KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Epiphany Newsletter January 6, 2013

KATHERINE NEVILLE’SEpiphany NewsletterJanuary 6, 2013 Epiphany Here it is again: my favorite day of the year, the twelfth day of Christmas – in western tradition, the day that three wise men from the East who’d ‘followed their star,’ came bringing gifts to El Niño Divino’ the divine child. (Today, not Christmas, is the day of […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S “Triple-Digit Days” Newsletter Dec 12, 2012

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S “Triple-Digit Days” Newsletter Dec 12, 2012 “The end of an era: The only long newsletter I will ever write.” -KN The end of a cycle is always fascinating, but this one is especially so. The twelve first years of our new century are about to end: Today. There will be no more magical […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Octal Newsletter October 4, 2012

  KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Octal Newsletter October 4, 2012   “Oc” in Rome: the 8th Month In the ancient Roman calendar, which began in March at the equinox, September was counted as the 7th month (“Sept” means 7), October was the 8th month, November the 9th, and December the 10th. I’m partial to all things octal, […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S April Fool Newsletter April 1, 2012

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S April Fool Newsletter April 1, 2012   Born from the Foam This month was named for the Greek goddess Aphrodite (aphros=foam, dite=born): she who was born from a drop of sperm fallen into the sea, and who emerged from the foam, as later recorded in many great paintings of the Renaissance, riding on […]

Storytelling and Mythology

Today, when we use the word “myth,” we often mean something that isn’t true, something that has been fabricated to deceive others. But the myths that have come down to us from ancient times have deep roots and hold a magical significance that still flourishes in our own lives today. The word “mythos” in Greek […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S New Year’s Newsletter January 1, 2012

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S New Year’s Newsletter January 1, 2012   Happy New Year everyone! It’s time again for New Year’s Resolutions. When it comes to Time, we know the saying: “Time and Tide wait for no man.” But Herodotus wasn’t talking about Kronos, or chronological time, when he warned us when to put our sails up […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S “On Civil Disobedience” Newsletter Nov 9, 2011

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S “On Civil Disobedience” Newsletter  November 9, 2011 (11/9/11) Hello everyone: It has been three months since my last newsletter, and three years since my last book. I’ve been really busy: Building castles in the air. In my opinion, building those castles may be the most important architectural work that anyone can accomplish. Here […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Angel Day Newsletter July 18, 2011

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Angel Day Newsletter July 18, 2011   John Dee’s Birthday : July 18, 1527 Today marks the birthday of that great Elizabethan magus, John Dee. (Actually, recent research indicates that he was born July 13 (old calendar) or perhaps July 24 (today’s reckoning.) So let’s celebrate him all month. He deserves it–as you’ll […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Walpurgisnacht Newsletter April 30, 2011

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Walpurgisnacht Newsletter April 30, 2011 (“May Eve”)   Night on Bald Mountain Tonight is one of the oldest northern European holidays, the magical evening just before May 1st – a night with such ancient, pagan roots that (along with “May Day”) it hasn’t yet been “Christianized” into the Church calendar. In Teutonic lore, […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Spring (Forward) Newsletter Mar 21, 2011

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Spring (Forward) Newsletter March 21, 2011 Dr. Dian Fetter: the artist in Santa Fe! The photo of me here was taken in Santa Fe by my friend, the Egyptologist and art professor, Dr Dian Fetter. Dian (whose birthday is fittingly today – the first day of Spring) was a fascinating and colorful individual […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Candlemas Newsletter February 2, 2011

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Candlemas Newsletter February 2, 2011   Happy Groundhog Day! “How much wood would a Woodchuck chuck If a Woodchuck could chuck wood?” – Children’s tongue-twister The Woodchuck (from its Cree Indian name “Otchock”) is a large North America Marmot that today we call Groundhog, for its habit of hibernating in deep underground tunnels. […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Winter Solstice Newsletter Dec 20-21, 2010

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Winter Solstice Newsletter December 20-21, 2010   The Solstice Money Tree All my friends, both spiritual and material types, have asked me to write something about Money. So here it is. The first day of winter, the Solstice*, is the shortest day of the year, the day when we have the least sunlight. […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S July 4th Newsletter July 4, 2010

“THE SACRED ARCHITECTURE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON” July 4, 2010 “Let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.” -Thomas Jefferson, July 4, 1826 On July 4, 1826–a date that, coincidentally, also marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence–Thomas Jefferson and John Adams […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Birthday Newsletter April 4, 2010

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Birthday Newsletter April 4, 2010 HAPPY BIRTHDAY! The Christian holiday of Easter was based upon the earlier pagan festival of Eostre, dedicated to the Great Phrygian Goddess. Her festival each Spring was held on Quail Mountain–in Ephesus, now in modern Turkey–where people once hunted for red-dyed “Eostre Eggs” sacred to the goddess as […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Winter Solstice Newsletter December 20-21, 2009

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Winter Solstice Newsletter December 20-21, 2009 Here Comes The Sun! Winter Solstice (December 20-21) from Latin sol-stetit, “sun stands still,” when we celebrate the shortest day, that time each year when the sun appears to stand still in the sky, and then to “turn around and head back,” providing us longer and longer […]

Scholastic Chess

Scholastic Chess interview of Katherine Neville about The Eight“Alisa and The Eight“February 2005 Alisa and The Eight NM Dan Heisman was kind enough to inform me about the following interesting story involving WFM Alisa Melekhina, the 6th-place finisher in the Girls Under-14 category of the recent World Youth Chess Championship held in Greece. Novelist Katherine […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Hallowe’en Newsletter Oct 31, 2009

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Hallowe’en Newsletter October 31, 2009   In the ancient Celtic calendar, so it is said, All Hallows Eve (which begins at sunset on October 31) marks the end of the old year, and the new year doesn’t begin until dawn on November 3. The intervening days (All Souls and All Saints days in […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Book Launch Aug 25, 2009

Welcome everyone! This note is to let you all know that THE FIRE –the sequel to The Eight–is on sale in trade paperback (large format), beginning on August 25, 2009!   THE FIRE: The Bestseller THE FIRE–my long-awaited sequel to The Eight–has spent more than SIX MONTHS ON BESTSELLER LISTS around the world, including The New […]

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Newsletter July 4, 2009

KATHERINE NEVILLE’S Newsletter July 4, 2009   Welcome all! This is my first-ever newsletter! From now on, I’ll only be sending a few of these messages per year–and only if something is really news! First: If you want to write to me, or if your friends or family want to sign up for my newsletter–or if you […]

D.C. Mysteriosa

(Washington: Mysterious District of Columbia) For the Spanish launch of El Fuego (The Fire) the noted Spanish magazine El Mundo wanted to do a feature interview with me at home in Washington, DC, where many of the modern scenes of the book take place. For this interview, they flew over photographer Chema Conesa, with the […]

Moscow, Monks, Murder, Mayhem, the Mafia

Katherine in Red Square, Moscow, Russia Just after editing The Magic Circle, I made a quick trip to Moscow where 850th birthday celebrations were still underway. The city was festooned with posters of St George, their patron saint. I felt this was an omen, because though St George does not appear as a character in […]

The Sufis of Turkey

December 2000 marked an important historic event in Sufi annals: the first Mevlana Symposium was held in Turkey, to commemorate the 727th anniversary of the death of the great poet and mystic, Jalal al-Din Rumi (known throughout Turkey as Mevlana, not as Rumi), the founder of the Mevlevi Order (The Whirling Dervishes). The congress took […]

The Horse Of Carthage

Some say that the name Carthage was the punic word for New City, which would seem an apt title, as it was the new city founded by queen Dido of Phoenician Tyre. However, Robert Graves tells us there was once an incarnation of the universal and ancient Great Goddess, whose name was also Car, and […]

Mount Ida Part One: Visiting Troy

A big chunk of the research for The Magic Circle is related to what today is modern Turkey, a land where, in ancient times, so many major literary and historical events took place. Katherine beneath the ‘new’ Trojan Horse: Troy, Turkey Turkey was the home of King Gordius, whose Gordian knot was later cut by […]

The Magic Circle: The Norns of Nurnberg

The minute I first stepped off the train in 1989 at the jewel-like town of Nurnberg, I realized that in all the books I’d already read about Nazi Germany in my research for The Magic Circle–everything from serious historical treatments to woo-woo occult fantasy–nobody had ever raised one question. Why did Adolf Hitler base his […]

The Magic Circle: The Power of Water

Snake River, Idaho I first got the idea of writing The Magic Circle while living in Idaho, where I’d moved in 1978 from Colorado to work with people from many different countries and cultures, all involved in energy research and nuclear safety. I was living in a tiny, furnished flat on the second floor of […]

Adventures in Spain

The personal love affair between Spain and my books began in 1990, through a series of strange circumstances. I had just returned from a six month research project in Germany, and settled in the small town of Radford, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where Karl Pribram and I had recently moved our household […]

My Secret Spain

This essay was published in Troika Magazine, Fall 1998. My Secret Spain by Katherine Neville My first exposure to Spain took place in the early 1970’s, when I was living in North Africa as a consultant to the Algerian government. This period would later provide fodder for my first book, The Eight, an epic story […]

Tunisian Centaurs of Aphrodite

Karl Pribram and I were invited to attend the first Centaur inaugural ceremonies, and subsequent congresses in Knoxville, Tennessee—fittingly held each year on April 1st, a date that is traditionally associated in Greece with the birth of Chiron, perhaps the world’s most famous centaur, as teacher to Herakles and Asklepios. My own schedule, to-date, has […]