure that the person knows it’s from you.

[2025-11-05 21:11:56] Stephanie Inagaki:

I think it’s the Aries in me. I’m pretty all or nothing about things and straightforward. Being able to be honest and brutally honest is definitely one of my traits.

[2025-11-05 21:12:03] Finbarre:

Stephanie Inagaki, thank you so much for entertaining my nonsense on Tarot DMs and for sharing your thoughts on the cards!

[2025-11-05 21:12:32] Stephanie Inagaki:

Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting into, but I hope you enjoyed my answers as well.

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Treasa is the design lead, tech lead, and lead producer at Spooky Doorway, the studio behind The Séance of Blake Manor and The Darkside Detective series. Without her, the team admits they’d probably just be making graphic novels.

04/11/2025, 13:35 - Finbarre:

Treasa McCabe of Spooky Doorway, welcome to Tarot DMs. I had the fortune of playing The Seance of Blake Manor, your fabulous computer game, over the last couple of days, and I have to say that I am terrible at it. Let me show you something.

04/11/2025, 13:36 - Finbarre:

04/11/2025, 13:36 - Treasa McCabe: Ha ha, off to a bad start

04/11/2025, 13:37 - Finbarre:

And that is just rubbing salt into the wound “You were evicted from Blake Manor, and as a result of your actions, zero of the people in the manor survived?” Ah well!

04/11/2025, 13:37 - Treasa McCabe:

I actually really love those early fail screens. You see people going “I failed”. And then they’re like, “Oh, no, everybody died. Oh, no!” I think it’s what’s happening pretty nicely for people. Also teaches people, you know, to be careful. It was there for a reason, not just there to make you feel bad.

04/11/2025, 13:39 - Treasa McCabe:

I think it’s really important in game design to teach the players what to expect and how to behave early, especially when you’re in something like an open world game. Because you can get yourself down into a lot of holes very quickly if you don’t know the rules really fast. Or you can get yourself into a hole really far down the line when you’ve invested a really long time playing the game. And then you’ll get frustrated and walk away because you didn’t understand the rules of the game. So yeah, I think we’re a little bit harsher in those opening hour or two. You see like even the time mechanic as well - we put a fairly hard deadline on things of like an hour for the first mission and then like an hour for the second mystery as well. Because we just want you to know.

After that, the whole game kind of opens up and you have day two and day three to kind of explore. Imagine you threw like 20 hours into that and then didn’t realize that your actions had consequences…. and then you’d be real cross!

04/11/2025, 13:39 - Finbarre:

As I was playing the game, I was jotting down various notes, Treasa, and a few things jumped out at me straight away. The first one being Blake Manor reminded me of a castle in Scotland, actually, on the Isle of Rum called Kinloch Castle.

And it had a very similar feel. It also had a similar feel to, there was an old shooter called House of the Dead, an arcade shooter back from the 90s where you’d stand with your buddy with a plastic gun, popping the occasional shot into a zombie, desperately trying to reload.

And as the game starts, you walk up to the House of the Dead, and there is a big fountain where one of your, I think one of your comrades called Sophie gets kidnapped by a gargoyle that swoops down and the protagonist yells “Sophie, Sophie!” as she’s whisked away into the night.

That part of the game felt very familiar. Were there particular locations that you drew or castles that you visited that you put into the game?

04/11/2025, 13:43 - Finbarre: These are all bonus questions of course, I have your first card here ready and waiting!

04/11/2025, 13:46 - Treasa McCabe:

Yeah, so actually the team, particularly the art and narrative team, went to visit a few old houses around Ireland. I think Loftus Hall was a big inspiration, especially for the layout. And there was another old house that they were allowed into and they went around and took photos and used those as references for most of the props and stuff we made for the game. They’re based on kind of old manors and old houses around Ireland, actually.

04/11/2025, 13:46 - Treasa McCabe:

So our team is like fully remote and during the development of the team, one of our devs who lives in South Africa came over to Ireland. She had a little trip previously and she was on a trip with her dad so we thought it was a really good opportunity to get the team together.

So we actually went to a haunted house here in Dundalk where I live, which is actually the same place as I am in the picture you were talking about. That’s Bellurgan House and we had a spooky sleepover where we had actually tarot readings.

So we had ogham readings and we made our own little ogham staves and we did a murder mystery and we just kind of hung out and played in jail because we never really get to see each other in person.

So, yeah, we did a spooky sleepover. I suggested a seance, but I did not get many people taking me up on that!

04/11/2025, 13:49 - Finbarre: Coincidentally in the picture we have above Blake Manor here… we have a full moon, that takes us nicely to:

04/11/2025, 13:49 - Finbarre: The Moon Month on Tarot DMs!

04/11/2025, 13:49 - Finbarre:

04/11/2025, 13:49 - Treasa McCabe:

Yeah, I know. That’s why I thought it was really coincidental that we pulled the moon card.

I actually, like I run a full moon circle. I run a women’s circle every month. And we have ours tomorrow night. So when you pulled the moon, I thought it was very nice.

And it’s that thing of things aren’t what they seem and those reflections,

That kind of reflection of a piece of art coming back at you is, it’s a really interesting place to be in when you put something out into the world, isn’t it? And start seeing those reflections.

04/11/2025, 13:50 - Treasa McCabe:

Also kind of a very vulnerable place as well because you know people see a different version of what you saw when you’re putting it together and they take their own meanings and their own interpretations and try to make connections sometimes that you made or didn’t make.

It is kind of lovely they also do things that you didn’t expect them to do which is also great. It’s lovely to see somebody interacting with something that came out of your brain hole!

04/11/2025, 13:52 - Finbarre:

The Moon card for me has always been an astonishingly powerful card because I used to have a Moon tarot card pendant that I wore. I went out on a night out… and you would have to get me really rather drunk for me to tell you all of the details of that night. It was one of the wildest nights of my life. And then in the morning I lost it.

So my question for you, looking at the Moon card. Working with supernatural themes like Dark Side Detective, how do you navigate the unconscious and the weird in game design?

04/11/2025, 13:57 - Treasa McCabe:

They’re two very different types of games. So I think we navigate it kind of differently for both.

The first game was made when myself and my husband were traveling. We had just gotten married and we, in a bit of madness, like booked a one-way ticket to Indonesia and then just kept traveling for kind of years with laptops and stuff on our back. And we spend a lot of that time, I think like getting to know each other and the weird and wonderfulness of the world.

We wrote a lot of the game there based on people we met and experiences we had. It was all very silly, but because there were no rules, you could be as strange and as silly as you wanted and also as kind of deeper, as shallow as you wanted. And so it was more of a kind of a stream of consciousness. You know, you just pour some stuff out of your head and try to shuffle the pieces around until it makes some sort of sense, you know, see what comes out of it. So let’s see what comes out of the mix, but you’re not kind of beholden to anything.

Whereas with The Seance of Blake Manor, we really wanted to stay reasonably close to Irish spirituality as possible. So most of like the historical or spiritual references in the game are based around our own experience of Irish spirituality and like the gods here and, you know, our stories and our land.

So there was slightly less interpretation and more us trying to make sense of our own narrative and the narrative of our past and our ancestors. And I guess the stories that brought us up to this point.

So yeah, it’s been a very kind of, I guess, different interaction with the supernatural in making the two games. In their essence, I guess, they’re both games about people and their connections and how they perceive the unknown.

Particularly in Blake Manor, I think it’s really interesting because it’s a lot of people from different backgrounds and from different spiritual backgrounds that have been brought to the same place for the same reason.

All kind of, I guess, drawn to that same question of pondering around mortality and like, you know, the what happens next and, you know, brings it down to the, you know, the very core idea of what is beyond. So there’s bigger overlap there in terms of what does everybody believe and how does it all boil down to the same core humanity?

04/11/2025, 14:02 - Treasa McCabe: In Ireland, I think there’s quite a strong sense and still belief in the supernatural. At least when we were growing up, there definitely was. You know, people were still very superstitious and still are.

People still don’t walk in fairy rings. We still avoid cutting down fairy trees. We still, yeah, we still very much, I think, believe. I guess, yeah, it’s kind of drawing from those stories and fears and beliefs of your childhood and as you grow and the people around you.

What it is to be Irish while sitting in the darkness as we draw into the winter and into ourselves. I think one is a little closer to home. One is more external, one’s more internal, maybe.

04/11/2025, 14:02 - Finbarre:

I had to ask, as the Seance of Blake Manor is steeped in such rich atmosphere, the sound design on it was so evocative and immersive.

The unreal part of it, for me, was the colour scheme. With the blues and the yellows and the purples, there was an uncanny luminosity to the experience. I really liked it.

I will, hopefully, finish the game soon. Instead of just annoying the hotel manager.

04/11/2025, 14:04 - Treasa McCabe:

I think there is actually an achievement to the hotel manager enough!

Yeah, no, it’s really our art director, Paul, did an amazing job. So did Clement, who did the music, and Elvis, who did the sound design. They did a fantastic job of building the atmosphere.

Yeah, I think the art style and stuff like that was based off of comic books and stuff that Paul, like Paul’s quite into comic books, he was kind of drawing on a lot of things that he did with his dad growing up because his dad was kind of quite ill at the time.

And actually the day we decided to make the game as company was at Paul’s dad’s funeral when he was talking to us about all those things that were kind of coming up for him and that he was just kind of thinking about and bringing in. And all the Hammer Horror films and stuff. So yeah, there’s something special in there for him, definitely. I think it’s a really special game to his heart.

I think between the whole team, everybody brought in something. And yeah, I think whatever you can say about it, it’s definitely a game with a lot of heart.

04/11/2025, 14:06 - Finbarre: Onto the next card. The first one was the Anchor card that all guests receive this month - I’ll now be drawing the Wild card. This can be anything. When the moment feels right, just type “stop” and I’ll stop shuffling the deck.

04/11/2025, 14:07 - Treasa McCabe: Stop

04/11/2025, 14:07 - Finbarre:

04/11/2025, 14:08 - Treasa McCabe:

It’s quite fitting I’m having a lot of nightmares recently! Yeah and that that comes with the stress of releasing or releasing a game.

I am a design and also development lead and so even as you see people talking about the design and the development and then all of the bugs are coming in and you’re just trying to make sure that everybody’s having a good time… while also trying to juggle three very small children at the at the same time and the guilt that brings and yeah it’s uh I think pretty apt.

04/11/2025, 14:09 - Treasa McCabe:

There’s also kind of an emotional crash, I think, that comes after doing everything as well. Because you pour a lot into something and, you know, you’re trying really hard to get it over the finish line. And you get it over the finish line.

And it’s kind of you get that big rush of adrenaline and then just things drop. And then the fear as well.

You know, we’re doing lots of post-release updates and stuff. You want to make sure you don’t break anything. You’re just trying to get everything working and everything going. Make sure everything’s okay. A lot of juggling.

04/11/2025, 14:10 - Finbarre:

Every time I pull a card like this I’m always so tempted to just stash it to one side and pull out The Sun or something instead. The Four of Swords of course. It’s a card of rest, recovery and the need for spiritual retreat after struggle or stress. It’s about emotional regrouping or contemplation. Sanctuary in card form. All right let me think of a question

04/11/2025, 14:11 - Finbarre:

This one is short and sweet. What does rest look like to you?

04/11/2025, 14:14 - Treasa McCabe:

Oh gosh, what does rest look like to me? Rest to me looks like, I think, not having to make decisions. I think it looks like going for walks and being in the moment with my kids and my family and not thinking about anything else. It’s hanging out with my friends. It’s playing music.

I’m in a middle-aged girl band, let’s say. We haven’t really been able to rehearse for the last while. We’ve all been really busy and sick and doing stuff. The idea of getting back and being able to be entirely immersed in something where you have to be focused on playing your instrument and stuff.

And just in that flow state, that’s incredibly restful for me, actually. And something that I’m really missing. Really missing getting back to the gym, actually. Again, I had to step away from that for a while and being able to get back in and just move my body.

That’s what I think rest looks like for me to stand on my own two feet and be in the zone with myself and have space to think about what I want rather than what is needed.

04/11/2025, 14:17 - Finbarre:

The idea of a retreat sounds utterly lovely and very well deserved after the enormity of the project you’ve been involved in. We’re up to the final card.

This one has been gifted to you by the artist Frank Duffy, and it’s the card of Judgment.

04/11/2025, 14:17 - Finbarre:

04/11/2025, 14:18 - Finbarre: How are you feeling about that one Treasa?

04/11/2025, 14:19 - Treasa McCabe:

Again very seriously when you’ve just put something out in the world and you’ve worked really hard on it right and it’s… putting it out there for criticism but also trying to you know, with the rewards of all of that energy that you’ve poured into something.

I said before kind of quite a vulnerable time as well and there’s a lot of, you know, we sit there and you look at what everyone has to say about the thing that you poured everything into the last few years you have to decide what to do with that.

It’s also like you know people are asking to talk to us and so it becomes kind of even away from the art and kind of even towards the artist as well where it’s it’s not just the thing it’s it’s actually you as well, so yeah it’s it’s an odd time, but it’s definitely a fairly apt time for the Judgment card I think! It’s also a point where you know we finished up and we have to kind of make those decisions about what’s next you know. I think when you come out of something that’s kind of big and all-consuming you look back and you have to have a bit of a retrospective with yourself on whether that’s something you want to do again or how you would do it differently or what’s important now and what’s the next step I’m going to make.

So yeah, I mean, a lot of these cards could probably be perceived as negative but actually they’re incredibly fitting for the moment I sit in right now.

04/11/2025, 14:22 - Finbarre:

I find that many cards in the tarot are hard, but fair. Judgment’s one of them, the idea of not dwelling in sentimentality, the call for honest reflection, forgiveness for yourself, and to shed what no longer serves, that you’re being summoned to your own truth.

04/11/2025, 14:22 - Treasa McCabe:

It’s also that point in The Moon as well, right?

It’s the point of highest illumination where you can see what’s what. It’s that point between now and the new moon of just letting go. Letting go of anything that doesn’t serve. So we sit at a perfectly pivotal point for this.

04/11/2025, 14:23 - Finbarre:

My last question to you is, after the completion of The Seance of Blake Manor, what do you now see in a different light?

04/11/2025, 14:24 - Treasa McCabe:

Myself, I think, probably. It’s the time where I have stepped into a design role more than before, and I didn’t feel very confident or competent, and kind of made a lot of decisions that were probably quite wild during the development of the game.

I was very nervous about putting that out, or whether I’d made the right decisions or the wrong decisions, and I kind of followed my gut on a lot of things.

But yeah, I was very, very nervous about whether following that was the correct route.

Since the game has come out, it’s had a lot of really positive feedback, and it’s made me, I think, more confident in myself as a designer and feeling like I can step into the design role and trust myself a little bit more. So yeah, I guess myself.

04/11/2025, 14:27 - Treasa McCabe:

It’s also made me marvel at the wonders of people.

When lots of people put their minds together and their brains together and try to create a kind of collective experience for other people to move through, what kind of magic comes out?

It’s on that, like trusting the people around you and trusting the process.

Yeah, I think it’s a kind of renewed trust in people and the wonderful people you surround yourself with is all, you know.

04/11/2025, 14:27 - Finbarre:

Damn right, after a rip-roaring success, you deserved to put you feet up. I did spot in The Guardian that The Seance of Blake Manor has got five stars. And the only reason that I discovered the game, I have to say, is I was playing a detective game called “This Bed We Made” and I enjoyed it so much that I went straight onto Google, looked up the best detective games coming out this year. Yours was top of the list, and here we are.

04/11/2025, 14:29 - Treasa McCabe:

Wow, I didn’t know that. That’s fantastic to hear. I haven’t played This Bed We Made.

In fact, you know, I really haven’t played that many games at all in the last few years because I was busy having babies and making games and all of those things.

I think the last game I played and still haven’t finished was Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, which was lovely.

I remember reading a review of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes and thinking “Oh gosh, like, you know, I’d love to have a review like the one posted about this game”

Just recently we were compared to it and also compared to like a load of other games that I really, really admire and that I loved playing myself. That’s been pretty, pretty wild and pretty amazing, actually, pretty lovely.

Thank you so much for playing! I really hope you have a good time playing. And that, you know, you and everybody else doesn’t die a horrible death at a seance.

04/11/2025, 14:30 - Finbarre: You mentioned you have a deck of cards ready for the next guest. Could you draw one for them and I’ll let them know it is from you. Take a snap of it for me to pass on.

04/11/2025, 14:31 - Treasa McCabe: So it came up reversed

04/11/2025, 14:31 - Treasa McCabe: Do you want me to leave it reversed or flip it upright?

04/11/2025, 14:31 - Finbarre: Oh no, it want to be upside-down that’s the way it must be!

04/11/2025, 14:32 - Treasa McCabe:

04/11/2025, 14:32 - Treasa McCabe: 8 of wands/staves

04/11/2025, 14:33 - Finbarre:

Oh, that’s going to be an interesting one. The whole idea of stalled momentum or misunderstood communication.

Treasa McCabe, thank you so much for being on Tarot DMs. It has been wonderful learning more about your game and it’s been wonderful catching up with you this afternoon.

04/11/2025, 14:33 - Treasa McCabe:

Thanks very much, Finbarre. It was lovely.

Meet more guests on Tarot DMs

Amy S. Kaufman is the author of The Traitor of Sherwood Forest, a Robin Hood retelling based on the medieval ballads (Penguin Books, 2025). Amy holds a PhD in medieval literature and has written about the Middle Ages for both academic journals and popular websites, including The Washington Post. She is co-author of The Devil’s Historians: How Modern Extremists Abuse the Medieval Past (University of Toronto Press, 2020).

29/10/2025, 20:06 - Finbarre: Amy S Kaufman! Welcome to Tarot DMs from wherever you are in the world! Where... are you on the globe at the moment?

29/10/2025, 20:07 - Amy S. Kaufman: Hi Finbarre! I’m in lovely Vancouver, BC.

29/10/2025, 20:08 - Finbarre: I have never had the pleasure of visiting, but some good friends of mine escaped from Nottingham and went all the way to your part of the world and I have to say (along with most folks) that it looks utterly splendid there. Especially this time of year. What have you been up to today?

29/10/2025, 20:09 - Amy S. Kaufman: Oh fantastic - whereas I live here and write about Nottingham! It’s International Robin Hood Day today, so it’s a good day to talk! (Although I admit I spent the morning working on a new novel that has nothing to do with Robin Hood.)

29/10/2025, 20:11 - Finbarre: It’s International Robin Hood Day? My wife and kids went out camping near Sherwood forest over the last few days. Taking bows and cloaks and the like. One second, I’ll show you one of my tinies wandering mysteriously through the trees

29/10/2025, 20:11 - Finbarre: