Buzz Coil on Hiatus

There will be no Buzz Coil in September because I'm recuperating from unusually complex   cataract surgery. I'm okay but should not be using my eyes to the extent necessary to gather material for the monthly Buzz Coil. I will try to include some post summaries from September in an October Buzz Coil.

Blogroll Policy

Going through my blogroll as I prepare the August Buzz Coil, I removed seven blogs from the listing, not because I don’t like them, but because there have been no posts on them for more than a year. Medusa Coils has a long-standing policy of removing blogs from the blogroll that not have not had posts in more than a year. Sometimes these blogs start up again. If you have a blog that used to be active and was listed in our blogroll but has not had a post in more than a year and you start blogging again, please let us know (preferably when you have posted anew at least twice) so we can put you back on the blogroll. Also, while I’m on this subject, if you have a blog whose focus is Goddess spirituality/religion and/or feminist spirituality and if you are posting original material regularly and are not now listed on our blogroll, let us know. You can let us know about either of these instances by leaving a comment on this post.

Changes Here for New Year

Taking a cue from the traditional New Year's maxim, "out with the old, in with the new," I'm making the following changes on this blog in 2014:

Events will be covered in a different way. "Events Coil" will be discontinued for (at least) two reasons: (1) People now have more ways to find out about events than when we started listing them in July 2006 --especially local events sponsored by smaller groups. There are more websites, and people are posting about them on social media, especially Facebook and Twitter. (2) Though I still feel it's inspirational to see how many events are going on all over the world, the job (big job!) of gathering them and listing them has become taxing as I try to cope with other issues in my life. Also, when I posted about a year ago asking whether people still found the Events Coil useful, there was only one response. So instead of attempting to cover all events, no matter how big or how small, here's what I have planned:

Coverage of Larger Events
I will attempt to give you notice of larger events related to Goddess and other spiritual feminisms--no matter where in the world they are being held. These will usually be events lasting more than one day, mostly festivals and conferences. My best guess is that in most cases, these will each have a separate post. This will give you more notice than you now get from the "Events Coil" in case you want to register for the event and make travel and hotel reservations. I will try to spot as much information as I can on my own, but if your group is having such an event, to make sure that I know about it please send me an email with the link to a web page that has details of the event. If you already have an email address for me send it there. If you don't presently have an email address for me, send the info to < medusa  AT  judithlaura  DOT  com >   Please remember that events should be Goddess-related or related to some other form of feminist spirituality, and that I must have a web page to link to that is fully accessible (no pdf; no FB pages unless they are public). You don't have to send me the information itself, just the link to the web page. I will write the post from that and will link to it so people can get information not contained in my post.

News from Temples
I would like to have more coverage on this blog of what is going on at the increasing number of Goddess temples, "houses," etc., worldwide that meet in specific physical/geographical places. This is not limited to events.  In fact, I'd prefer it be about other matters: for example, it could include your temple's views on Goddess topics, issues that your temple is dealing with, plans (other than events) for the future, etc.   I feel this is best done by having guest posts by people affiliated with the each temple, preferably a leader or someone designated by the leader or the group. I invite you to write up to one post a month  (fewer or less frequently is fine) about your temple . If your temple is not in a country where English is the primary language, I invite you to write your post in your language of choice and, if possible, include a translation into English, to the best of your ability (hint: Google translate is pretty good if you need help). If you are interested in writing guest posts about your temple, please let me know by emailing me as described above.

Happy New Year to all!

Anonymous Comments Policy

I have just rejected a comment from "Anonymous" because it made a negative statement about an individual without offering any substantiating data and possibly (I'm not sure) be considered libelous. I will continue to accept Anonymous comments, as I feel they give people a chance to say valuable things they may not, for a variety of reasons, want to post under their real or screen names. However, I will reject any strongly negative anonymous comments about individuals that appear to be unsubstantiated and potentially libelous. Please note: "Anonymous" when applied to comments left here applies not only to comments whose commenters label themselves "Anonymous" but also commenters who do not provide a link to email or website that verifiably identifies them. Screen names by which mask, rather than identify the person, are not considered verifiable identification. Bottom line: If you want to leave a strongly negative comment about an individual, or you want to engaged in "flaming," identify yourself.
[updated Aug. 2014]

Info On Our Events Coil

I was recently contacted by a person whose name was included in a posting about an event asking me to remove her name from the listing. I want to make clear, both to organizations whose events have been or may be listed here and to people who present at these events, that we only list events and information about those events which has been previously made available on other websites (usually the website holding the event, or the individual presenter). We do NOT list from emails, PDFs, or from websites which require passwords. So everything we list is legally public information. People who don't want their names listed with organizations' presentations should inform the organization not to list their name on their website. Also, I need to say that putting together the list of events is very time consuming--both Silver and I work on it-- and often frustrating. If a sufficient number of people and/or organizations don't want their names/events listed here, we will discontinue this feature and spend our time on other matters. Your comments and opinions on this post are sincerely welcome.

Our Third Blogaversary!

Our Third Blogaversary slipped quietly by us while we were celebrating Independence Day. I hope to blog a "think piece" later this month to initiate our 4th year. Meanwhile, I want to thank the other bloggers, our guest bloggers, everyone who leaves comments and who links to our posts - and all our readers - for their participation in Medusa Coils, and for making blogging here a very enriching experience for me.

Comment Policy to Avoid Disguised Spammers

We have recently been receiving comments with words to the effect that the person has been reading this blog for some time, likes the blog and thought s/he would leave a comment but doesn't know what to say and promising to continue reading the blog. At first I thought these were legitimate comments, but when you start to get dozens of them saying the same thing (sometimes with the same words) with links to websites that have nothing to do with the subjects covered in this blog and are selling products that have nothing to do with this blog, you begins to wonder.

So here is our policy: Comments with language resembling the above, accompanied by a url to a website that has nothing to do with what we discuss here will not be published. I realize that by some odd coincidence we might exclude legitimate comments from people that are just so awestruck that they are at a loss for words when it comes to making a specific comment, but I also don't want this blog used for spamming/advertising, especially when the products are unrelated to the blog.

You can avoid having your comment scooped up in this net by (1) responding to at least one post on this blog (preferably the one you're commenting on) with a reaction, opinion on the topic discussed and/or (2) including urls that are only either personal or organization websites with material related to the material on this blog.

Review Policy

Updated 6/25/08, 11/08; 10/9/09, 11/15/11, 1/27/12, 7/5/14, 10/24/16; 11/22/2019
In response to inquiries, here is our policy for summaries or reviews:

Books–We will consider for review print books, and as of 1/27/12, Kindle E-books, supplied to us as they are sold on Kindle, however, as is standard in the reviewing field, we cannot promise to review them. As of Jan 1, 2017, we no longer review  anthologies whose publishers offer no payment, either in money or in books, to contributors. (in our definition, a pdf doesn't count as a "copy." Copies of the book given to contributors must be in the same form as those being sold.) We have adopted this policy because we believe writers should be paid for their work. For print books we accept only the finished book as it is sold in stores. We do not accept pdfs for either print books or e-books.  The Kindle edition must sent as it is selling on Amazon (not just in a format sent to Amazon or which Amazon uses, whether .mobi or some other). Please contact us at one of contact methods listed in link above for instructions about how to send the Kindle edition. We prefer to receive books within 4 months of publication, although up to a year after publication is acceptable. (We have, in the past, made exceptions for books published before we began blogging.) Occasionally we will include information/opinion about a book published more than a year ago in a post which discusses the subject of the book but which is not specifically a review of that book. We never sell review copies of books we receive from publishers, authors or their representatives.
CDs and DVDs–We also accept CDs and DVDs for review that are finished and ready for marketing. Please query in the same way as described for print books. We never sell review copies of these either.
Online ‘Zines and Journals–We will post summaries or reviews of online ‘zines and journals relevant to Goddess, women and religion, and spiritual feminism only if there is no impediment to reading them, such as registration or pdf format, and they are free (except in cases where they pay contributors more than the cost of a subscription). Publishing on the Internet reduces greatly the cost of producing a journal (no printing or mailing costs). In addition, payment in copies isn’t possible. Therefore, we feel if an online journal is charging readers, it should be paying contributors. We understand that other people, such as editors, who put together these journals, deserve compensation too, but we suggest that getting that money from sponsors or advertisers, and/or asking for "free will" donations, may be more effective than charging readers. Charging readers decreases readership and thus decreases the only advantage to unpaid contributors of publishing in these ‘zines: having their materials read and seen by a large number of people. In cases where most of the content is free to readers but there is charge for some of the content, we will summarize/review only the free content.
At present we are not reviewing print journals.

Unless otherwise stated all books, CDs, and DVDs reviewed here have been supplied by the author, publisher, or other creator/orginator.