I’m not sure if you’ve heard of this yet, but Brink Literacy Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to changing the world through storytelling, is launching a Kickstarter campaign for The Literary Tarot, an ambitious and unusual collaboration with some of the greatest authors and cartoonists of our time. Working with the storytellers and a diverse and talented art team, the Brink Literacy Project has tapped into the magic of classic literature to bring a whole new kind of tarot deck to life.
The Literary Tarot deck will feature the complete set of all 78 tarot cards, illustrated with a stunning limited palette and foil accents.The list of creators involved here is mind boggling. I’m not sure If I can even get all the names here, but you are gettign the likes of –
Kelly Sue DeConnick
Emil Ferris
Kieron Gillen
Jonathan Hickman
Mel Hilario
Mariah McCourt
Mark Millar
Tini Howard
Marjorie Liu
Rachel Pollack
Samuel Sattin
and so many more.
And because my life is awesome, I got a chance to send a few questions to Dani Hedlund about this amazing project. (seriously, amazing. The art is stunning!)
Where did the idea for the tarot project come from?
As a big group of lit geeks, it’s fair to say storytelling is always on our minds. You see, our nonprofit, Brink Literary Project, is all about using stories to change the world—from nurturing and publishing emerging voices to running boots-on-the-ground programs in prisons and low-income schools—so we are always on the hunt for new ways to get people excited about storytelling.
This need only grew stronger when Covid hit, and suddenly, bookstores’ income disappeared, foundation funding was diverted into the pandemic, and we were all caught wondering how the hell we’d weather this new plot twist.
And then came this zany idea. What if—instead of the old way of raising funding for literacy—we made something new. Something weird and cool that combined our stellar art team with some of the biggest names to grace our bookshelves (you’ve probably heard of Charlie Jane Anders, Leigh Bardugo, Kieron Gillen, and Marjorie Liu, right?)
Thus, the literary tarot was born.
The concept is simple. We got our favorite storytellers to each “adopt a card,” pairing a classic literary gem with a tarot card that embodies those same themes.
For example, Patrick Rothfuss paired Don Quixote with the Fool. Mark Millar went Sherlockian on us with the Ace of Quills. Vita Ayala paired The Odyssey with the King of Light! And Tini Howard unearthed this stellar sci-fi short story from the dusty recesses of history and brought it to life as Temperance!
And then, working with an amazing team of artists, we brought each card to life with gorgeous, intricate illustrations and crazy amounts of gold foil!
Why Kickstarter? Have you had luck there before?
This is by no means our first Kickstarter! As a small nonprofit, we’ve run several annual campaigns for our lit journal, F(r)iction, but we’ve never done something this big (or with this much star power). So, you know, fingers crossed!
That is a who’s who of comics, is there someone you wanted but couldn’t get, or a talent that you didn’t think you would get?
To be honest, my cynical little heart never let me believe we’d ever get this much talent signed on. I keep looking at my wall of comics, the trade paperbacks I’ve reread within an inch of their lives (Monstress, East of West, The Wicked + The Divine), and I have to pinch myself that those literary heroes jumped into the foxhole with us to fight for great stories.
It’s humbling and mind boggling and I’m grateful every day.
As for people I so hoped to get, I had this mad pipe dream of snagging Neil Gaiman (but, let’s face it, anytime I set out to make anything—an issue of F(r)iction…a grilled cheese sandwich—I have a mad dream to pull in Gaiman).
If you’re reading this, Neil, do you want cheddar or havarti? I just get a feeling you’re a havarti man.
What is next for Brink Literacy Project?
Goodness, what a great question!
Well, we’re just wrapping up our 2021 catalogue for F(r)iction (get ready for a whole issue about magicians and prophecies and one very crafty domesticated Satan), we’re gearing back up to hopefully return to max-security prisons as soon as they will let us back in (oh how we’ve missed it!), and then we have a super-secret project brewing with Kelly Sue DeConnick that I can’t talk about yet…but get ready for some SERIOUS awesomeness (she sneaks a peek at her comic bookshelf yet again and now she can’t stop smiling like an idiot.)
