We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melinda Lee Holm a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Melinda Lee thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I only knew I wanted to be a writer after working full time as a writer for eighteen months. Before that, I knew I was good at writing and I considered it a great advantage in my work and life. I had even published a couple articles, but it had never been something I sought (or even thought) to center.

Then I received an email from a publisher in London asking if I wanted to make my own tarot deck.

Having spent the past decade apologizing for the imagery on one deck or another as I read for clients and friends, explaining away the heavily gendered and outdated western European imagery (no dude, you can totally be that lady in the throne, trust me!), I was thrilled to have the opportunity. Then, while I was working on putting the manuscript for the deck’s guidebook together and gathering reference material for the illustrator, I received more publishing news. Someone was interested in a proposal I had written with a friend two years earlier for a tarot cookbook – a proposal that, at the time, seemed like a fun one-off project. We sold the book.

I suddenly had a tarot deck to finish and a cookbook to start, one set of tight deadlines overlapping the other in my own grueling literary relay race. Since these projects were with two different publishers, I was very much considered a first-time author for both and received a commensurate level of compensation and glory. And I was the happiest I’d ever been. So it was settled. I am a writer.

[This is an excerpt from the Statement of Purpose that got me into the UC Riverside low-res MFA in Creative Writing program I am in now where I am working on a memoir. They asked me the same question:) ]

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I write books, read tarot, and make magick potions. Over the years, the balance of that has shifted around, but right now most of my time is spent writing about tarot and magick. I tend to be the welcoming committee of the esoteric world. My midwestern roots make their way up through everything I do, bringing a grounded accessibility to my witchery. I believe: you have everything you need, right now, to take the next step in your magickal life (a lot of it is on your kitchen cupboards), tarot is a language everyone can learn to speak and understand, and that mostly people are doing their best to navigate an often confusing and chaotic world.

There are a lot of places on the internet where you can find a one-size-fits-all approach to magick and spirituality. I see well-meaning memes on manifestation and healing that do not take into account the diversity of experience and circumstance of people and can be damaging. I want to provide tools and guidance, not answers. I don’t know what’s going to happen in your life, but I can help you use what you’ve got to move toward where you want to be from wherever you are.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

The creative path is often extremely non-linear. I think from the outside, it can look like creatives are just stumbling through life, following our whims with no plan. But really, we are gathering material, knowledge, and experience that will fuel and inform our work. When I chose to major in Art History in college, I didn’t know that it was the exact perfect discipline to prepare me for writing about and reading tarot. I just knew I was very drawn to it. Art is a Fire element practice. It comes from the gut. And we have to follow that. Creatives often don’t plot a path, we discover it, step by step, while drinking in the wonder of the present.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I think that at the core of everything, I want people to feel both the power of their personal magick and the power of their connection to other beings. We all live within the limitations of our circumstances, but within those circumstances, we have the ability to transform our lives and the world. My mission is to help people recognize and access that revolutionary magick.

Contact Info:

• Website: melindaleehlm.com
• Instagram: @melindaleeholm