If you’re a fan of classic literature, this Kickstarter is right up your literary alley. The Brink Literacy Project is starting a Kickstarter Campaign for the Literary Tarot. In this impressive project, they are combining classic literary books with Tarot Cards, bringing together great writers and cartoonists. Each combining to make a Tarot deck unlike any seen before or since. This exciting project was announced in the following press release:
Brink Literacy Project Launches The Literary Tarot On Kickstarter
(June 1st, 2021) 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.
Tarot Talent List
Alec Nevela-Lee
Alix E. Harrow
Amai El-Mohtar
Ayelet Waldman Credit Claire Lewis
Benjamin Percy Credit Connor Percy
Brian Bendis
Carrie Morgridge
Celeste NG Credit Kevin Day Photography
Charlie Claire Burgess
Charlie Jane Anders Credit Sarah Deragon
Chelsea Cain
Damian Barr 1 Credit Honeybunn Photography
Damian Rogers
Dan Chacon
E. Lockhart
Ellen Azevedo Colour
Erin Morgenstern Credit Allan Amato
Faylita Hicks
G. Willow Wilson
Greg Rucka
H. E. Edgmon
Hart Hanson
Issac Marion
Joel Kim Booster
K.D. Edwards
Kelly Link 1 Credit Sharona Jacobs Photography
Kelley Sue DeConnick
Kieron Gillen
K-Ming Chang
Lev Grossman Color Credit Beowulf Sheehan
Lida Yuknavtich
Maggie Downs
Margaret Atwood Credit Luis Mora
Mariah McCourt
Marjorie Liu
Mark Millar
Mark Waid
Mel Hilario
Patricia Jackson
Patrick
Rebecca
Roxane Gay
Silvia
Simon
Victor LaVelle
Vita Ayala
Major Arcana
Major Arcana card pairings include:
Bestselling crime writer Chelsea Cain pairs The Emperor with Agatha Christie’s Poirot Investigates
PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novelist K-Ming Chang (Bestiary) pairs The Magician with Wu Cheng’en’s sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West
Amal El-Mohtar (author of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus Award-winning novella This Is How You Lose the Time War) pairs The Star with Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Emily of the New Moon
Guggenheim Fellowship recipient Victor LaValle (The Changeling) pairs The Tower with H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Outsider”
Lev Grossman (The Magicians) pairs The World with King Arthur
Talia Lavin (the author of Cultural Warlords and the host of the Moby Dick Energy podcast) pairs The Devil with Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
Isaac Marion (the author of the bestselling Warm Bodies series) pairs The Hermit with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Bestselling Mexican Gothic novelist Silvia Moreno-Garcia pairs The Lovers with Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence
The bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste NG, pairs The Hanged Man with T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Award-award-winning novelist Rebecca Roanhorse (Black Sun) pairs Death with Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Simon Tolkien (No Man’s Land: A Novel) pairs the Chariot with Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island
Novelist and comic book writer G. Willow Wilson (The Bird King) pairs Wheel of Fortune with William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair
Minor Arcana
For the Minor Arcana, each suit is renamed to reflect the literary tools that brought them to life. Minor Arcana Pairings include:
Hugo, Nebula and Locus award-winning writer Charlie Jane Anders (Victories Greater Than Death) pairs Knight Cups with Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones
Margaret Atwood (Handmaid’s Tale) pairs Queen of Light (Cups) with Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
Vita Ayala (The Wilds) pairs King of Light (Cups) with Homer’s The Odyssey
Tarot reader and host of The Word Witch Podcast Charlie Claire Burgess pairs Eight of Swords with Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper
Kelly Sue DeConnick (co-creator and writer of Bitch Planet) pairs King of Quills (Swords) with Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations
Bestselling writer Roxane Gay (The Bad Feminist) pairs King of Pentacles with Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
Bestselling horror writer Stephen Graham Jones (The Only Good Indians) pairs Three of Quills (Swords) with W. W. Jacobs’s seminal, supernatural short story Monkey’s Paw
Hart Hanson (Creator of the TV series Bones and author of the novel The Driver) pairs Page of Wands with Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain
Bestselling comic book writer Jonathan Hickman (East of West) pairs Ten of Quills with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Erin Morgenstern (The Starless Sea) pairs Five of Light (Cups) with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
Bestselling comic book writer Mark Millar (Jupiter’s Legacy) pairs TBD with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes
Novelist and biographer Alec Nevala-Lee pairs Two of Swords with Sophocles’ play Antigone
Novelist and comic book writer Benjamin Percy (The Ninth Metal) pairs Seven of Quills (Swords) with Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat
Brink Literacy Project CEO Dani Hedlund
“Books have always been magical portals to other worlds,” said Brink Literacy Project CEO Dani Hedlund. “In their pages, we unearth countless insights and secrets, inspiration and cautionary tales. Like us, these characters face uncertain futures, Towers rising up in their path or the Wheel of Fortune pushing them toward greater fates. As any great tarot reader knows, we can always change the trajectory of our choices. As we delve into how these classic heroes and villains handle life’s trials and temptations, so too can we divine our own futures.”
About the Literary Tarot Campaign
The Literary Tarot campaign will run throughout the month of June.
For updates about the project, follow The Literary Tarot on Twitter.
Find more updates on the Brink Literacy Campaign by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Brink Literacy Project is devoted to utilizing the power of storytelling to positively affect the lives of people on the brink. Through our education, community, and publishing divisions, our nonprofit works worldwide to foster a love of literature, increase literacy rates, and use storytelling to empower underserved communities.
Our Education division delivers innovative literacy and storytelling programs with a focus on increasing literacy rates and assisting personal development through storytelling. We have a strong focus on bringing our initiatives to low-income, low-literacy, and marginalized communities, whether that means teaching in prisons or creating completely original curricula to tackle low reading proficiency in our youth.
Through our Community division, Brink forges partnerships with universities and other humanitarian and literary organizations. As a global community of readers, writers, artists, students, and supporters, Brink brings people from diverse backgrounds together to celebrate the beauty and power of storytelling.
Our Publishing division, headlined by our print journal, F(r)iction, is the culmination of our efforts to #PublishWeird, pushing the boundaries of what, and who, is accepted in the literary world and providing a platform for underrepresented and trailblazing voices alike.
About F(r)iction:
F(r)iction is a literary anthology carefully curated to evaluate an important cultural topic from vastly different perspectives. From historical origins and nonfiction essays to the wildest reaches of fiction, poetry, comics, and art, each issue inspires us to think differently.
F(r)iction is the imprint of the 501(c)(3) literacy and storytelling nonprofit Brink Literacy Project. At the heart of our mission, we use F(r)iction to achieve several of our nonprofit’s key goals: to mentor emerging writers, amplify diverse and underrepresented voices, encourage experimentation and genre-melding, and delve into themes that raise important social issues.
In promoting a diversity of storytelling, we publish trailblazing industry legends and new and underrepresented voices alike. Big name authors such as Charlie Jane Anders, Benjamin Percy, Lev Grossman, Stephen Graham Jones, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Faylita Hicks, Joyce Carol Oates, Jeff VanderMeer, and Kwame Dawes have graced our pages, to name but a mere handful!
But creating a beautiful book isn’t enough—we want to make sure these collections enchant readers who would not otherwise have access to such works. And so, since 2015, Brink has developed and taught education programs using F(r)iction as the primary teaching tool. With a focus on enhancing “literacy” both in terms of increasing reading/writing skills and fostering a love of literature within the community, these programs have expanded to include women’s prisons, homeless shelters, high schools, and university classrooms.
And that’s not all! With the readership for literary journals dwindling every day, we want to reinvigorate the entire reading experience. And so we do a completely mad thing . . . we commission custom full-color illustrations for every single piece published AND use specialty printing techniques on our covers (spot gloss, holographic foil, metallic sheen, you name it!), to create a visual experience that is as mesmerizing as the literature within.
Senior Writer at GeekVibesNation – I am a 60 something child of the 70’s who admits to being a Star Trek/Star Wars/Comic Book junkie who once dove headfirst over a cliff (Ok, it was a small hill) to try to rescue his Fantastic Four comic from a watery grave. I am married to a lovely woman who is as crazy as I am and the proud parent of a 21-year-old young man with autism. My wife and son are my real heroes.
