Iconic People, Invented Plots will explore how historical novelists handle iconic characters and their descendants with regard to self-censorship, publisher and reader expectations, and other constraints on authorial freedom. Jeanne Mackin’s Picasso’s Lovers presents a tangled and vivid portrait of the women caught in Picasso’s charismatic orbit through the affairs, the scandals, and the art. Mackin will share the challenges of working with a man as famous, or infamous, as Picasso.
Susan Wands’ High Priestess and Empress explores early-20th century London society through the career of artist and seer Pamela Colman Smith, illustrator of the popular Waite-Smith tarot deck. Wands will share her process of working with this fascinating figure, with roots in Brooklyn, London, and Jamaica and contacts among London’s actors, writers, occultists—and even royalty.
The event will be hosted by Sarah Relyea. A short Q&A will follow the panel presentation, with a meet and greet with the authors, along with light refreshments and book signings. This is an in-person event which will be audio-recorded for our podcast. Because space is limited, please RSVP below:
About the panelists:
Jeanne Mackin is the author of many historical novels which have been translated into several languages, including The Last Collection and The Beautiful American. Her nonfiction and journalism has appeared in American Artists, SN Review, American Letters, Commentary and other publications, and she was co-editor of the W.W. Norton Book of Love. She has won journalism awards and the CNY award for fiction. She taught in the MFA Creative Writing Program at Goddard College and has given workshops in several states including New York, Pennsylvania, and Hawaii. She is a fellow of the American Antiquarian Society, where she has done much of her research, and was a keynote speaker for the Charles Dickens Association, New York chapter. When she isn’t writing she travels as much as possible, frequently to Paris and the south of France.
Susan Wands has published two books in her Arcana Oracle Series, Magician and Fool and High Priestess and Empress, winning multiple awards in the visionary fiction category, including a 2023 IPPY award and a 2024 New York City Big Book “Distinguished Favorite” award. The third book in the series, Emperor and Hierophant, will be released in May 2025. A writer and tarot reader, Susan is a co-chair with the NYC Chapter of the Historical Novel Society, helping to produce monthly online book launches and author panels. She has lectured in London at Watkins Books for their Recorded Authors series and at Atlantis Bookshop, in Berlin at the Occulture Conference, and in NYC for the Yeats Society. Ms. Wands’ writings have appeared in Art in Fiction, Kindred Spirit magazine, and The Irving Society journal, First Knight. Podcasts include: “Morbid Anatomy,” “Biddy Tarot,” “Imaginary Worlds,” “Catching Up With” on The Hermit’s Cave YouTube channel, and “Dirty Sexy History” with Jessica Cale.
About the host:
Sarah Relyea is the author of Playground Zero, a novel set in the late 1960s. Sarah grew up in Berkeley during the counterculture movement of the 1960s. As a young girl, she went to the infamous Altamont concert and frequented Telegraph Avenue. She would soon swap California’s psychedelic scene for studying English literature at Harvard. A PhD who has taught at universities in New York and Taiwan, she has long addressed questions of identity in her writing, including in her book of literary criticism, Outsider Citizens: The Remaking of Postwar Identity in Wright, Beauvoir, and Baldwin. Sarah lives in Brooklyn, New York, and continues to spend time in Northern California.
