[Today we sit down with author and editor, Rachel Patterson. Here, she discusses her new book Witchcraft: Daily Practice; some of her previous books for the Pagan Portals series; and her forthcoming projects.]

Forests Haunted by Holiness: Your newest book, Witchcraft: Daily Practice, is due out in December 2026. Can you give us a hint as to what sorts of daily practices are included? And are these for a specific tradition or can anyone interested in witchcraft use them?

Rachel Patterson: The book came about because I had fallen ‘off the witchcraft wagon’ and wanted some kind of prompts and structure to bring myself slowly back in.  Even though I have been walking the Pagan Witchcraft path for over thirty years, it happens on occasion!  The book covers some of the basics, but also gives ideas and prompts that will hopefully inspire people, no matter what pathway they walk.  There are ideas that take a few moments and some that take longer; you can pick and choose and build your own daily practice structure, or you can just dip in and out when you want some inspiration.  There are traditional ideas, but also some slightly out of the box ones, too.

FHBH: Late last year, you released The Witch’s Altar Book. How did you, Nicole Weiss, and Lindsay Squire come up with the idea for this book?  Were there some elements you absolutely had to include?

RP: Actually, we didn’t!  An editor at Leaping Hare Press approached us with the idea, having seen me talk at Witchfest and put the idea to me.  She wanted something that was written from the perspective of maiden, mother, crone.  She offered me the crone aspect, which I tried not to be offended by! Actually, it was at the beginning of my own crone journey, so it was perfectly timed.  The editor chose the subjects, so the book covers three main aspects of witchcraft: divination, prosperity and protection.  I wrote the protection section, but I was also asked to write a general correspondence section for the end. So my part covers protection in as many forms as I could think of. 

FHBH: You also recently released Pagan Portals: Gods and Goddesses of England. What resources did you use while researching the book? And were there any Deities for whom you wished you had more information?

RP: This one is a personal passion; I am on a mission to unearth and reignite the flame for all the long-forgotten English deities, the ones that were here before the Romans arrived.  There isn’t much to work with from a research perspective; we don’t have anything written down, there are no stories and myths told around the fire or handed down.  I had to work with archaeological evidence, which is sparse, and place names. 

I wish we had more information on all of them!  Even for the few for whom we have some information, we are still lacking. We are familiar with the idea of a ‘Celtic’ (an overall collective term for lots of different cultures) pantheon, but this mostly covers Irish, Welsh and a few Scottish deities; very rarely do we find any English gods or goddesses included in there. It would be wonderful to build an English Pantheon.  

FHBH: You have written a number of books for the Pagan Portals series, ranging from texts on various kinds of magic to devotional texts about Sulis, The Cailleach, and more. What draws you to Pagan Portals as a series? Why do you enjoy writing these books, for this particular imprint?

RP: The Pagan Portal series is published by Moon Books (they also publish larger books!) and was designed as a series of introductory books that give the reader bite-sized bits of information to give them an idea or start them off on a subject.  They work because they are easy to read and hopefully inspire people to dig deeper. They are also very affordable.

FHBH: What other projects are you working on?

RP: Lots of things, always!  I have a few book contracts that I am working on, which are always exciting.  The next book will be a collaboration with my fellow Kitchen Witchers, Heather and Ness.  We are putting together a tome of practical witchcraft, detailing how we work. And at our Kitchen Witch online school, we are putting together some new courses, which is always interesting to do.  And I am out and about at a few Pagan events this year, too.  Always busy!