Susan Wands – Magician and Fool: Book One, Arcana Oracle Series

In-Person Author Event
* Saturday, June 3, 11:00 am

Pamela Colman Smith, newly arrived from New York to her birthplace of London, is received as an oddball in Victorian society. Her second sight helps her in her new job: illustrating tarot cards for the Golden Dawn, a newly formed occult group. But when Pamela refuses to share her creations with Aleister Crowley, a controversial magician, he issues a threat: give up the cards’ power, or he’ll harm her muses.

In the midst of this battle, two of Pamela’s idols, the actors Henry Irving and William Terriss, take her under their wing. Henry, who tutors her as the leader of the Lyceum Theatre, becomes the muse for her Magician card. William Terriss, teaching her by examples of instinct and courage, becomes the muse for her Fool card.

As Pamela begins to create the tarot deck, she is almost overwhelmed by the race to possess the magical power of her cards. In order to defeat Aleister, Henry and William will have to transform into living incarnations of the Magician and the Fool--and Pamela will have to learn how to conjure her own magic.

Susan Wands is a writer, tarot reader, and actor. A graduate from the University of Washington, she has acted professionally across the United States and on Broadway. Her adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was produced at the Cornish Institute in Seattle and she has written plays, screenplays, and skits and produce several indie films.

She was a company member in Rumble in the Red Room, an off-Broadway troupe, for four years. As a co-chair with the NYC Chapter of the Historical Novel Society, she helps produce monthly online book launches and author panels. Wands’s writings have appeared in Art in Fiction, Kindred Spirits magazine, and The Irving Society journal First Knight. She lives in NYC with her husband, actor Robert Petkoff, and two cats, Flora and Flynn.