157: Ask Baba Yaga (with Taisia Kitaiskaia)

Have you ever wanted to ask your local forest witch a question? Enter “Ask Baba Yaga” and Taisia Kitaiskaia. We talk with the wonderful author about her process of channeling the Slavic folklore character, how she grew up with the story, AND one lucky Conspiriter gets their question answered by Baba Yaga! This week, Julia recommends The Red Threads of Fortune by JY Yang.  Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about heavy subjects like existentialism, abuse, Soviet Russia, loneliness, and death.    Guest - Taisia Kitaiskaia is the author of Ask Baba Yaga: Otherworldly Advice for Everyday Troubles and its forthcoming follow-up, Ask Baba Yaga: Otherworldly Advice for Troubled Times; Literary Witches: A Celebration of Magical Women Writers , a collaboration with artist Katy Horan, and the accompanying The Literary Witches Oracle; and a forthcoming book of poetry, The Nightgown and Other Poems (Deep Vellum). She posts a new "Ask Baba Yaga" piece weekly on Instagram.  Sponsors - Honeybook: A purpose-built business management platform for creative small businesses. Get 50% off your first year on HoneyBook.com/SPIRITS. - Skillshare is an online learning community where you can learn—and teach—just about anything. Visit skillshare.com/spirits2 to get two months of Skillshare Premium for free! This week Amanda recommends “Happy Houseplants: Caring For Your Plants.” - Doordash is a fast, convenient food delivery app. Get $5 off your first order of $15 or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter promo code Spirits at checkout.   Find Us Online If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Goodreads. You can support us on Patreon to unlock bonus Your Urban Legends episodes, director’s commentaries, custom recipe cards, and so much more.  Transcripts are available at spiritspodcast.com/episodes. To buy merch, hear us on other podcasts, contact us, find our mailing address, or download our press kit, head on over to SpiritsPodcast.com.   About Us Spirits was created by Julia Schifini, Amanda McLoughlin and Eric Schneider. We are founding members of Multitude, a production collective of indie audio professionals. Our music is "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0.