In Conversation with Corinne Boyer
Corinne Boyer
Corinne Boyer is a folk herbalist, teacher, and writer with a passion for traditions surrounding plants and folk magic. She has been studying and working with plants since 1998. She received her Bachelors of Science in 2003 in biomedical science (pre-med) with an emphasis on ethnobotany and plant toxicology. She studied with teachers and herbalists Carol Trasatto, Joyce Netishen and Trolldom practitioner Johannes Gardback of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Corinne teaches weekly classes out of her home with a focus on medicine making and the plant traditions of northern and western Europe and North America. She has been published in various journals with articles about plant lore, history and occult plant uses including The Cauldron, Clavis, and Wyrd. She has been featured in numerous anthologies, including for four years in the Verdant Gnosis, which is the collective book for the Viridis Genii Symposium.
Her published books include:
Under the Witching Tree, Troy Books, 2016
Plants of the Devil, Three Hands Press, 2017
Under the Bramble Arch, Troy Books, 2019
The Witches Cabinet- Plant Lore, Sorcery and Folk Tradition, Three Hands Press, 2021
Dream Divination Plants in Northwestern European Traditions, Three Hands Press, 2022
Under the Dragon Root, Troy Books, 2023
The Owls Eye, Troy Books, 2024
The Devil’s Ointment, Three Hands Press, 2025
Between the Witch and the Devil, Self Published, 2024Be Banished Prince of Darkness, Three Hands Press, 2025
She lives with her family in the forests of the Pacific Northwest.
OL: Hello there Corinne. Thank you so much for taking the time with us today to discuss your work. Your practice, particularly your folk and magical work, has no doubt deeply informed your writing voice. How do you find that this practice has assisted or challenged you in communicating the matters at hand through writing?
CB: Hello, and thank you for thinking to have me participate in your project here. When it comes to my own personal magical practice and the ways in which it has influenced my writing, I think that it enables me to speak with more authority about the matters that I write about. Not in an authoritarian sense, but in a subtle sense. Because rather than coming from an ‘armchair occultist’ perspective, I think that being a practitioner allows me to access more insight on many of the practices and topics that I choose to include in my work.
Over the years, I have changed my writing voice a bit, to make my writing less about ‘me’, and not speak too much about personal things. I think there is a real balance to be struck with this approach. I don’t want to fill my pages with my own stories or opinions. Yet, I feel that there are certain things that I want conveyed, and this has to be done with some skill, without coming from a self-focused place, if that makes sense. The way that I do this currently is in utilizing the lore to speak for me. By very intentionally constructing my material, I can include folklore that really inspires me and has influenced by practices and perspectives, without stating such.
Overall, being a magical practitioner is extremely helpful when also being a writer (and a teacher). But I think the challenge can be to not focus too much on oneself. Our sense of self-importance is very aggrandized these days, with all of the ways in which to share our information.
OL: Since the 2016 publication of Under the Witching Tree, you’ve been quite prolific in your output. Going back to the greater Troy Books trilogy, how did you envision the path that your writing would take subsequently? How was this fulfilled or challenged by expectation?
Cover of the fine edition of Under Witching Tree, published by Troy Books.
CB: Writing Under the Witching Tree, and the idea for the trilogy (that originally was supposed to be only two volumes), came out of a feeling of obligation to my material and also from a lack of satisfaction regarding what was available in the world. I had been teaching plant magic, herbalism and folklore out of my home for about six years (in 2016) and had many plant write-ups that I gave for handouts. It felt less overwhelming to begin my first book by already having 75 percent of the material typed out, which is amusing to me now, after all of the writing that I have done.
Under the Witching Tree and Under the Bramble Arch were also my solution to wanting to contribute something to the genre of ‘plant magic’ in writing, which I felt was extremely insufficient. I wanted to create something that I couldn’t find in the world, that I wanted to see; this is still largely why I write anything to this day.
I had no plans nor idea that I would continue to write nearly as much as I do. My mother once told me when I was 18 that I would write many books one day, and I thought she was crazy. I had no interest in writing, save for poetry, which I had always had an affinity for. But she was correct. I find that in writing I can help preserve information that is hard to obtain and information that is obscure or rare. This has becoming increasingly important to me as the years have gone on. I am amazed that I have written ten books now and have more ideas coming to me. Each book is like some sort of strange legacy to the material, and I feel like a ‘steward of the lore’, in the sense that if I can assist in helping people to access these old ways, then I have done my job well.
Cover of the standard hardback edition of Under the Bramble Arch, published by Troy Books.
OL: To jump to the most recent end of the publication spectrum: after publishing with both Troy Books and Three Hands Press, you decided to self-publish your work Between the Witch and the Devil. Was this decision driven chiefly by any single factor like creative control, efficacy, or so on? How has this self-publishing process gone for you thus far?
CB: The idea to self-publish Between the Witch and the Devil came purely from impatience and wanting to have the material come out into the world sooner than what it takes when working with small occult publishers. It was a bit of a risky experiment and thankfully, has gone really well. People have been very supportive and I am really happy with the locally printed and bound books, though I hope to eventually find a hardcover option for them. The personal contact with each individual and the book handling and mailing has been a bit overwhelming, but I have done it happily. It has been a great learning experience and I will probably do it again for another book at some point in the near future.
Corinne Boyer’s self-published work Between the Witch and the Devil.
OL: Your work also appears in periodical form in works such as Three Hands Press’ Wyrd and Clavis journals, Michael Howard’s renowned journal The Cauldron, and in the Verdant Gnosis series published by the folks at the Viridis Genii Symposium. How do you find that ideas from your periodical publications spurn, or reflect, themes related to longer-form works?
CB: I really enjoy writing smaller pieces, because they feel like ‘mini-books’, in their cohesiveness and also because my writing process is the same as for a larger book, but on a smaller scale. For the articles that I write, I almost always have had the idea for years, and have been saving lore for its purpose. The Witch’s Cabinet, that is sadly now out of print, was a book that came from the idea of bringing together all of my articles in one work, with some new pieces added. I hope to make a second edition in the next few years, and bring in more recent articles and also some new smaller pieces.
In regards to the topics from smaller articles, they often occupy a place in folklore or plant lore that I find patterns and variations in, again and again in my reading, that interest me. Finally, I will start to see enough information that I begin a list of reference material. And add to it over the years until it is time to write about it. Many of my books are written in this way as well, by saving materials for the right time.
OL: The digital realm has opened numerous doors for collaboration and connection. A great wealth of erudite scholars and seasoned practitioners exists in a connective ecosystem. Do you find that these connections have been fruitful for your work, either in a collaborative or inspirational capacity? Are there pitfalls that are particularly relevant to you?
CB: I will be honest and write that the digital realms took me a long time to find and/or utilize. While I am currently very dependent on my website for sharing information, as well as on social media for the same, it is not in my natural inclination or talent to use it. I finally am offering online classes due to many years of requests. This has been wonderful, all things considered. I am relatively new to Instagram (less than three years) and I keep my Facebook visibility very small. I don’t read blogs (never have) or listen to podcasts, not because I don’t think that they are valuable — they are. But because I don’t want the influence of others.
So, in terms of inspirations, I generally look to the written work of dead people. At the same time, I would never be able to thrive or connect with so many, without the internet. To answer your question, the digital realms are essential for my work and I am extremely grateful for them. The people I meet through these realms are fated and destined, for certain. But my inspirations for my writing come from old books, old forests and old tales.
OL: One facet of your work that we find eminently fascinating is the private folk museum that you’ve established in Olympia, Washington. You note that “The focus of the museum is to display and educate about folk occult and domestic items from the Victorian and Edwardian time periods, into the 1940s.” This is a fantastic project, and we are curious what led to its development? Was there a particular seed collection that spurned this process?
Front of the home which stores the museum.
CB: I have loved old objects since I was a child, as I grew up going to my grandmother’s farm from 1865, in Michigan. This property was little changed since the olden days, at least in some ways. I found resonance around the antiques upstairs, where nothing had been renovated. We also went to antique stores for fun, when I was a young. This influence has had a great effect on my life as an adult. I have been a collector of antiques for many years (as money allows or not), and have had the half-hearted fantasy to have my own antique store since being a teen.
Eventually I realized that I don’t actually want to run a store, but rather have a museum. This desire really started when I curated an exhibit for a Swedish Folk Magic lecture in 2018. It was so rewarding to gather and organize the items. Personally, I learn by seeing objects, and I think most of us do better with a physical reference to something. Having a museum, like writing, is just an extension of teaching. It is ultimately another way to learn. Hearing, reading, seeing.
The opportunity to rent a picturesque haunted Gothic house in historic Olympia presented itself last fall, and I took it. It has been a big responsibility in many respects, but is really enjoyable to create something more physical in the realms of folk magic, with the idea being that it acts as a creative teaching tool. I love the idea of creating a ‘feeling’ in my written works, and also the idea of creating a ‘space’ in the physical world. If something like writing or entering a room can change our reality for a while, then it is like any good art should be — mind-altering and strange, begging us to look deeper and step outside of the mundane for a time. I feel like magical objects have the power to do this, to remind us of something older, to trigger ancestral memories, to inspire us to get our hands dirty with the work of folk magic.
With the museum, it is my goal to put together different collections and have a lecture about the materials in the space, multiple times a year, in the form of a pre-paid event. This is a private museum and will not be open to the public. So far, I have had an opening event about the Spirits of the 12-Days of Christmas and an event to showcase Historical Fortune Telling Books. I am currently working on a Swedish Folk Magic and Culture display, where I plan to fill all of the cases with items, finally having the time to organize and label things properly. Then this fall, I plan to have a dedicated Halloween exhibit and lecture. This is essentially a personal project that finally has a little stage, and I am excited to share it with folks.
Interior display within the Victorian folk museum
OL: Finally, Corinne, you place emphasis on a teaching focus. This no doubt grounds your work in lived contact, and diverse experience. How has the teaching journey allowed you to navigate the demands of writing. Further, how has it spurned new partnerships and a sense for community?
CB: Teaching really is my full time occupation and has been for the past 15 years. Before that, I taught community herbal classes multiple times a year, but not in a full time way. I feel like teaching brings everything together, including the sharing and community aspects of magically minded people. I enjoy teaching at both the small sized classes out of my home, and also at large lectures for events.
I was reflecting a few weeks ago that my main ‘job’ is not even the physical act of teaching/lecturing and/or facilitating the activities. But actually that of creating curriculum. I have seven years’ worth of magical/herbal curriculum that I have created for my different programs, and I am always striving to make them better, so I regularly change things. The challenge of creating curriculum is this: how can we take a magical practice, art, or method and show people/inspire people how to work with it? Teaching is grounded in practice but also should ideally be a multi-dimensional way to transmit knowledge. This means, I cannot just transmit knowledge by stating information. People don’t learn by this method, they learn by a sensory experience and by repeat and deliberate exposure to concepts over time.
My writing enhances my teaching, and my teaching enhances my writing. I have organized my life intentionally so that all streams feed into the same river. I don’t think that I have any writing demands, but more like writing obsessions. When I have a writing deadline, it never feels like pressure, and I get it done as soon as possible. If it is not an obsession, then I don’t take on the project. I use the early morning hours to satisfy my writing obsessions, and through my research for the creation of curriculum, I find lore that I use in my writing, and vice versa. Writing is certainly an extension of my teaching, but something that will last lifetimes, ideally.
OL: Corinne, thank you so much for your time today. We are grateful for this opportunity, and we wish you the best with your forthcoming works.
CB: Many thanks for featuring me on your blog, it was enjoyable to reflect on your questions. I look forward to seeing more from The Occult Library Project in the future.
Corinne’s website can be found at:
