Andi Talarico on Magic, Writing, and Italian Inspiration

An Interview with Andi Talarico
by Lisa Marie Basile

This interview is part of our new Creator Series, a series of q&as that are designed to help you get to know people who are writing, making, and doing beautiful things.

Andi Talarico (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based writer, poet, and self-proclaimed witchy poo (astrology, tarot, ritual work). She’s the co-founder of Writing The Cosmos (which I have the great fortune of running with her). As an endlessly fascinating human with a great deal of knowledge about all things literary, magical, and mystical, I wanted to chat with her about her creative inspirations and her upcoming workshop Luna Le Vag, a holistic spa in Brooklyn, NY.

In this interview, we discuss her workshop, influencers, inspiration, and how her culture shapes her work.

Lisa Marie: Tell us a bit about your recent creative project, the Full Moon Ritual workshop you’re holding in Brooklyn this month.

The idea for this workshop came from my frequenting of this lovely Brooklyn business called Luna Le Vag, a holistic spa in Brooklyn that’s run by two inspiring young women, Jordan and Naomi. Their spa does a lot of work with natural care (and pampering!) for the vagina (hence their name) but there’s more to it than that - I could tell that they cared about community-building, networking with other businesses run by women and people of color, and I started to think about a way that I could possibly contribute. I noticed that Luna Le Vag was already offering classes in workshops in areas of interest to me: healing arts, reiki, energy readings, intentional cannabis use, and more.

Because my hobbies revolve around things like the study of astrology, tarot, and ritual, I thought it could be useful - and hopefully fun! - to offer a workshop based around the Full Moon and ways to harness its energy for use in reflection, self-care, and intentionality. All of these practices are beneficial, but I find it especially important to have conversations around and engage with these rituals as part of building community. The more we practice intentionality, the more we participate in our lives fully and authentically. The idea for the workshop is twofold:

First, we’ll be performing ritual as a group, which is its own healing and community-building modality, but Second, I’ll be sharing ways in which all of these practices can be personalized to benefit each person, so they can take these skills and apply them authentically in their own lives, whether alone or with others.

All of this is done in tandem with the good people of Luna Le Vag who will be there to participate, contribute, host, and share their beautiful space with us, as well as their food and refreshments, as this workshop will run all evening, in order to give us time to relax into things in a more organic way. To sum that all up, I’m running a Full Moon Ritual workshop on Thursday, August 11th, from 5-9pm, at Lune Le Vag at 1096 Broadway in Brooklyn. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own tarot deck but we will have extras on hand. No prior knowledge of tarot, astrology, or spirituality is needed to participate.

Lisa Marie Basile: Who are some of your creative favorites? Who lights you up?

Oh wow, what an enormous (and great) question! As it relates to my ritual-craft, I find a lot of inspiration in the words and writing of people like Patti Smith, Maggie Nelson, Anne Carson, Sappho, Jeanette Winterson, Kim Addonizio, Diane di Prima, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, Isabelle Allende - people who suffuse their work with a type of magic and openness, who use language as a way to get to truths both known and not. The reading of tarot is a narrative structure; the joy of Astrology comes from mining its depths for meaning; a guided meditation is a way to marry language and imagination. At the bedrock of all of these things is language, incantation, possibility — my love of writing directly feeds my study of the esoteric and magical, and vice versa.

“The reading of tarot is a narrative structure; the joy of Astrology comes from mining its depths for meaning; a guided meditation is a way to marry language and imagination. At the bedrock of all of these things is language, incantation, possibility — my love of writing directly feeds my study of the esoteric and magical, and vice versa.”

— Andi Talarico

Lisa Marie Basile: I’d love to hear about your writing process, struggles, or any rituals you turn to when creating. How are things going?

It definitely depends. There are days when all I need is to take my laptop to a coffeehouse and immerse myself in the din of the city to feel inspired. Other days, it’s much more introverted: I need every single detail of my home to be in order before I’m able to sit down, light some incense, turn on some beautiful, wordless music, make myself the perfect cup of coffee, and then sidle up to the page. Some days I need to write by hand.

Other days I feel the need to type. I try to listen to my needs and balance them with what I’m trying to get done. I do think I write more now, in these past few years, than I used to, likely because I started practicing better life habits more intentionally and tracking them.

It also became easier when I (mostly) shut off the constant inner critic and understood that Prolific usually beats the hell out of Perfection. If I don’t consider every word precious, I can let them all spill out onto the page and then parse them later. You can’t edit from nothing, but you can always edit from an imperfect something.

Lisa Marie Basile: Tell us a bit about how culture, identity, place, or belief inspires or influences your work?

I believe my heritage deeply informs my work - and by work, I mean writing as well as magic-making as well as the way in which I move through the world. While I’m proudly of mixed ethnicity and heritage, I was raised Catholic with a strong emphasis on our Italian-American side of the family, and though I’ve loooong been lapsed in the practice of the Catholic religion, I do still carry an abiding love for ritual, ambience, the mysteries of the spirit, even prayer as it corresponds to incantation. And incense. That one definitely stuck, haha. There’s a certain type of bloody passion that exists at the heart of Catholicism that still speaks to me and through me.

Though my craft has many influences and forms, the majority of the rituals that I practice come from the folk magic traditions of southern Italy. I’ve always felt more attached to the folk magic that took places in kitchens and gardens and bedrooms than the high magic traditions, especially those which exist within a hierarchy. And frankly, if I wanted some man wearing fancy robes to tell me how to live my life, I would have just stayed in the church. I respect the freedom, feminism, and resourcefulness of folk traditions and that love informs much of how I live and work.

Lisa Marie Basile: Who are some contemporary creators, writers, or peers that you look up to on the regular?

I think we’re in a really interesting time in history as far as witchcraft and ritual are concerned and I find a lot of inspiration from the people sort of heading up that public discourse. The work of Pamela Grossman comes to mind, as does Mary-Grace Fahrun, the astrological writings of Chani Nicholas and Gala Mukomolova. I deeply appreciate the life work and educational offerings from Marybeth Bonfiglio at Radici Siciliani, Herban Cura, and Mallorie Vaudoise.

Andi Talarico (Cancer sun/Pisces moon/Sagittarius rising, she/her) is a Brooklyn-based writer, poet, and general witchy poo (astrology, tarot, ritual work.) She’s taught and coached poetry/performance in classrooms as a rostered artist, as well as tarot and astrology workshops through WORD Bookstore and more. In 2003, Paperkite Press published her chapbook, Spinning with the Tornado, and Swandive Publishing included her in the 2014 anthology, Everyday Escape Poems. She also penned a literary arts column for Electric City magazine, and curated the NYC-branch of the international reading series, At the Inkwell, from 2016-2019. Her work has appeared in The Poetry Project, Luna Luna Magazine, Brokelyn, Yes, Poetry, amongst others.

Lisa Marie Basile is the founding editor of Luna Luna Magazine. She’s also the author of a few books of poetry and nonfiction, including Light Magic for Dark Times, The Magical Writing Grimoire, Nympholepsy, Andalucia, and more. She’s a health journalist and chronic illness advocate by day. By night, she’s working on an autofictional novella for Clash Books.

Her work has been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes and has appeared in Best Small Fictions, Best American Poetry, and Best American Experimental Writing. Her work can be found in The New York Times, Atlas Review, Spork, Entropy, Narratively, and more. She has an MFA from The New School.

A Writing Workshop For Nurturing Writers

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

The new year often brings with it a need to deeply replenish our stores, to crack open the surface of the winter-frozen lake of self, and peer in our at our watery reflection.

Who is in there this year? What ideas, shifts, transformations, and creations await birth?

A brand new SIX-MONTH writing workshop (one class per month) — WHAT NURTURES US AS WRITERS — is tapping into that creativity and curiosity by pulling back the proverbial curtains. I chatted with the workshop guides Andi Talarico (AT) and Jenny Hill (JH) about the class, writing, inspiration, and the beauty of feeling alive again through unknowing, play, and magic. (And for anyone interested in their astrological big three, scroll down!).

The workshop runs Jan 23-June, and each session is 2 hours. It’s $150.00 for the whole workshop. Register now.

What inspired you to create this workshop? From what place, as a writer or creator, did this idea emerge?

Workshop co-guide Andi Talarico

AT: Jenny approached me with the idea of running a workshop series. We both come from a background of hosting reading series, attending and teaching workshops, writing groups, of being community-based writers, really. We've both owned and operated indie bookstores in the past that we used as dedicated spaces for writers and artists to make and show their work.

The Coronavirus has taken so much from us, including, I think, a true sense of community. I know when Jenny approached me with her ideas for the workshop it was with the idea of growing something together, hence the longer form 6-month workshop series, long enough to grow and learn and change and perhaps even write or polish a manuscript. Writing is a solitary endeavor for the most part, but this year has been about keeping us apart. The workshop series is hopefully a way for writers to feel re-engaged and part of something larger.

JH: A desire to collaborate with the collective, imaginative world, and to share some of the experiences that have helped shaped my writing with others. I see it as an esteemed responsibility to share what I've learned. Otherwise, I'm hoarding all the good stuff for myself, and not honoring the mentors who gave of themselves so generously. I'm a circus artist, poet, playwright, arts educator, and have had many incredible teachers in my lifetime. I'm a very fortunate human, who has had opportunities to share, and to learn.

Co-creating a workshop with Andi was something I knew would make me feel alive, and there's hope in that spark of co-creation lighting fires in others. I've known her for 22 years (gasp!). She's a metaphoric reader of the world and a person of deep vision. Even at 17 her poems intimidated me. I remember thinking, "Who IS this kid? How did she get this voice? Where did she come from?" Who wouldn't want to work with someone like that?

What are some of the things (poems, approaches, personal goals and motivations, the spiritual or emotional) that inspire each of you most as poets and writers, collaborators and workshop guides?

AT: One of the biggest lessons that I've taken away from this past year is to honor my body, by being present in it, by using it to exercise, walk, do yoga, stretch, rest, all of it. As a writer, I have a habit of shutting off communication from my body so I can focus on capturing the words rattling around in my skull, but you need all systems working in order to create, or at least I do. Poets are pleasure-lovers, sensualists, ooh- and aah'ers. So part of what we're doing in these classes is to evoke the sensation that makes us feel alive again; a squeeze of lemon, a breathing exercise—they're all working toward the same place, which for me, I like to call a small or gentle epiphany. Part of the work here is to seek that.

Workshop co-guide Jenny Hill

JH: Hearing and honoring the stories of others, dream logic, appreciation for minutiae, a sense of curiosity of path in creation, the interconnectedness of life, being changed by words, movement and how the body is a voice, the hope that exists inside you when you watch a snail, all the people who created before me and inspired me to create, the deep map of human emotion, play, play, and more play until you forget who you are and there is just the moment. Questions. Lots of questions. The place of not knowing.

How can participants come into the workshop space with little writing experience? And what about poets with experience (who may be stuck or working through new ideas or shifts?)

AT: You can come to this space with a project that you're trying to work through or you can come to this space new to writing and looking for ideas to get started. We'll all be doing the same work of writing. The exercises we'll be practicing are generative and open as we're hoping to create a space of trust and sharing.

JH: In each session we play, which can release inhibitions a person might have about having little writing experience. I can say from my place of a beginner in many areas in life that it is a delicious mindset to be in, because it is a very open place. The field is vast, the sky is open (not a cloud in sight!), and what's that on the horizon? Ah, look! Possibility. Woo hoo! Let's run toward it!

I think the same idea is true for those who have experience with writing, and are working through new ideas, finding themselves in a transitional phase with their writing, or just feeling stuck. The "le jeu" in the workshop sessions is there to shake us up, and make us see things from a fresh perspective. And to laugh! Goodness, we take ourselves way too seriously.

With the new year (and all of the change) ahead of us, why is this a great time to take this workshop?

AT: I know I needed a creative reset after 2020. Maybe some of you do, too. It's a new year, and now, a new era of American history to step into, and it's one of progress, compassion, and building back. You saw Amanda Gorman at the inauguration, right? The best speaker of the day, hands down. The speeches were excellent and important, don't get me wrong, but the speaker that stayed with you was Amanda. Her work moved people and THAT'S what poetry has the power to do. There are moments in our life so profound, so big, that they defy regular speech - they need something more potent, distilled, powerful: poetry.

JH: It's a good time to add some beauty to the world, to meet new people, and to share your ideas, hopes, dreams, visions. The light is early in the day, and sticking around later and later, and that is an opening. The curtain is lifting! It's your stage, and there's your cue. Get out there. You have something to say that is worthwhile and others need to hear it.

What are your favorite poems, books, or stories (oral or written or folkloric) that inspire YOU?

AT: Maggie Nelson, Ocean Vuong, Anne Carson, Dorianna Laux, Sharon Olds, Tracy K. Smith, Danez Smith, Diane Ackerman, Morgan Parker, Layli Long Soldier, Ilya Kaminsky, Kahlil GIbran, Rebecca Solnit, Frank O'Hara, to name a few. Folk tales, magical realism, mysticism, tarot. I love when poets write essays, that might be my favorite genre in existence, haha. Who else but a poet's description could do?

JH: Ack! So many, and always changing, but currently and off the top of my morning head are: In Pieces: An Anthology of Fragmentary Writing, Pablo Neruda's Book of Questions, Serious Play by Louise Peacock, Twyla Tharp: The Creative Habit, The Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, A Book of Luminous Things, 3 Sections by Vijay Seshadri, the music of Yann Tiersen, Little Red Riding Hood, Thurber, EB White, William Steig's The Lonely Ones, all of the dreams I have while sleeping, Talking to my Body by Anna Swir, and all of the little typewriter visual poems my grandfather created. I think he instilled the idea in me that letters are malleable, machines are meant for tinkering, and the value of "little" entertainments.

Bonus: Tell us about your big three (Sun, Moon, Rising sign)! How does astrology play into your creative/writing life?

AT: I'm a very emotional mix, with my Cancer Sun, Pisces Moon, and Sagittarius Rising placements. Cancer and Pisces are water signs, two of the most sensitive in the zodiac, known for intuitive and empathetic skills, while Sag is the fiery philosopher, life student, and explorer. Each one of those aspects helps feed my writing life, the Big Feelings as well as the constant need to keep learning. I like to think that poets need to be both archeologists and astronaut, trafficking in the past as well as the future.

JH: Sun in Aries, Rising Gemini, Moon in Leo. I wake up every morning, write, move, then ask myself over and over again throughout the day, "Who am I?" "What can I do?"

REGISTER HERE.

Poetry by Andi Talarico

BY ANDI TALARICO

After Sacrifice

Catholics believe in magic, which is to say 

Transubstantiation, which is really to say sleight 

of hand, which is to say we

Believe a miracle occurs each time the holy man, ordained, 

offers the water and the wine,

Just like that, from up their robes, they

Conjure the body, conjure the blood.

It is pivotal, the difference, the others who see mass as metaphor.

They are just pretending. It is enough to worship the idea.

But not us, see, watch the hands, use your nail,

scratch Papal and find pagan, 

boiling, just beneath,

Denied and demoted like a bastard born son.

But see how far we’ve come, 

Note we no longer need the offering 

of your firstborn to the fire

Don’t have to hurl your kin into the maw of a pit

Don’t have to cut from the finest of your harvest

Don’t have to let go your plumpest sow.

Here, we’re evolved now, humane, now, let 

this ministered man, 

holy enough to be above you,

let him make his magic happen, 

an alchemy of spirit to body

A glamour for the blind

We’ve made it for you.

A glamour so profound

Wreathed in the smoke of incense

Kept behind the altar

Beyond the pale

Between masses, babies, offered up.

We cry, bring us your youngest, your softest, 

all the sons and daughters of Abraham,

And here is the lamb, and here is the slaughter,

The hunger too great, the appetite laid bare.

The sin of lust made greater by the sin of

Looking-away, the sin of never-asking,

The sin of teaching our young that

Sacrifice is the greatest name for love

Because after all, after all,

This is my body, which is given up for you.

Andi Talarico is a Brooklyn-based writer, reader, and witch. She’s the former host of At the Inkwell NYC, an international reading series. She's taught poetry in classrooms as a rostered artist, been a coach and judge for Poetry Out Loud, and her work has been featured in Luna Luna magazine, The Poetry Project, Yes Poetry, Ritual Poetica, and more. Her work has also been published by PaperKite Press and SwanDive Publishing. When she’s not working with stationery company Baronfig, you can find her dishing on astrology and culture on her podcast Astrolushes, co-hosted with Lisa Marie Basile.

AstroLushes: A New Podcast for Astrology Lovers Everywhere

ASTROLUSHES is a podcast at the intersection of astrology and literature, ritual, wellness, pop culture, creativity — and, of course, wine. Hosted by Luna Luna editor-in-chief Lisa Marie Basile and contributor Andi Talarico (both water signs!), you can expect guests, giveaways, book reviews, and more. You’ll have fun, but you’ll also go deep.

Episode 1 is an introductory episode during which the hosts chat about astrology’s impact in their own lives, plus they tackle the ideas of reductive astrology memes, pop culture (Rihanna lyrics!), folk magic, family lineage and trauma. They also a Rapid Fire Round of Guess That Sign (which sign is Poe?).

For now, you can listen to ASTROLUSHES on Anchor.Fm (there’s an app and also a website), but the podcast will soon be available on iTunes, Spotify, and everywhere else podcasts can be found. If you like what you hear, leave them a clap or star the show on Anchor. You can also listen below!

You can tweet them at @astrolushes.