Susan Wands
Susan Wands is a writer, tarot reader, and actor. A co-chair with the NYC Chapter of the Historical Novel Society, she helps produce monthly online book launches and author panels. In London, she has lectured at Watkins Books for their Recorded Authors series, and at Atlantis Books, also traveling to present at the Occulture Berlin Festival. Ms. Wands’ writings have appeared in Art in Fiction, Kindred Spirits magazine, and The Irving Society journal, FIRST KNIGHT. Some of her podcast interviews include: ‘Biddy Tarot’, ‘Imaginary Worlds’, ‘Bad Ass Bitches Tarot’, and the ‘Spirited Tarot’ YouTube channel. Her first book in a series, Magician and Fool, Book One, Arcana Oracle Series will be out in 2021, is based on Pamela Colman Smith, creator of the best-selling tarot, the Waite Smith deck. High Priestess and Empress, and Emperor and Hierophant, the next two books in the series, are in final edits.
Is there a genre of music that influences your writing/thinking? Do you listen to music while you write?
When I am writing something new, I’ve found I really can’t listen to music, I need to hear the dialogue between characters in my head and concentrate on the beats, environment, goals, and the arc of the piece. But when I’m editing my work, I like to listen to energizing music or “atmospheric” music. Some of my favorites are: Afro Celt Sound System, Dead Can Dance, and Loreena McKennitt. For a time, I continually put on the Café del Mar music selections, that’s how I found Lebanese Blonde, Enigma, and Art of Noise. I also love classical music as background music when I’m woolgathering, except for the modern music of Philip Glass. During my time as an actress, I was cast as Doll Tearsheet in a production of Henry IV, Parts I&II at the Public Theatre in NYC and in the opening of the show I had to come out and swing a little boy about by the arms. Well, the little boy grew during the run of the show and it got to be more of a task to swing him around. Now when I hear some of the strains of Philip Glass’s music, I sometimes get anxious remembering the effort to kick off the show.
What’s your favorite comic strip or graphic novel?
When I was growing up, I loved cartoons and the funny papers, as we called them. Prince Valiant, Calvin and Hobbes, Kliban cats, and Doonesbury, were some of my favorites. Later, when graphic novels came out, I found that same love of image and dialogue. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, is a one that I’m very fond of as my husband, Robert Petkoff, played the role of Bruce, the father, in the national tour musical that was based on the Fun Home graphic novel. By then, the idea of the Bechdel test became popular, the test that asks if a feature film features at least two women talking to each other about something other than a man. It was terrific to actually meet Alison Bechdel when she came to the opening of the musical Fun Home in San Francisco. I’m a big fan of hers, she’s a super talent. Other graphic novels I’ve enjoyed are: Maus, A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman, Book of Genesis by R. Crumb, and Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast. Comics and graphic novels have the same effect on me as do tarot cards, an instant impression of archetypal images that I can identify with.
If you could create a museum exhibition, what would be the theme?
Museum exhibits are on my mind a lot lately, as I’m in talks with several people on how to stage a retrospective for the artwork of Pamela Colman Smith, the protagonist of my series. Pamela was the co-creator of the Smith Waite Tarot deck, which has sold over 100 million copies in twenty countries. In addition to being an illustrator, publisher and fine artist, she first showed her work at William Macbeth Gallery and Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery in NYC. Pamela’s works are displayed in the Tate Museum, Smallhythe Place Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Folk Art Museum, the Folger Shakespeare Museum, Pennsylvania Art Museum, and Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Collection. One the question I want to address in doing an exhibition is how did Pamela’s artwork end up being donated to these museums when she died destitute and in a pauper’s grave in Cornwall? I was involved with an exhibition at the Pratt School in Brooklyn when they did a showing of Pamela’s schooling there but there were many pieces of art that the curators could not get others to share. I’m currently putting together a slideshow of Pamela’s artworks for Morbid Anatomy, an online academy in March 2023. Provenance and anonymous donating of artwork is a big topic for me.
Favorite non-reading activity?
I love hosting, cooking for family and friends, and playing the game “Celebrity” during parties. The game can get quite competitive and raucous but we love playing it, reminding one another that the game is called “Celebrity” not “Obscurity” when coming up for the names we will have to pick later.
Is there another profession you would like to try?
When I was younger, I wished I had the talent and physical body to be a professional dancer. Some of the modern dance and ballet presentations I go to are the choreographed works by Tina Bausch, the Joyce Theatre dance complex here in NYC, and NY City Ballet. I take some dance classes at my gym alongside professional dancers occasionally and I am in awe of their abilities.
