The Enchanted Forest - October 2023
7 Enchanting September reads from around Substack
Welcome to the fourth edition of The Enchanted Forest, a compilation of enchanting posts published in the last month on Substack. If you are reading this in your email inbox, click on the title of the post to open a browser and read or skim all the way to the chocolate cake.
Hi, I’m Tara, your host. If you’re new here, I usually post on Mondays about anything with swoon-power, especially relating to literature or the small adventures of everyday life. As the leaves start to change color this fall, I am also working behind the scenes on a newsletter makeover. Since I launched earlier this year with an idea of enchantment brought over from my academic work, this healthy tree has budded in all manner of unruly directions. Between pruning and fertilizing, I have my work cut out for me before winter! Subscribers will hear more about the changes in the coming weeks.
For now, step into the Forest. I hope you like sparkle dust in your hair. It’s plentiful in this month’s features! —>
Contents:
The Writer’s Journey to Enchantment
Wildlife, Photography, and Imagination
Maps
And Cake (with a recipe: sweet potato and chocolate?? I’m in.)
The Writer’s Journey to Enchantment
Kicking off with a photograph to slow the pulse and deepen the breath,
tells the story of her circuitous way to writing fiction in this September 2 post from . The author of The Enchanted Life: Reclaiming the Magic and Wisdom of the Natural World offers a free monthly newsletter to inspire deeper transformation than what Anne Sexton describes in the poem “Cinderella” at the end of Sharon’s post.Here on Substack, it sometimes feels like we writers take turns holding up the lantern when the way gets dark. I am glad to follow the glow of
A writer who chooses language carefully, to poke deep into the heart of things; one for whom story is far from ‘making things up’ but rather a silver-handled tool for cutting all the way through to the truth.
Wildlife, Photography, and Imagination
I’d say the whole mission of field biologist
’s sounds likely to produce enchantment (“Dispatches on wildlife, wild places and the human condition”). Sure enough, the current photos on his home page direct attention to birds, flowers, and butterflies. In his first September post, he described what happened when he found himself in a field of monarch butterflies where no monarchs were expected. What would you have done with all those butterflies?Speaking of wildlife,
of took a walk with her imagination earlier this month (one suspects this is a routine practice with her sweet dog Killian) and imagined a house outfitted by the forest. The inspiration came from a book. Her photographs are a delight by themselves, but this essay and others on her website wind imaginatively around the photos in the most enchanting way.Oh, how English printmaker
of put me in a swoon with her photos from her family meet-up in Nova Scotia! After reading her “Canadian Adventure,” I’m determined to contrive my way onto the next Jane Duke-family whale watch. You too?Maps
If I’m ever going whale-watching with Jane Duke, I trust I will need some good maps.
of and of have this category ably covered.Julie’s North American maps juxtapose politics with ecology to produce a unique, deeply layered understanding of place:
’s has been featured in the Enchanted Forest before, so readers may already be familiar with the antique maps that feature regularly in Mikey’s posts about remarkable places. This month he drew The Social Media Archipelago, a fanciful map that tickled the collective funny bone on Substack Notes:And Cake
writes about and photographs her family’s international travels with a small child (earning my awe and respect). For back-to-school season and her son’s birthday last month, she offered a recipe for sweet potato chocolate cake. I have always loved zucchini in a chocolate cake, but sweet potato is new to me. I don’t know about you, but I feel this recipe singing to me like an ancient Siren:Good grief, it’s getting dark already! The days are shorter than when we started gathering in the Enchanted Forest, so this feels like quite enough for an autumn post.
If you enjoyed these recommendations, you can view prior Enchanted Forest compilations at the Community tab on my Enchanted in America home page. Enchantment is alive and well on Substack!
To learn more about Enchanted in America, visit the navigational Mudroom or the inaugural post from last February. The evolution of the project continues. Subscribers will be the first to know about new developments. You can also “Follow” @ Tara Penry in Substack Notes to hear the latest makeover news.
Thanks so much for the inclusion!
So kind of you to mention me in this. If you do go on a whale-watching tour, just shout to the sea that Jane sent you. I'm sure that will work!