230: Jamaican Witches (with Ciannon Smart)

One trip and one story can change your life, as author Ciannon Smart showed us in this episode. Listen to how her trip to Rose Hall in Jamaica stuck with her for a decade, how she embraced her weird kid energy to learn about vampires and witches, and how it evolved into her debut novel!    Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of slavery, murder, religious persecution, military/war, racism, and panic attacks.    Guest Of Jamaican heritage, Ciannon Smart grew up in a small town in the south-east of England. As the only daughter in a house full of boisterous sons, she developed a voracious appetite for reading from an early age, preferring anarchy in stories rather than real life. In YA she loves her heroines exactly as she loves her villains: wilful, wily, and unpredictable. When not writing, Ciannon can be found reading, painting, or taking the long way home to listen to a good song more than once. Her debut novel, Witches Steeped in Gold, is now available.    Housekeeping - Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers. - Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books - Call to Action: Check out our previous virtual live shows, and information about our future virtual live events at multitude.productions/live.    Sponsors - Calm is the #1 app to help you reduce your anxiety and stress and help you sleep better. Get 40% off a Calm Premium subscription at calm.com/spirits. - Skillshare is an online learning community where you can learn—and teach—just about anything. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com/spirits and get a two week free trial of Premium Membership. This week Julia recommends “Watercolor in the Woods: A Beginner's Guide to Painting the Natural World” with Rosalie Haizlett.  - ShipStation is the fastest, easiest way to get products to your customers. Visit shipstation.com and use promo code Spirits for a 60-day free trial.    Find Us Online If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. You can support us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/spiritspodcast) to unlock bonus Your Urban Legends episodes, director’s commentaries, custom recipe cards, and so much more. We also have lists of our book recommendations and previous guests’ books at http://spiritspodcast.com/books. Transcripts are available at http://spiritspodcast.com/episodes. To buy merch, hear us on other podcasts, contact us, find our mailing address, or download our press kit, head on over to http://spiritspodcast.com.   About Us Spirits was created by Julia Schifini, Amanda McLoughlin and Eric Schneider. We are founding members of Multitude, an independent podcast collective and production studio. Our music is "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0.