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The 2015 Hornie Awards (Random Superlatives and Condemnations)

The 2015 Hornie Awards (Random Superlatives and Condemnations)

Last updated on: January 2, 2016 at 12:06 pm by Jason Mankey

The 2015 Hornie Awards (Random Superlatives and Condemnations) 2016-01-02T12:06:53-07:00 Jason Mankey

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It’s the awards show no one wanted . . . . . welcome back to the Hornie Awards, my annual round-up of favorite (and sometimes least favorite) things in the world of Paganism. All awards reflect the opinion of me and me alone, and are not meant to be taken all that seriously. It’s all in good fun. Think of the Hornies as the Golden Globes of Paganism instead of the Oscars.

Categories that didn’t make the cut:

Favorite Hipster Pagan
Best “Look I’m Offended” Rant Directed at a Blogpost That Was Never Actually Read
I Don’t Know You, I Wasn’t There, But I’m Going to Write a Bunch of Crap About You Anyways Award
Best Light-hanging Duo at a Pagan Party
I’m Super Special Because I Said So Award
Favorite Infomercial Masquerading as a Blog

At Patheos Pagan I exist in two very different capacities. On the one hand I’m the Channel Editor, meaning I’m responsible for running our social media accounts, highlighting certain articles, and recruiting new writers. On the other hand I’m also Jason, the horn-raising, cider-drinking, hair-waving guy that my poor wife married back in 2004. The two sides kind of exist in two separate worlds, and it’s possible to have favorite things as the Channel Editor, and it’s also possible to have favorite things as the Raise the Horns guy.

If the Hornies were real awards, they might look like this.

Writer of the Year: Dana Corby One of the coolest things about my life these days is that I’ve gotten to meet a lot of Pagan Folks that I legitimately idolize. I know that I probably shouldn’t feel that way, but I can’t help it. I see certain names and the 21 year old Pagan inside of me comes out and goes all schoolboy over everything. There’s no better example of this than Dana Corby, and how she came to write at Patheos Pagan.

For some unknown reason, Dana friended me on Facebook awhile back and we began to correspond. One afternoon she mentioned that she was thinking of writing a blog, I suggested Patheos Pagan, and the Rantin Raven was born. I assumed I’d get stories about Paganism in the 1970’s, and the recording of Gwydion Pendderwen’s Songs For the Old Religion (1975), and I got that, but so much more!

Dana wins this year’s Hornie Award not just for her writing, but because she’s not scared to rock the apple cart and make a little cider now and again. Not everyone is going to like what Dana has to say, but that’s OK. Writers should take us out of our comfort zone now and again. I thank Dana for making me think and making me feel, those are the things I want out of a writer.

This is how I workshop.

Festival of the Year: PantheaCon I think something a lot of people forget when visiting a large Pagan festival, is that it’s less a festival and more a small town. PantheaCon out here in Northern California has over 2000 attendees, and ConVocation in Detroit has 1000. Outdoor festivals like Sirius Rising and Pagan Spirit Gathering draw over 1000 folks, all spread out quite literally like a village. Because of the enormity of some festivals, experiences amongst participants can, and do, vary widely. I usually don’t even hear about what happened at Festival X until arriving home and reading about it online. Sometimes you just want to do your job (present some of the best workshops in all of Pagandom), and then decompress over a glass of absinthe while commiserating with your pretty hair twin.

So that being said, and I know there were people that dealt with a lot of adversity at last year’s PantheaCon, but it snagged the 2015 Hornie Award for best festival anyways. It won because I’m giving out the awards, and because of a few specific things:

*I freaking CRUSHED a Heavy Metal and the Occult Workshop there on a Saturday Afternoon. As usual there were all sorts of A list presenters sharing a time slot with me and I still packed over 100 people into a nearly too small double room. I was super caffeinated, I was full of the power and fury of metal, and I was armed with over 100 slides featuring kick-ass bands like Black Sabbath, Dio, and King Diamond. I got to play Blood Ceremony during the warm-up and freaking rock out to Year Zero by Ghost. It was almost more concert than workshop and the audience was just amazing; singing along, laughing at my jokes, and really just making the whole presentation an absolute joy.

*The Green Fairy Absinthe Party makes me feel welcome and at home at Pcon every year that it’s there. I don’t have a suite to hide in (other than maybe with the ADF Druids), but I’ve got this great party to visit on Friday and Saturday with 100 or so of my best friends (both known and unknown). Thanks Cliff.

*People like me, or at least really pretend to! A lazy Sunday afternoon spent talking about a myriad of Pagan things is part of my criteria for a near perfect day. I also got to go to an author party at the Llewellyn Suite, because they decided to print something that I actually wrote. Crazy!

So PantheaCon wins this year because I got to experience a bunch of stuff that was really cool to me, all while participating in two panel discussions and doing two workshops.

Commenter of the Year: Bruce Blank When I started writing at Patheos Pagan in the long ago year of 2012 I used to find myself absolutely terrified of the comments section. It wasn’t because all the commenters were mean, it was more because they were all smarter than me! That really hasn’t changed so much over the past three years, but I do tend to put my foot in my mouth a little less these days so it’s not as big of a concern.

There are a whole lot of great people who comment on Raise the Horns, but the winner of this year’s Hornie is Bruce BB Blank, who even stopped by my house this summer to share some conversation and a cider. Bruce wins this award not just because he’s now a friend, but because he contributes to the conversation in a positive way. Even when he disagrees with some of the tripe that falls off of this keyboard, his objections are phrased in a supportive manner. I could learn a few things from Bruce, that’s for sure.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Patheos Pagan is not just about the writers who share their articles here, it’s about the community we’ve built over the last five years. We’re all apart of it, and to those of you who comment on articles and pass them around, thank you.

Runner Up: It was almost Woods Wizard.

Photo by Sander van der Wel. From WikiMedia

Head in the Sand Award: Alex Mar Back in October it became painfully obvious to me that Mar would run away with this year’s Hornie for Head in the Sand with the publication of her book Witches of America, but I didn’t expect her to win so handily. She received 12 of 13 first place votes among our selection committee, with only my cat Evie preferring Donald Trump to Mar. I expected the vote to be a little closer, but then I read the press release from the Coru Cathubodua Priesthood about Mar’s book and I knew she’d win handily:

On November 18, 2014, we contacted Ms. Mar requesting an update on the project and inquired about our opportunity to review her manuscript. Our review rights were rescinded by Ms. Mar in a reply email from her dated November 23, 2014 stating that the manuscript will not be made available to us for review, citing industry “standard practice.” This was one year after our participation in interviews with Ms. Mar.

To restate for the sake of clarity; the Coru Cathubodua Priesthood would have declined to participate in Ms.Mar’s book from the start without the agreement that we would be able to provide corrections and redaction where necessary to protect our members’ personal and religious lives, and ensure our beliefs and public rites were correctly depicted.

No matter how you feel about Mar’s book Witches of America, it has to be completely obvious by now that certain trusts were broken. Again, let me reiterate how happy I am that no Gardnerians were profiled in Mar’s book.

Papa from Ghost. Photo by me.

Best Occult Infused Rock and Roll Album: Meliora by Ghost From the haunted-house boogie of From the Pinnacle to the Pit to the epic Circe to the haunting strains of He Is (a love song to the “beast with many names”) this is an amazing record. Yes, Papa Emeritus III (lead vocals) dresses up in a ridiculous costume and pretends to worship Satan with his Nameless Ghouls, but the schtick works. This isn’t just heavy metal, this is super melodic stuff played by top notch musicians. It’s also all way too silly to take seriously.

Words cannot describe just how great Meliora is as an album. I’ve liked all their stuff, but this is something else. Also, He Is is such an amazing song that I nearly always have to play it twice. I probably won’t be launching a Ghost-inspired ritual anytime soon, but you never know.

Zine of the Year: The Burning Times published by Foxfire Coven Remember zines? I grew up on Pagan zines, and back in the 1970’s they were really the only way we Pagans communicated on a national level. The 90’s were full of ‘zines because they were suddenly so easy to create thanks to computers. What led to the heyday of the ‘zine also led to its death, and now instead of ‘zines we have shitty blogs like Raise the Horns.

Anyway, when I brought Thorn Mooney onboard at Patheos Pagan to write Oathbound she asked if I would be interested in her coven’s ‘zine. “Sure” I replied and then The Burning Times showed up in my mailbox. It was full of witty snark, useful information, and even came with an Oberon Zell trading card! If you like Thorn’s blog you’ll love her coven’s ‘zine. Pick one up and you’ll see just why it won a Hornie Award.

The Charles Cardell Memorial Award for Stupidity in the World of Witchcraft: The American Council of Witches It was late February/early March and a group calling themselves the American Council of Witches were preparing to set up shop and represent all of Pagandom even though no one asked them to, or wanted them to. It was a Council appointed by some secret administrator and included a whole bunch of people I’d never heard of. To say that The Council was met with mostly bewildered shrugs and ridicule is probably an understatement.

I wasn’t the only one who found The Council ridiculous (and yes, I’m enjoying typing out The Council in italics), Sara Amis’s takedown of the group was far better than my own. On the plus side it gave us all something to wonder about and ridicule near the end of Winter, so thanks for that American Council of Witches.

So Long and Thanks For All the Fish: Circle Magazine/Circle Network News I know the title sounds snarky, but the end of Circle Magazine is a real bummer. The first Pagan periodical I ever read was a copy of Circle Network News, back when it came in its “newspaper” form. For many of us Circle Magazine was our first peek into the larger Pagan world that existed outside our own hedgerows. I realize that blogs and other online sites are immediate and the quality of the writing is probably equal to that of Pagan magazines*, but there will always be something special to me about print publications.

A note from Florence Edwards-Miller, Circle Magazine’s (former) editor: Thank you, Jason! Just a wee little note for those still in mourning for Circle Magazine (myself among them), like the dolphins, the Magazine may not be on this planet in the same form, but it’s not exactly gone. Over the next couple of years the plan is to both make the huge volume of existing content more accessible (through digitizing, getting a complete index together, maybe some compilations) and keep publishing some of the most community-focused content in Circle Sanctuary’s newsletter. Its not the same, but the idea is still to keep having it (and Circle) better serving the evolving Pagan community. Oh and thank you for the shout-out to editing! I worked with an amazing team of volunteers on that. Love the list and your blog!

(If you are a Circle Magazine subscriber Witches and Pagans has offered to fulfill all the issues left in your subscription. Send an email to Anne Niven for more info: [email protected])

And with that note in mind I’d like to present one last Hornie, the coveted Thank You So Much For All Your Work Because I Wouldn’t Wish the Burden of Pagan Editing on Even My Worst Enemy Award to Florence Edwards-Miller for all of her hard hard work at Circle Sanctuary and at the magazine the last couple of years. I was conversing with another winner of a similar Hornie award (the great Heather Greene) and she said to me something like “If you ever need someone to talk to I’m here. There just aren’t a lot of people in the community who understand the difficulty of running a Pagan magazine/huge blog site. There’s Anne Niven (another Hornie award winner), Florence over at Circle . . . .” Yeah, editing things in the public eye is tough.

So there you have it, this year’s Hornie Awards. Some bittersweet, some funny, and some well deserved for outstanding contributions to the Pagan Blogosphere. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I hope you have a healthy (and horny) New Year.

*Though in print, there’s actually editing! Not so much on the blogs, try as we might.

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