Bøger af Anna McKerrow

Babalon is a UK feminist organisation with a membership numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Fronted by the charismatic Scarlett Woman, Babalon treads a careful line in an increasingly conservative UK, where a government coalition with a religiously conservative Irish party means that reproductive rights in England may be under threat. Scarlett's organisation venerates Babalon, goddess of sex, blood and the destruction of patriarchy. It promotes witchcraft practices as a key method of political and spiritual resistance to its members via rallies, meetings, training, conferences and the BabalonApp, where those identifying as women can access various support services. Told by three women - Maid (Trix, discovering her sexuality) Mother (Robyn, mother of two, finding herself after a broken marriage) and Crone (Scarlett Woman, the leader of Babalon) - this is a story of power and empowerment: where personal, sexual and political power comes from, where it intersects and how different women come into their power in different ways. It also considers the difficulties inherent in an organisation paying lip service to inclusivity, and the dynamics of power in an organisation run by a woman who considers herself the conduit for a goddess. Trix leaves her small Irish village to come to University in London. Recruited into flatmate Szou's Riot Grrl-influenced band, she finds herself playing warmup gigs at Babalon rallies; raising the feral energy of the crowd before Scarlett Woman takes the stage. But Trix is running from the voices and visions that have plagued her since childhood. Yet when she meets Shefali, sex becomes more than she could have imagined, and it's Trix's sexual power that must flow freely if she is to fulfil her role in Scarlett Woman's inner circle. Robyn is trapped in her marriage; at home with two young children with a distant, emotionally unavailable husband. Babalon gives her the strength to find a way back to herself, and an active role in MotherHood, Babalon's guerrilla fighting programme. But becoming a fighter means Robyn has to face a decision which will take all her strength. Scarlett Woman, once the lover of an infamous occultist, is introduced to the goddess Babalon within his cult. Scarlett's journey to power embraces the goddess outside of Jack Crowley's misogyny and creates a formidable activist organisation with the terrible power of Babalon at its beating breast. What will happen when Scarlett and her group focus the power of Babalon on those who would hurt women and deny them their rights? The character of Scarlett Woman is informed by (though fictionalised) the real story of Marjorie Cameron, an overlooked figure in modern history. Cameron is best known as having been the lover and muse for occultist Jack Parsons, an American rocket scientist and student of Aleister Crowley. Parsons and his friend, L Ron Hubbard supposedly invoked the goddess Babalon in the California desert in the 60s, intending to bring the goddess into incarnation. The working didn't achieve its aims, and Parsons famously died in a fire a year or so after. Cameron's story is a fascinating one. She was a woman within a misogynist occult culture who came to be a highly respected artist and ingénue, but is still widely known only as Jack Parson's lover. What would have happened if someone like Marjorie Cameron decided that she was going to lash the liberating power of the goddess Babalon - the destroyer of worlds and protector of women's bodies - to a political and social activist organisation? A powerful and topical book, THE BOOK OF BABALON mixes witchcraft and feminism into something new, original and absolutely of the moment. Note: this book contains graphic sexual content, mentions of rape, physical and sexual abuse, abortion, miscarriage, occult ritual and content of an adult nature.

As a child, Faye Morgan was always an outsider, shunned for the ancient and powerful magic that runs through her veins.Ever since she was a little girl, growing up in the village of Abercolme on the wild coast of Scotland, her life has been steeped in the old ways – witchcraft, herbal lore and a blood connection to the dangerous and unpredictable world of Faerie. But magic is both a gift and a burden, and Faye has more than paid the price of living between two worlds. Neither accepted by the villagers, nor welcome in Murias after rebuffing the fickle and attractive Faerie Warrior King, Finn Beatha, Faye runs from Abercolme, hoping to leave that life behind.However, even in the twisted, cobbled streets of London, Faye finds her blood bond with Faerie won’t be broken. A Faerie War of the Elements is brewing and, though she doesn’t yet know it, Faye is fated to play a terrible part. If she is to survive, she must learn to embrace her own dark power and face Finn Beatha once more... but in doing so Faye will discover secrets in her own past that never should have been disturbed.A gripping, magical, action-packed novel, perfect for fans of K.F. Breene's 'Natural Witch', Sarah J. Maas and Leigh Bardugo. 'Queen of Sea and Stars' can be read as part of a series, or as a standalone. Contains mature content. Not suitable for younger readers.What readers are saying about 'Queen of Sea and Stars':‘A sexy and intoxicating novel... The battle between light and dark played out in very magical way for Faye that kept me on the edge of my seat... cast its own spell upon me, leaving me wanting more and more.’ The Luminessence, 5 stars‘The chemistry between the characters is palpable and sparks fly... There is a mystery to the way the story unravels and it takes you for a ride you won’t soon forget. I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys some paranormal fun.’ Up All Night with Books‘A warm story of magic and witchcraft... The plot twists and turns and takes a few detours to get to the ending.... A very enjoyable read!!!’ Tonya’s Book ReviewsAnna McKerrow has written poetry, children’s and adult books. She lives in London and is originally from the West Country, which gave her accent a subtle (yet noticeable) pirate twang as well as a love of cream teas and all things mystical. She is an eclectic pagan witch and feminist who also loves crocheting blankets while watching episodes of Miss Marple. Anna loves mythology, magic, tarot, punk, grunge, rock and alternative music, fantasy and sci-fi novels, travel, luxury skincare products, chocolate, spas, candlelight and stormy beaches. She owns the requisite witchy black cat.

A funny and profound memoir about trauma healing written by a Reiki Master, witch and tarot reader. The debut non-fiction by a YA, crime and romance novelist, Anna's story is heartbreaking, compelling and hilariously ridiculous.What would you do to heal emotional trauma?Anna was screaming at full volume into a pillow in a grey industrial estate when it dawned on her that maybe this was a slightly unusual way of processing grief. It wasn’t the first time she had done something a little odd to try and make sense of things.There was the time she sobbed along to Elton John with a room full of strangers. Or the very special experience of trying to enact the spirit of a deer in a school hall.She's tried Reiki, reflexology, BodyTalk, shamanic healing, past life regression, breathwork, guided visualization, dreamwork, magick ritual, (disastrous) gong baths and meditation – her journey has been long and twisting, but eventually it led to real understanding, and real healing.This book is about acknowledging our trauma, looking at what it actually is, and feeling our feelings. Interviews with practitioners and experts delve deeper into what alternative therapies offer. Ultimately, Anna hopes to trigger much-needed conversations about emotional health and the non-mainstream ways we can communicate with ourselves and others.Content warning: suicide, child illness, depression, bereavement, explicit medical detail

Mötley Crüe's fourth studio album, Girls, Girls, Girls, was released on my tenth birthday in 1987. It reached number 2 in the US Billboard 200 Chart that year and sold over 4 million copies in the US, and 60,000 in the UK. In it, the band, notorious by that time for their drink-and-drug-fuelled rock n'roll lifestyle, included songs about their drug and stripper-loving lifestyle.This work seeks to restructure the Girls, Girls, Girls album, not to reveal its inherent misogyny - that should be apparent by listening to the lyrics - but to make something of them.As a girl child who would grow up to be a Girl in the Mötley Crüe sense of the word, I received their messaging about what a girl was - a passive sexual object to be desired and abused - along with a raft of variously textured misogyny in TV advertising, film, other music, magazines, print media and the attitudes and assumptions of the adults around me. I took in the Girls, Girls, Girls album as a model of what being a Girl was, in my little town in the west country, far away from the Sunset Strip.I was wrong to do so, of course, but what did I know? I loved metal bands, and thought they were lewd and wild and marvellous. But despite its title, Girls, Girls, Girls was never meant for me: the songs on it, and on most albums in the genre produced and made by men, were made for a male, heterosexual audience. Perhaps no-one - the producers, the marketers, the band themselves - ever thought about their teenage girl fans, unless it was to decide which ones in the crowd they wanted to sleep with at a concert. It was, therefore, a very good thing that the Riot Grrrl movement came along in the 90s, to liberate us girls from male, white, corporate oppression (Sonic Youth, Kool Thing, 1990).Mötley Crüe were by no means alone in perpetuating misogynist attitudes towards women in the 80s and 90s, and on an individual level, it could be said that they were mostly concerned with getting high and having as much sex as humanly possible - and were not actively pursuing personal misogynist agendas (though, some responsibility does of course have to rest on their shoulders).More, they were a hugely successful band making ideological content encouraged by the patriarchal structures that contracted them to do so - the commercial music industry, which, like all capitalist, commercial cultural production industries, aims to uphold and regulate the social norms in which it operates, thereby ensuring continued investment in its business.Girls, Girls, Girls absolutely typifies the apotheosis of misogyny in a variety of ways. First, it looks at women as objects rather than converses with them in a meaningful way. Second, it considers women only as lovers for heterosexual men. Third, it depicts unrealistic, patriarchally-approved female bodies. Fourth, it alludes to sex with underage girls, which is rape. Fifth, in songs like You're All I Need, desire for women is tied up closely with violence towards them, something I explore against the current narrative of the 'incel' movement.To make the poems in this collection I have used a few different approaches, namely cutup with other sources to provide commentary and comment on the original song lyrics, breaking down the songs to component words and rewriting them, and finding recurrent themes, such as that of geographical locations, and using those words as repeating sets to re-render the original meaning. I have also reflected on lyrics as containing overused clichés, and looked at other clichéd and genred language.