[Today, we sit down for a quick interview with Hollow Ryan. The author of the Prideful Magick Collection, Ryan discusses her spiritual path, her books, and her future projects.]
BookMusings: How do you define your personal spiritual path? Are you part of a tradition, or more eclectic?
Hollow Ryan: I would definitely say my path is super eclectic. I’m a quarter Mohawk, so growing up I had a lot of Native American spirituality injected into my life and it has stayed with me. But I’ve also got Scottish and German ancestry that has led to quite the fascination with Celtic practices and Norse mythology. When you take the time to learn yourself as who you are rather than who you’d like to be, it definitely gives you a sense of what works for you in the moment, and what will definitely help you to become the person you want to be. So that’s the kind of path I’m on. A kind of: Make no apologies for who you are, but make no excuses, either.
BookMusings: You recently published the fifth book in the Prideful Magick series. Congratulations! First, what is the significance of that title, and why is each book named for a particular plant?
HR: This is a difficult one to answer because this entire series felt more like a spiritual journey than work. I’m not sure if I got to make half of the decisions when writing this. The series title might have been one of the few that I was allowed. The
Prideful Magick Collection (
PMC for short) was named in part because I didn’t want to call it ’series’ or ’saga’ or anything too normal. I used
Magick specifically so people would know by looking at it that this was a story of witches. Since our ‘mini culture’ started adding the ‘k’ to ‘magic’ it was this nice little signal to potential readers that, "Yes, I am one of you.”
Prideful, of course, is descriptive of the main character. There is no better word for her.
As far as the title names for each book, I didn’t get much of a choice on that one. I barely knew about every plant before; I just knew that was the title. I chose Ivy because I love climbing ivy plants. Yet, as I began plotting each of the next books, the plants came to me almost immediately and they all feature significantly in every book.
BookMusings: Alexandria Ryder, the witch at the center of the Prideful Magick series, experiences a lot of growth and change over the five books. Without spoiling too much, is there any one event in the book which you feel is particularly telling in regards to her character, and how she matures?
HR: The
Prideful Magick Collection is all about Lex’s growth and maturity, especially in the face of the kind of adversity she experiences. To me, there’s a moment in all of them that challenges her more than any other. They are sink or swim moments. They are what force her to choose which step to take next, fully aware of what the outcomes could be. In the fifth book,
Avens, it is harder to pin-point that exact moment, and it’s even harder to describe without spoilers. Without giving too much away, I would say the highest mark of her maturity is when she is no longer afraid to share her responsibilities or magick with others.
BookMusings: Where can curious readers find your Prideful Magick series?
HR: All of my books are available through
Amazon in both paperback and Kindle format. However, any local bookstore should be able to order them, if you wish to support a local business. Also, libraries know how to get their hands on them, too.
BookMusings: What other projects are you working on?
HR: My next projects will be works of complete fantasy. I have created a world called Vassel (which greatly influenced my own spiritual path) and the books I will be working on in the near future all take place in that world. As of now, I do not have any plans to write stories similar to the PMC, but my plans are more like guidelines instead of rules. So we shall see.
Thank you so much for this interview! It was so fun to write, and the questions were very insightful.
