attention all witches and maybe-witches looking for stories like yours…

the snort & cackle podcast is here!

binge current and past seasons and support the creation of future seasons alongside a community of fellow witchy folks.

looking to help out at a higher level for one or two episodes?

sponsor specific conversations

support the podcast where everyday magic, work, and ritual intersect ✨

and connect with a global community of other witches while you’re at it!

are you over fluffy conversations with no real depth?

tired of social media platforms that limit the nuance of complicated conversations and restrict any real sharing of extra info?

looking to learn more about magic and how real witches got their start?

over the last few years, it’s felt more and more like there are no real conversations happening anymore. your social media feed feels like an echo chamber, the news channels only present one point of view and half of the time don’t even seem to bother with fact-checking their point, and you’ve stopped talking to several old friends and family members because every conversation seems to turn into a shouting match. it’s as though people have forgotten how to be kind to one another while still standing up for their values and what they believe in. it’s either “we don’t talk about that period” (which feels gross and actually frankly unethical to you) or “we are right, they are wrong” rhetoric that ignores all of the grey area in between. and when you think about it, most things are at least a little bit grey. you miss listening to people’s stories and the ability to talk honestly about how messy life can get, and also how beautiful it can be too. everything just feels so black-or-white/good-or-bad/this-or-that these days.

so you turn to your podcast feed. you love how you can have it on in the background while you make meals or toss a load of laundry in without needing to look up to see what’s on the screen. you move on to the next episode as you step outside to take the dog for a walk, and then binge the episode following that as you settle back behind your desk for some (mostly) mindless admin work for the afternoon. you can download a full season for your next road trip, or just the next episode while you run errands and pick the kids up from school. when you think about it, podcasts are probably your favourite way to listen to stories and catch up on the news these days. you think of the hosts of your favourite shows as good friends because you’ve gotten to know their laughs so well, and you wait impatiently for the next week’s episode to drop and rebinge old episodes in between seasons. and every once in a blue moon, you find random episodes with stories that remind you of a younger version of yourself…the kid who played with a ouija board once at a sleepover, the teen who joined a coven (not quite à la the craft, thankfully), the young adult who stepped into a sweet-smelling shop once on a trip and walked out with a small bag of crystals…it’s rare that you find full shows dedicated to these stories, but you soak them in when you’re lucky enough to stumble on them in your “browse” feed.

now if only you could find a podcast that combined your love of people’s life stories with magic and creativity…and if there was a way for you to connect with other listeners who shared the same interests, phew, that would just be a dream come true!

when the world shut down…

i realized at the start of the pandemic just how much i thrive off long, in-depth, honest, vulnerable, messy conversations with people i care about and admire. suddenly we were thrust into a world that existed solely online, and there were just way fewer convos that really dug into the complexities of things that i’m always curious about - how people work, what their ancestral stories are, what magic they weave into their everyday lives consciously and unconsciously.
i also started devouring podcasts even more than before. while i was cooking, working, knitting… and as the world opens back up (for better and worse), i want more! downloads for long road trips or hours spent getting on and off airplanes, transcripts to skim when i have less time but still want the meat of the story, no video images flashing in the corner of my eye while i’m trying to edit photos or work through my inbox.
i’ve been told for years that i have a “radio voice.” so what better time to start a podcast than when all the tech suddenly became much more available and we stopped expecting every second of a podcast to have über-professional studio-quality sound and cared more about the actual stories being told?

introducing

the snort & cackle podcast

the podcast where everyday magic, work, and ritual intersect ✨

every season, we get to hear firsthand from a diverse range of voices as guests from all walks of life share their ancestral traditions, simple everyday rituals, and how their work and their magic intertwine.

by supporting the podcast with your monthly or yearly donation, you also get the chance to connect with fellow listeners and fibre witches in the creative coven community. you’ll get 24/7 access to a rich library of book recommendations, recipes, easy rituals for celebration throughout the year, a monthly zoom craft night, exclusive shops, and more.

what supporting the podcast means for us and you

each season of snort & cackle costs about $10,000 to produce - this covers our small team’s salaries, all the ongoing tech and software expenses, and ensures that we have high-quality human-produced transcripts for every single episode. by supporting the podcast with your monthly or annual contribution, you get to help us ensure incredible stories continue being shared openly, and you also get ongoing access to the creative coven community! inside there, you’ll find:

🧶 monthly knit/craft nights via zoom

🥳 extra events like make-a-longs, live rounds of the creative coven challenge, & more

24/7 ACCESS TO:

📚 my virtual bookshelf with topics like:

community reads (your recommendations!)
decolonization
fibreshed
how to be a person
natural dyeing
plants & herbalism
witchcraft

🌈 colour journal - my digital natural dye colour journal, an ever-growing resource of colour results, recipes, dye facts, historical references, other uses, and extra resources for further dye study - an invaluable resource of both popular natural dyes and local-to-pembina-fibreshed dye sources for fellow natural dyers!

🧶 creative coven challenge - the swatching challenge that will get your ideas out of your head and onto your knitting needles!

✨ everyday magic - simple recipes, tarot spreads, and rituals for the wheel of the year

🎁 fibre directory - some of my favourite fibre witch-owned businesses & resources

🍽 from the kitchen - recipes for humans and fur babies for treats, cocktails, herbal remedies, & more

🪡 sea-to-sea-to-sea make-a-long bonuses - bonus instructional videos added every quarter as part of the free annual sea-to-sea-to-sea make-a-long

🐶 willow’s treats - extra goodies from the goodness of willow’s heart! downloadable guides, pdfs, checklists, and whatever else wags her tail

COMING SOON:

🔵 bingo! - curated bingo cards! they even come with prizes…

💗 the sanctuary hub - go behind-the-scenes with me as i write my next book, sanctuary! the hub (coming summer 2022) is your all-in-one space for everything from how i takes inspiration into patterns and layouts, recipes and diy tutorials including ones that don’t end up in the final book, my favourite self-care resources, and even an exclusive shop devoted to all things sanctuary

how the podcast works

snort & cackle is a weekly podcast focused on the stories of everyday magic and ritual in the lives of its guests. we release 13-episode seasons in line with some of the annual (celtic) witch sabbats - namely, lughnasadh, samhain, imbolc, and beltane. while not every guest explicitly identifies as “a witch,” topics of conversation are decidedly magical as we share stories around divination and tarot practices, indigenous wisdom, ancestral connection, spirit talk, and more. from topics as heavy as post-religious trauma, colonialism, and white supremacy to the at-times-whimsical answers to the question “what do you wish you’d been told about magic when you were younger?”, guests share how ritual impacts both their personal and professional lives. episodes are typically longer-form and with minor editing to share deep conversation and many cackles along the way.

as of the end of season 3, we’ve had listeners in 29 countries from every continent except antarctica (we’re still waiting on the penguins - i blame the wifi connection). you can listen to the podcast directly via dedicated webpages, or subscribe via your favourite podcasting platform, including apple, spotify, and google podcasts. we provide transcripts for every episode written by an actual human (fellow queer fibre nerd, noah gilroy), which allows us to increase accessibility while also keeping the literal snorts and cackles within the experience. we almost never have ads and the ones that we do have come from direct proposals that we vet to ensure our values are aligned. we’ve opted for the community supported approach instead of going the more common route of partnering with a big ad agency, which provides some challenges but allows us to keep the stories of our guests front and centre without third parties stepping in à la elon musk (too soon?).

if you’re looking for a podcast that…

🔮 connects you with real witches from ancestral backgrounds around the world

🔮 shares suggestions for simple everyday magic that’s not so hard or overwhelming

🔮 prioritizes reliable books written by real witches instead of anthropologists or “woo-woo” insta-celebs who aren’t willing to fully commit to their magic or witchiness…

snort and cackle is probably for you.

meet your host

hi, i’m ash!

i’m a queer femme and hedgewitch with a background in theatre, and i’ve spent most of my life fascinated by people’s life stories. i’m particularly enamoured with the ones we can never quite pin down - the childhood memory that flirts with us in our dreams, the family history passed down orally and altered ever so slightly with every telling, the photos with scratched names on the back that one person remembers in detail. there is so much magic in our history and our present, and i’m here for it all.

i’m a triple-fire sign with venus in pisces, so you can trust me to skip the small talk and get right into the deep conversations that explore the inspirations and motivations of snort & cackle interview guests. i’m a forever adventurer of the heart, and also nosy af and a lover of tangents, which makes the long-form interview style of hosting snort & cackle an easy favourite. my ancestral roots remain in similar bioregions to my current home, hailing primarily from the scottish isles and eastern europe, so i suppose it makes sense that i feel most at home among the birch trees and a body of water. luckily for me, my dog shares that sentiment. less luckily for me, she sometimes takes things a little too literally and tries to “fetch” whole trees that have fallen into the large river near our home.

FAQ

i’m definitely not a witch. can i support the podcast and join the community anyway?

absolutely! there are oodles of goodies for everyone, witch or no. several of our interview guests also don’t identify as witches, although everyone has some pretty incredible rituals and ancestral magic to share.

do i have to participate in the community to support the podcast?

nope! you’re more than welcome to join the community as a monthly or annual supporter for the podcast and then never ever sign into your account. it’s totally your call how you engage with the community and its resources.

can i cancel my ongoing contribution anytime?

yes. you can control your membership 24/7 by logging into your account and navigating to your dashboard.

do i get a refund if i leave part way through my renewal period?

no (to be honest, that kinda defeats the purpose of supporting the podcast in this way). you’re charged automatically on the same date every month/year from when you joined, and while you can leave at any time, there are no refunds provided, pro-rated or otherwise. if you’re thinking of leaving, feel free to double check your calendar to time your cancellation with the day or two before your renewal is scheduled.

are there ever in-person events, like live recordings with an audience?

at this point in time, no. that would be a super cool idea though! maybe someday…

can i listen to the podcast with my kids?

that's your call. there is swearing in most episodes and we discuss some very heavy topics openly. we recommend that you listen to an episode in advance before deciding whether to share it with minor children.

my budget is pretty tight right now. can i support the podcast another way?

absolutely! subscribing via your favourite podcasting platform and leaving us a 5-star review helps massively, as does sharing the podcast with your friends. you can follow us on instagram @snortandcackle. you can also make a smaller one-off donation at any time - email us to discuss options.

can i sign into the community from my phone or tablet?

yuppers! you can access your content from any device connected to the internet. if you’re having issues accessing your account, give us a shout at hello.sunflowerknit@gmail.com.

i run a business and am interested in sponsoring specific episodes. is that possible?

yes indeed! check out our sponsorship package here.

why listen in?

every season we get to hear incredible stories from a diverse range of voices, and also enjoy a seasonal book club and book review that further supports the learning, historical context, and legitimacy of different ancestral traditions and daily rituals from people from all walks of life with the #SnortAndCackleBookClub. sometimes we even get lucky and get to interview a past book club’s author!
by supporting the podcast with a monthly or annual contribution, you help us to keep these stories going and also get the opportunity to connect with fellow listeners in the creative coven community! within the community, you’ll find:
**🧶 monthly knit/craft nights** via zoom
**🥳 extra events** like **make-a-longs**, live rounds of the **creative coven challenge**, & more
**24/7 access to:**
**📚 resources to help you learn more** like my virtual bookshelf, natural dye colour journal, and a directory of some of my favourite fellow fibre witches and their shops
**🧶 the creative coven challenge**
**✨ recipes, diy tutorials, downloadable worksheets,** and other goodies/potions to try from the comfort of your own home!
🪡 **sea-to-sea-to-sea make-a-long** **bonuses**
**and coming soon:**
**🔵 bingo!** with prizes!
**💗 the *sanctuary* hub**

is snort & cackle even your cup of tea (or whisky)?

it’s a yes if:

🎙 you find yourself angrily hitting the fast forward button on 20% of your podcast episodes because they play so. many. ads!

🎙 you’re feeling curious about this whole witch thing and want to hear from real witches just what the hell they do and how they figured things out

🎙 you’re tired of only finding resources about wicca and the salem witch trials when you google “books about witchcraft”

🎙 you think it’s incredibly important that we hear stories firsthand from a more diverse range of voices

🎙 you love hearing about how other small biz bosses run their businesses from a values-based place! how cool to infuse magic into your life AND your work!

maybe not so much if:

🚫 you have no problem listening to the simplisafe commercial over and over and over and over and over again

🚫 you think all you need to be a witch is buying a starter kit from sephora - you heard there was some controversy over them, but who cares if it’s pretty, right?

🚫 you’re deeply religious and think that any sort of worship or practice devoted to anything other than your (singular) god is a sign of the devil (in a bad way)

🚫 you don’t like to talk about “uncomfortable” things like race or oppression or colonialism or transphobia or anti-semitism or homophobia or capitalism or…

🚫 you’re not really that interested in hearing other (mostly normal) people’s stories. if you’re being honest, you’re more interested in the ripped-from-the-headlines podcasts and the occasional “call her daddy” episode 🤷

i hear you thinking to yourself…

why go through all this trouble when you could just find some big sponsor and use ads?

look, here’s the thing - i, ash, a person who hosts a podcast and also consumes a shit ton of other podcasts, hate commercials. i don’t mind when cool people share their own cool things, or the cool things their cool friends are doing, but if i had a nickel for every casper mattress or hello fresh advertisement i’ve heard, i’d probably be well on my way to funding this next season all on my own. i have zero interest in receiving pennies for advertising products i don’t use myself, and i have even less interest in asking my guests to censor their stories to make them more palatable to the extra-large joe rogan-sized audiences out there that corporations want to confirm before providing their own strings-attached support. no thanks. unless a sponsor is a really great fit and understands that they’re dealing with a fabulous but quite niche audience, chances are slim that we’ll ever get to crime junkie level (what a dream though!).

when i started this podcast in summer 2021, i sourced a grant that helped to cover a good chunk of the start-up costs, and then another grant appeared a few months in that allowed me to update my tech infrastructure - aka buy a new computer that could handle all the media files i'd started throwing at it - and so we chugged our way through the initial bootstrap period being able to cover noah’s transcription labour and the monthly software expenses of hosting a weekly podcast. it didn't cover the 30% of my work life that producing the podcast takes, but since i wasn't out of pocket for the other expenses and because i love the conversations i got to have with so many incredible guests, i could avert my eyes from that particular conundrum for a while...⁠

by the end of season 3, i couldn’t avert my eyes anymore. we need $10k/season to cover all the actual expenses (including salaries), and right now we don't have that. season 4 is coming to you entirely unfunded. as a micro-business with multiple other large creative projects on the go that also deserve/demand my focus, it’s untenable to continue producing a podcast that takes up so much time without paying myself or anyone else for our labour. the podcast was created with clear seasons for both magical reasons and for sanity’s sake - it helps to have a deadline as well as an end date when you’re working on a big project, y’know? it’s also incredibly unfair of us to schedule interviews with guests on an ad hoc basis without being able to commit to a solid release date for them. if we only have the funding in place for the first quarter of a season, and we have no idea when or even if we’ll get the rest of the funding, we can’t in good faith ask our guests to take time away from their own work to share deeply vulnerable stories with us and then leave them in limbo without knowing if their episode will even air.

on that note, the idea that creatives should be expected to offer their work for free “because you love it so much” is truly bullshit, and simultaneously it is also bullshit to expect that every single piece of art needs to go behind a paywall. with a community-supported podcast, we can continue to share these bold, vulnerable, important stories with the wider public while also compensating the folks behind the podcast. hell, if things go really well, maybe we’ll even get to a stage where we can provide some financial compensation to our guests for their valuable time too!

with season 4 initially coming out unfunded, it gives us a season’s buffer to work with moving forward. at this stage, if we can fund a full season, we basically are back paying ourselves for the current season. and if we end up with enough money to spill into the next season, that’s even better and we’ll be able to start booking even further ahead. it’s as much as we - two non-binary queers with a penchant for magic and textiles - can afford to swing at this stage, and gives us a comfortable amount of wiggle room to maybe squeeze an extra episode or two in if we’re just a little shy of our goals.