Media: Michelle Iacona

Bio

Michelle Iacona is an author, ordained priestess, ordained Ollamh Dewin in a non-affiliated Welsh Druidic Tradition which she co-founded, transformative medium, and the owner and driving force behind Iaconagraphy Press. She is also the co-founder of the Witchcraft Tradition known as Syrenity or Syrene Witchcraft, alongside Connla Hundr Lung (formerly Freyjason), in which she holds the titles of Syren and Godsinger. Her educational background includes a BA in English with emphasis on Creative Writing, a minor in Ethnomusicology (with emphasis on Asian Musics), and the equivalencies of degrees in Comparative Religion and Folklore and Mythology. A psychic reader since age 15, she boasts over 30 years of experience as a practicing Pagan, Witch, and Divination Specialist, as well as three decades of living her life as a shamanic transformative medium. She also has experience as a teacher of both creative writing and art. She has continued her study of the esoteric arts in classes conducted by such important names in the field as Laurie Cabot, Christopher Penczak, Kristoffer Hughes, and Michelle Belanger. Her published works include Carnavale and Raven, as well as co-authoring Turning the Wheel: The Ritual Year of the Norse Witch with Connla Hundr Lung (formerly Freyjason). She is the editor, layout designer, and publisher of Norse Witch: Reclaiming the Heidhrinn Heart by Connla Hundr Lung, Blessings of Fire and Ice by Connla Hundr Lung, and Faith, Food, Family by Suzanne Hersey, all of which are in current publication and have sold internationally. Born and raised in the American South, she now resides in Massachusetts, along with a host of “dead-folk”, her “soul sister” Suzanne, her beloved PTSD-kitty, Gimli, and a collection of friends and family which she is “truly blessed to know”. She credits her Mom, Dad, Mema, and Granddaddy Sonny with having helped her become “the Wicked Witch of the South”: a woman who dares to dream big, and then stand up for those dreams, regardless of the obstacles.

Transformative Mediumship

Michelle has been a practicing medium since 1994. She is not a trance medium; she’s a shamanic transformative medium, which means she literally “steps out of the way”, and lets a spirit take over completely:

“I am a shamanic medium, which means I literally step out of the way, and let someone else take over completely, to the point of voice changes, mannerism changes, handwriting changes, and everything else. The intangible becomes tangible again–through me. This is not a service that I perform on cue for the living–no, I will not bring your dearly departed grandmother ’round for tea. This is something that I do to help “them” (my set group who has been with me over the past two decades), as much as they do it to help me. I am not the Mishy Psychic Friends Network, nor am I the Psychic On Demand Channel. This is not something I do as some weird sort of “psychic performance art”.This is for me, and for them. It’s perfectly symbiotic; in no way, shape or form as glamorous as it may sound to some people, and not dangerous to any of the parties involved, because I know what I’m doing. (Which is my way of saying, as they do on TV shows like Jackass: ‘don’t try this at home, kids!’)”

Publishing & Editing Experience

Iaconagraphy Press is the culmination of three decades of a combination of formal training, self-education, and tireless research, sparked by exhaustive work experience at Saint Andrews Press in 1994. In Michelle’s own words:

“The more I heard about such practices as book-shredding and royalties, the more I realized I wanted to be so much more than ‘just a writer’. I wanted the whole enchilada. I didn’t just want to be Cinderella, running down the stairs to beat the clock (which is what most writers become, even successful ones), I wanted to be the Fairy Godmother (the one who makes the magic happen).

Back in 1994, I thought I had my toes in the water of making that dream a reality when I got a job just out of college at a small but highly prestigious college press. I learned invaluable lessons during my time there: I learned how the industry works; I learned how to design a book; I learned publishing conventions; I learned how to navigate Adobe and other publishing software. I also learned the PR side of the business: how to promote, promote, promote.

But then I learned something else: I learned that women who are strong, and know how to do not only their own jobs, but everyone else’s jobs as well, scare the crap out of people. People find that threatening. In fact, they find it so threatening that they will do whatever it takes to get rid of such a woman.

As I marched out of that office that day, screaming and in tears, having just practiced my first public delivery of the ‘f-word’, I made a solemn promise to myself:

‘One day, I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, I will have my own press. I will run the show, and nothing and no one will ever be able to take that away from me again.’”

Iaconagraphy is that dream made reality.

Accolades

“Ms. Iacona presents the reader with a clever weaving of verse and prose which hits perhaps a little too close to home. Here is a local allegory populated by the strangely familiar. The disturbing thing is, we may yet find ourselves here in this darkness…and survive to tell it.”–Steve Allgood (Editor, Pynyon Press, Atlanta), reviewing Carnavale

Winner: Saint Andrews Bunn-McClelland Chapbook, 1993, for Carnavale. (competition judged by novelist and playwright, Romulus Linney, Obie Award and National Critics Award winning playwright, as well as a Guggenheim Fellow, and father of Academy Award winning actress Laura Linney.)