Share Your Love Story! » Win The Scribing Ibis

When my partner Jeff Lilly and I were first falling in love, I wrote a story called “Yewberry.”

Not on purpose. It just sort of happened one afternoon, after I’d been trudging through the ice-and-mud-thawing, bare-limbed woods of late February, my heart thrilling to the stirrings of warm-fuzzy romantic bliss for the first time in a long time. I sat down in my cozy apartment, head thrumming gently, and scribbled out a story about Caer Ibormeith, faery swan-maiden and dream-girl of the Celtic god of love, whose name was the name of the yew’s poisonous fruit, and whose transformation every Samhain into the white-winged denizen of the liminal realms connected her so deeply with death and loneliness. It was a story about love, power, freedom and sensuality. It was a story about overcoming death, and winter laying down as a lover to spring.

So it’s appropriate that “Yewberry” would be picked up for publication in the new anthology of Pagan fiction, The Scribing Ibis, just in time for our wedding.

But never mind about that! You want to know about the contest, and how you can enter to win your very own copy of The Scribing Ibis. Don’t worry, it’s easy: Share your own love story.

See, Jeff and I are going to be gone much of the month while we’re off wedding on the sandy, salt-sprayed beaches of North Carolina and then honeymooning under the wide, star-washed skies of Utah and New Mexico. Which means we’ll be offline a lot and won’t be blogging much. So I thought, what the hell, I could kill two birds with one stone (or feed two birds from one hand, as I prefer) — run a book give-away contest and open up the blog to guest posts! Hurray!

So here’s what you need to do:

1. Write your love story. Everyone has one. You don’t have to be in a relationship or have a “significant other” knocking about. Just ask yourself: what about the world makes your heart swell with gratitude and joy? What thrills you, what energizes you, what makes you swoon? Whether you’re in love with a person, a deity, a forest or a project… tell the world your story.
2. Share your love story. Share your story online, either by submitting it through the comment box below, posting it in the Meadowsweet Commons, or sharing it on your own blog. Remember: if you share your story somewhere else online, make sure to link back to this post and leave a comment here with a link so that I can find it!
3. That’s it! Just by sharing your story here or linking back, you’ve entered the give-away drawing to win your own copy of The Scribing Ibis: An Anthology of Pagan Fiction in Honor of Thoth. Plus, you’ve helped make the world a bit more love-wonderful! Hurray!
4. Wait, there’s more! Like I said, this isn’t just a give-away, it’s also a contest! If the story you share is truly awesome and full of follow-your-bliss goodness, I’ll publish it here on Meadowsweet & Myrrh as a guest post — and you name will be entered twice into the drawing for a copy of The Scribing Ibis. That means double the chance of winning. Cool, eh?

Sound easy? Then get to it! The contest runs through the end of October when, in honor of Caer Ibormeith and her yearly transformation, Jeff and I will draw the winner’s name on the Samhaim episode of our podcast, Dining with Druids.

Oh, and P.S. I have a very special post scheduled for our actual wedding day, September 16. So be sure to keep your eyes open for that!