I’m presently fine tuning my introduction for Immanence of Myth, which I feel continues to approach readiness for editorial by half. (Following Zeno’s paradox, it’ll never actually arrive, but at some point as a writer you throw up your hands and say “good enough!”).

I am also beginning several interviews for the anthology with artists that I feel do work that is mythic, touches on myth, etc. Right now these include Laurie Lipton, John Harrigan, David Mack, and several others. Some of these will expand on interviews I’ve already conducted in years past on Alterati. I have decided that I will be running these on Alterati when they are finished so you can get some sneak peeks. If you would like to do a written interview with me and think you qualify – or we’ve talked and you fell through the cracks, please drop me an email.

The first deadline I set for submissions is almost here. December 10th. From the look of it the first part of the book should be fully booked, (especially if I receive all the pending submissions that I know about), but I don’t have enough instances of personal mythology. So I’m going to take some time fleshing out exactly what I mean by “personal mythology,” and create an extended deadline for people who want to work on pieces for that section of the book. I am more concerned with doing this right than rushing it out the door.

This is from the intro rough draft, and will hopefully begin to explain what I mean:

We will be exploring this subject from many angles, through articles, essays, and interviews from a variety of people actively engaged in mythic work and research. Though I’ve done gone through an editorial process with contributing authors, and editorial involves some amount of re-writing, I’ve attempted to preserve their ideology rather than make sure that everything coheres into a single system. As you will quickly discover, that approach would be entirely contrary to our very position.

As this exploration proceeds, we will move from a distant and rather abstract view of myth as an existential dimension to increasingly specific instances of personal myth. Much as with the experience of a painting, at twenty feet, ten feet, five feet, and close up, our experience may be completely different. It may seem that the painting even changes forms, as you’d see with an impressionist like Monet. This issue of scale or granularity is one that I’ll deal with more in this introduction. The methodology and format will also shift to match our ongoing change of perspective. Keep this shifting of scale in mind as you read through this book, as it should provide a frame of reference. I devised this approach in an attempt to deal with many issues that arise when dealing with something so abstract as mythology. This is doubly true as in many ways we are attempting to completely re-consider the subject.

So at the outset let me say this: let’s propose that everything we know about myth is wrong, or at least, subject to re-interpretation. Mythology is itself a myth. Admittedly, this is putting the cart before the horse, but it is the only way that we can resurrect what so many seem to consider dead.

More soon! Stay tuned.